where it all began, our 'renovator's delight'

Our house hunting story is short. We spent a rainy Saturday looking at apartments in Potts Point (too dark, too expensive), town houses in Balmain (too modern, too souless) and a house in Camperdown (too scared of walking home through the park at night.) After that we randomly looked online for a home in our price range, just dipping our toes into the idea. Then we forgot about it until one Saturday we decided to look seriously at buying something.

The following week Rahul found a deceased estate online which happened to be located about 500 metres from the semi we were renting in Rozelle. A free standing double brick terrace, fairly untouched since about 1900 (possibly an exaggeration, but do understand that it was pretty rough.)

The whole concept of renovating a terrace house just seemed so romantic and cool (I should have known better being the child of two prolific renovators!) We wanted it.

We were egged on by Theo, prolific renovator 1, my dad, our architect. He went with Rahul to the first open house to assess 'potential', put off other buyers by loudly identifying (imaginary) structural problems with the house (to the point that Rahul became disheartened and began mourning the loss of his dream.) Not fifteen minutes later we were all sitting in a cafe while Theo was sketching up plans on a napkin.

Three weeks later we won the auction. Three months later we settled and moved in.