The house in Paddington, Brisbane started with us in 1981, when Marg and I were both back in Brisbane after spending a year in Britain, we had jobs, a car, taken a holiday and then decided that we needed somewhere better to live. Later we also decided to get married, so that was in November the same year. Brisbane in those days was just a small city or a big country town and not classed as anything like Sydney or Melbourne, but we liked it. We went looking at saw this house up on the hill at Paddington for 40,000 dollars. With a quick refinance of the car and a cash advance on the credit card, we had our deposit and brought the three-bedroom house in March 1981. It was on a slope, dropping 50 feet in 50 meters, a long, thin property with road at the front and the back, a typical Queenslander on high wooden stumps and nothing built under it. It was also quite worn and showed its age, plus the sloping land was overgrown and in a very poor state.

So, with basically some rented furniture we moved in along with Marg’s cat. We did buy a new bed for us, plus a washing machine and the fridge was a very good second hand one. All the rest was basically rented or very worn-out stuff we had from before. We were also lucky and probably wise in that we did not buy on credit a lot of stuff for the house, as when the mortgage rates shot up to 17 percent a couple of years later in 1989, we were able to survive quite well. And so, in 1981 the renovations started in conjunction with the two of us working full time. We could only basically afford a pick and shovel at that time, and as there was a large spotlight on the back of the house, I started in getting the grounds landscaped. I was going to build using the crumbling existing terracing and brought in overtime about 700 second’s railway sleepers, about 300 tons of blue stone rocks and then more garden soil, paving blocks, pine bark and then the plants themselves. I was strong in those days as all this was carried by hand down the path at the side of the house and then laid out. A lot of digging, a lot of muscle power and many a night’s work at 10pm or later under the spotlights.

Meanwhile Marg and I were also doing up the inside of the house. We built in the kitchen and the bathroom ourselves, placing cork tiles on the floors, tiling and painting the walls, sanding windows, ceilings and all the works. So many jobs and we got our neighbour to do the electrical stuff for us, but we did the plumbing and all the carpentry and fittings! It was also up onto the roof, to renail with cyclone nails the tin sheeting to stop us losing any in the storms as the house was high up, 25 feet from the floor to the ground at the back with 10’ ceilings, and yet it was level with the path at the front. In 1986 we were doing well enough to get a second loan out and it paid for the re-stumping of the house to metal ones, a back deck placed on and new highly polished split pine flooring through the entrance, lounge and dining room. Plus, we also got the exterior of the house painted in a pink colour, hippy at the time for these do up Queenslanders! Overlooking the city from high up on our terrace was great and we had some great evenings sitting there with coffee or a wine! With the metal stumps in place, we were then in a position to build in under the house, as the washing machine was the only thing located under at that stage, oh, and plus an old iron unused water tank! But we did not get to this as within a year we were relocating to Germany.