When people see pictures of what we transformed our little cottage from, we often get asked, "How did you see potential in that?!"  

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Well the truth is, Josh willingly but blindly came to the address given to him for the home open. When he saw the house and the neglected state it was in, he did not want to proceed. To him it was a filthy infested dump that was falling apart. He was genuinely offended by the property. 

To me (Jess), there were 3 things that stood out and could be used to convince my husband of the potential; the position of the house on the block was ideal for an extension, the existing trees at the back, and the charm of the high ceilings with detailed ceiling roses and cornices combined with the original wooden floors of the 1930's home. If all that failed, I was going to have to fall back on a sweet loving discussion (or a few) playing to his great love for me and him wanting to give me the desires of my heart. Where others saw complete disrepair, I saw the potential for an exciting reno project, something that I'd been dreaming of doing for years. So while having no real clue about reno or building costs, I convinced Josh that we could make it a stunning peaceful home for our family and created a mood board and plan of what each space could be transformed into. Pretty sure it was mainly just his great love for me and my enthusiasm, that convinced him to say yes and we started the process of buying the home. But then the doubts crept in and the voices of others saying how crazy we were made me question all my visions of what 'could be' into 'what if we can't.' Luckily by this stage my loving husband was wholeheartedly on board. Either I'd done an extremely thorough job convincing him of the potential, or he's just madly in love with me (maybe both) but he convinced me we'd made the right decision and would work hard to pull it off together as a team. 

After a few months of waiting on council approvals, we started on what became a solid year of reno's on the home which brought it to where it is now. Just a few things we did in that year, but definitely not all, were:

• Rewiring the existing home - the wiring throughout the home was so old it was insulated in cotton! Fire hazard much!! 

• Taking off the existing roof and replacing it with Colourbond. 

• Removing all asbestos from the exterior and other existing cladding. 

• Knocking down the existing external laundry. 

• Building an extension with a garage, laundry, kitchen and living area. 

• Putting weatherboards around the full exterior. 

• Renovating and/or replacing existing windows. 

• Renovating the front verandah by knocking down the enclosing wall, putting new posts in and creating a deck where tiles had been previously. 

• Gut the existing kitchen and convert into the master bedroom. 

• Move a few doors around to create better flow within the home. 

• Create an ensuite in the existing 'dining'/sleepout space. 

• Recycled brick driveway 

• Bring in huge amount of soil, plus some more, and another few trucks of soil to build up the back and create gardens. 

• Remove a 40m asbestos fence down the side and build a white picket fence. 

• Build the white picket fence out the front including the arbour entrance. 

• Put grass in and garden beds at the back, sides and front.

• Build the studio out the back. 

• Travertine paving out the back and side of home. 

• Adding detail around window frames (architraves) and window treatments. 

• Stone courtyard.

• Travertine steps out of the home. 

Did I mention we did all this while pregnant, having a baby, running two businesses and I broke my foot half way through and couldn't weight bear for 14 weeks! We worked hard and we worked daily, bit by bit, task by task. Neither of us have any experience in any of these areas so it was a lot of learning and dedication. Late nights and early mornings, every spare minute we could sacrifice between our other duties of parenting and working and life. A labour of love, to each other, to our family and to our home and future. I might just have the best husband ever and absolutely couldn't and wouldn't have done it without him. I might've had the vision, but his dedication and hard work got us to the end. 

We are so proud of what we have created and we can't wait to have you visit.