From 52m2 to 10,000m2

Having thoroughly enjoyed our time at Le Moray, our 52m2 apartment with expansive views of the Brisbane River, Story Bridge & CBD skyline, we decided it was time for a change.  With Australian Covid regulations preventing us from leaving the country (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-31/coronavirus-covid-outbound-international-travel-ban-morrison/12605404), we figure we’ll be staying put for a while.  Being people of extremes, we chose not to move from the inner city to a house in the suburbs.  Instead we moved to a 10,000m2 property with bushland views, where we are regularly visited by Pale-headed Rosellas, Kookaburras and King Parrots.  Nothing like sitting in bed looking over the eucalyptus trees checking out the birds, bees & butterflies.

Giving up the flexibility

In addition to it being a fabulous place with awesome owners, living at Le Moray gave us the flexibility to come and go as desired.  When we went off on our trip to north Queensland, all we had to do was put some additional things in storage, close the door and go.  We didn’t even have to double dip – we only paid for one lot of accommodation, the place we were staying each night.  And when we arrived back, Terri had washed all the linen, cleaned the place and set it up with other welcoming touches.  It was a hard choice to make and not something we did lightly.

Choosing a home

We were keen to be able to get all our furniture and boxes out of storage – something we hadn’t done for over 3 years.  As we couldn’t even remember what we had kept when we sold up in Sydney, we wanted something big enough to unpack and go through it all.  We spent lots of time on realestate.com, checking out apartments, houses and acreage.  New Farm and Kangaroo Point were obvious inner-city choices given the easy access to running & cycling paths and having enjoyed a lot of time there.  The suburbs of Kenmore and Chapel Hill were on the list, being close to Glenda’s mother and our church.  Over time, we extended our search a little further out to inspect the acreage options in Brookfield, Pullenvale & Bellbowrie.  We even looked at a property with a large shed and a paddock for horses!

The inner-city alternatives were the safe bets as they wouldn’t require any change in lifestyle.  Maybe that’s why we didn’t choose them.  We were looking for a new challenge.  That, and the fact that they were smaller and one gets far less for the money than further out of town.  Some of the suburban houses we visited were lovely and would probably have satisfied out needs.  But with houses filling the land, we found privacy generally to be more lacking than in apartments.  Hence the expansion of the search to a more rural property.

Having reached the stage where we were either going with one of the houses we had found already, or giving up the search for a while, there were two properties in the running.  One being the “farm” with the shed and horse paddock, the other being a rather strange house perched on a large but very steep property.  Suffice to say, we ended up choosing the latter.  After visiting it a couple of times and saying “no” followed by a few arguments with God about it, a number of factors changed and the value proposition was hard to resist.  We believed it to be the place we should be!  A definite plus was the real estate agency.  Our dealings with them early in the process had us wishing we could rent with them – we had a number of other less than satisfactory experiences – so that was a selling point.  Even though we knew there were going to be other challenges with the home, we were confident at being able to work with them.  Thanks Lauren & Mel. (https://www.brisbanerealestate.com.au/)

Moving

Having had a few sub optimal experiences with our last couple of moves, we didn’t want to repeat the mistake.  We’d recently discovered that the brother of a removalist we’d used in Sydney (and a friend of a friend), runs a removalist company in Brisbane.  Glenda’s brother had used them when moving up to his property in Sarina recently.  So as soon as we’d signed the contract – actually, before we’d done so – we contacted Peter and set things in motion. 

The move itself was relatively easy as most things just needed to be moved from our storage unit to the house.  The storage facility is set up for easy loading of a truck.  Whilst the steep road at our new home was a bit of a challenge for parking the truck, once Peter had worked that out, the rest of the unloading was fairly straightforward.  After having to cope with apartment stairs, lifts and gates, distributing furniture & boxes to a single level house is a breeze.  Moving with Dawe 2 Door Furniture Removals was a bit likely moving with mates.  We helped where we could and they used their extensive experience to ensure no damage to floors, doors and windows.  Thanks guys!! https://www.facebook.com/pg/Dawe-2-Door-Furniture-Removals-786382724842025/about/?ref=page_internal

Unpacking

We managed to unpack enough to be able to cook dinner at home our first night.  Since then we have managed to get almost all boxes unpacked.  Some of our paintings are up whilst others are awaiting hooks.  We have to get creative with some of our heavy artworks as we aren’t allowed to put any holes in the walls.

Running & cycling…..

Running in the area is proving to be a bit of a challenge – not insurmountable but a test all the same.  The terrain is very hilly, with our “normal” 8km morning run giving us more than 200m of elevation gain.  More than double that of our trusty old favourite or up to 4x that of a normal run along the river.  Good for building a little strength, terrible for fast times!

Our bicycles are out of their storage bags and all ready for us.  We just need to get back on.  Seven months off them and steep hills are not encouraging us to do so yet.  But we are looking forward to getting out there sometime soon.

Friends, family, food & furniture….

We’ve already had a number of people popping by for tea, coffee or lunch and a few dinner parties planned.  Walter found a second hand BBQ on gumtree and is busy cleaning that up.  Our dining room table & chairs arrive tomorrow.  Friends have given us a couple of nice pieces of furniture. And after 10 years of working at a dining room table or worse, we each have a desk & office chair. So we’re settling in nicely.

We’re very excited to be able to have people to visit and to stay – something we haven’t been able to do since we had Lorenzo for a few nights in Florence, Italy more than 2 years ago.

Let us know if you’re heading our way as we’d love to see you!

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Walter & Glenda

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