Buying a modernist house in Brisbane

If you had said to me on New Year's Day that by April we would be living in a modernist home in Brisbane, I would've said you were crazy. Moving out of the Sow's Ear was really not on our list of things to do in 2014...especially as we were planning on building a swimming pool for next summer!

Alas, those plans were put on hold after Jason and I went to visit a mid-century house for a bit of fun one Saturday morning. I had seen the real estate ad online and wanted to check out the place as there was a cool DQF dining table and chairs in some of the photos. Ha! I wanted to see the furniture more than the house.

It was like an absolute revelation to us when we rocked up to that first open house inspection. The house was fairly anonymous looking from the front, but as soon as Jason and I walked through the door we realised we had stumbled on something very special.

central ceiling/roof support, with Jason artfully blurred

At first, the interior reminded me a little of the Hayes and Scott designed Jacobi House (click on link) due to the central pyramid ceiling. The entire interior was virtually like a mid-century time capsule: original light fittings; the wood panelled ceilings, timber doors, timber cabinetry and walls were all untouched by paint. The hardwood floors were in great condition too, as were the terrazzo floors on the patio and in the wet areas.

front entry

The more we looked at the house, the more Jason and I liked it - the floor plan was ideal for our family, with four decent sized bedrooms away from the main living/dining area.

I knew it was meant to be when I opened up the kitchen cupboards and saw the Midwinter Stonehenge Sun cups and plates. A sign from the mid-century gods.

We were also attracted to the fact there is also little work required to restore this house back to its former glory - it just needs some TLC, which we have in abundance!

The shower room which apparently has the original tiles. The racing track is black, red, white and gold flecked mosaic tiles

Many larger modernist homes can be quite daunting for the average Joe with the amount of work required to restore and maintain them. We are fortunate our new house is in relatively good structural condition for its age, it is reasonably modest in its size and most importantly it had not been unsympathetically renovated beyond recognition over the years.

We found out the house had been designed by a noteworthy Brisbane architect which made it an even more attractive prospect. Needless to say we made an offer on the house pronto and things moved incredibly quickly after that! And here we are now, living the modernist dream in suburban Brisbane!

As an aside, I just wanted to give a shout out to our mortgage broker, David Amies, who has been helping us for the past 16 years whenever we have had to obtain finance or refinance our loans. He's an absolute gentleman and extremely thorough - we were able to obtain finance very quickly thanks to David's diligence. We could not recommend him highly enough if you are in the market.