When we found out we were expecting in late 2010 Tim was in the final throws of his Landscape Architecture degree and I was working full time as the Office Manager of The World League for Protection of Animals in Gladesville. We were living it up in the inner city in our ‘cosy’ (real estate-speak for ‘size of a shoebox’) unit in Alexandria. We had a great time there but we knew that life in a one bedroom unit with two adults, three cats and a baby would be the real world equivalent of sardines in a can.
As if Christmas time wasn’t chaotic enough, on December 23rd I made a snap decision to sell the unit (we had originally intended to rent it out) and the following day it was officially listed on the market, with our first inspection a few days later.
In late January we went on a ‘last hurrah’ road trip (or ‘babymoon’, if you will) to
Byron Bay and Noosa. We had so much fun although it was slightly overshadowed by the stress of the unit being on the market and juggling the prospective buyers. On the last day of our trip, driving south toward
Sydney, we received a phone call to confirm that the unit had officially been sold! We were really excited and relieved to have the sale behind us and quickly moved on to seriously looking to buy something more suited to our needs. We decided that a move further south to
Wollongong would be our best option as we could get a lot more for our money and we would be a lot closer to friends and family. Within a month of the sale of the unit we found a cute cedar-clad pole home in
Cordeaux Heights on a nice bushy block with beautiful views over
Mount Kembla. We put in an offer, did the usual haggling and within two weeks we had officially secured our new home. For only a marginally higher price than we sold the unit for, we traded up to a four bedroom house.
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| Our little tree house in Cordeaux Heights |
In the meantime, until I finished up at work, we lived in Greystanes in Western Sydney in my nanna’s house which we had been renovating for the last several months. It was great to have somewhere to live but if I ever have to travel on the M4 again (or remove wallpaper for that matter!) it will be too soon!
Over the Easter long weekend we packed up the cats and took a mini-holiday to stay in our new abode (mind you, sleeping on a half-inflated blow up mattress when 7 months pregnant does not make for an ideal ‘holiday’). We intended to paint only a couple of rooms and remove the worst of the questionable décor, a remnant from the early 90s, but ended up painting the entire house!
With the help of our families (yet again!) we moved in a couple of weeks later and have been enjoying a more peaceful and spacious existence in our little treehouse ever since. It was a big change waking to the sound of cockatoos and kookaburras instead of police sirens but somehow we managed to adjust!
We had had so much fun living in the Inner West for the last few years – first in Newtown and then Alexandria – so it was sad to leave it all behind, but having a stable place to live and the people we care about close by has made the journey well and truly worth it.
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| The view from the balcony |
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| The view out across the garden from the balcony |
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| Our lounge room, after a lot of painting! |
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| The feature wall in the lounge room |
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| The kitchen/dining area - much more spacious than what we were used to! |
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| The main bedroom, post wallpaper removal |
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