Welcome to Higlett House

Here she is, in all her 1960s beauty – Higlett House, my new home and renovation project. Here’s a tour around the home and I talk through my plans for the spaces.

Check out our very first episode - this is a walk through of the home!

Funny story, this was the first home we looked at when looking for our next home to purchase, and I walked away from it saying, man that house is way too much work. Then we almost bought a different house, but pulled out due to too many issues with it, and then saw this one was still on the market and revisited. And even though knowing it was an asbestos house with some issues, I just couldn’t resist those mid-century charms. The clerestory windows at the front of the house were exactly what I was looking for. Pitched ceiling in some of the areas of the home, and high ceilings were an added bonus. I don’t really care much for the red timber floors even though everyone loves them. Sorry guys they’re just not speaking my language.

So at the moment the kitchen is in the middle of the house and it’s very dark in this area - not much natural light due to the small windows and green awnings covering them.

This space is the dining area. We will be making it a dining nook space and removing the laundry to the left side of it (which steps down). It’s an obvious add on and not a nice space to be in.

In the hallway we had this scalloped profile which is really cool. Unfortunately when you’re renovating things need to be stripped back (we have mostly asbestos walls throughout), so whilst these are gone now, I want to bring them back and run them the entire length down the hallway for a wow feature and a nod to the bones of the house of course.

This bedroom is very small - it’s a space that’s been made into a bedroom in the 90s by a previous owner. Originally that would have been the living room, and we will be returning that area back to its former glory of being a living room. The clerestory windows aren’t ideal for a bedroom - too much light coming in and tricky to do window coverings for that particular style. But for a living room - perfect! We want to knock down the wall to the right and extend out under the existing carport to make it bigger. Also worth noting these windows are the reason we bought the house - ha - it’s funny the things you look for in a home. I said I wanted a 4 bedroom with a carport or garage and a pool. What did I buy? A 3 bedroom with no garage and no pool. I bought a house with windows I like. Uggh.

There is only one bathroom in this house and it was small! That’s largely thanks to the bathtub, not a fan of baths so this is going! We will also be stealing some space from the hallway that connects the two bedrooms to make this room bigger. Along with changing the entire layout which isn’t working.

This is another bedroom. Nothing particularly special about this room.

Love the windows in here. When we bought it those top two windows were boarded up - can you believe it? Also almost every single one of those windows had cracks so the glass had to be replaced on some of them. I also painstakingly stripped all of the lead paint off these and repainted. Nightmare of a job, and don’t recommend it haha. I think I could have achieved a similar look by just a light sand and new coat of paint, but whatever, it’s done now and I’ve learnt never to do it again!

Ah the backyard, where do I even start. We had chain wire fence on both sides, weedy grass and vegie patches that had been neglected. The only thing we wanted to keep out here is the gorgeous lemon tree which you can see is growing over the top of the tin shed! We have done quite a lot to the backyard already - very excited to be showing you the full reveal once we are fully finished, it looks nothing like this now.