It was love at first sight, when Ema and Corey found a secluded block of land bordering a forest of pine trees with river views, perched on a hill in Currumbin Valley in Queensland’s Gold Coast hinterland. “The block had an old post-war fibro shack that we called home for a long time, but it was always our plan to eventually build our dream home here,” recalls Ema. It took a good 15 years for their dream to become a reality. Happy to bide their time, the couple travelled and lived in London for a year with sons Noah, 15, and Henry, 13, who were just babies at the time, before moving back and making a plan. “The first step was saving, which took us five years,” explains Ema. “Because we were outgrowing the shoebox-sized shack, we became incredibly motivated to save for the new build, so we took on extra work, sacrificed holidays and lived with just the bare essentials for a while and were happy to, as we had a goal.”
Their vision was to create a cabin-style home, which sat quietly among the natural setting. While Ema admits her initial plans were more idealistic than realistic, their gracious builder Mark Green suggested a simpler design, requiring less engineering, which was far more feasible. “We were complete construction newbies, with a Pinterest board the size of Queensland and a budget the size of a postage stamp, yet with lots of input from Mark we were able to tweak the design without compromising form and function,” she explains.
This story is from the February 2022 edition of Home Beautiful.
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This story is from the February 2022 edition of Home Beautiful.
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