The Paddington House
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.
It was at Paddington that I had my leg operated on for various veins, the same time as the stumps were being changed and the old stumps with their concrete bases left in lying around. As I was convalescing with the three cuts stitched up on my leg, I decided to start breaking up the concrete bases with a sledge hammer to remove them, as I would only be bending at the waist and not with the leg joint! When Marg arrived home that evening, she was furious as my cut sites had swollen right up and thought I was a bloody idiot! Lucky for me, the swelling suddenly reduced the night before I was to go back to work, so all was well! I had wire whipped though my calf here, so many cuts, sprains and bruises impossible to count, and yet a great sense of achievement as we had the land and the house in great for by 1987 to be able to enjoy it for a few months. There were times when Marg came home to a breezy, windowless bathroom, wondering why it was so cold and then realizing that there was no window in place, it had gone for sand blasting as all the other windows did over time. There were times I came home to doorways closed off, as the cat had brought a snake in and Marg had barricaded it in a room! Catch them was easy as they were just little grass snakes, so wag one finger in front of them, then catch them with the other hand. As we did not like our neighbours on one side too much, I always used to toss the snakes onto their property! Our neighbours on the other side were great. There was Fred and Brenda two door down and great friend of ours, along with their three kids, plus beside us was Syd and his wife, late 70’s when we moved in and always up touching up the paint on his house 30 feet or more in the air! As he aged, the only thing that changed was that he asked me to move this large extension ladder for him each time, but what a guy! Still mowed his sloping grass lawns into his 80’s and was a very nice person, a perfect neighbour!
We decided to sell when we left for Germany as we had the loans outstanding, did not know if our salary in Germany would cover the repayments and decided to do the right thing. A financial friend of ours thought it best to place the bit of profit we made into some funds, which was great until a lot got wiped out in the ’88 market crash! Never mind, hind sight now says that we should have just brought some land up at Noosa, look at what it would be worth today! However, the house is also worth a small fortune today, maybe over 1.25 million because of the area it is in, walking distance to the city center and a very chic area now! I have since gone back in 2022 and saw the place, sub-divided, houses cramped together and sitting on top of each other, but inner city and so high value and it suited us at the time when we started from basically nothing and built it up. I was glad to see it one last time, I had kept some of Marg’s ashes for years to scatter in Australia, and so placed them around the large tree in the small park in front of our old house, remembering our time together and the time of our younger years there.