Are You Renovating Your House…Or Avoiding Your Inner Demons?
Some people believe that if they bury themselves in a big home renovation project, the Big Scary Stuff can’t get them.
4 min
One day, out of the blue, my dad decided to turn our back porch into a screened-in back porch with a big cathedral ceiling. We didn’t need a screened-in porch with a big cathedral ceiling. No one had asked for one. The existing porch worked just fine and wasn’t even that old. He’d never even mentioned the project until the day the work crews showed up.
The project dragged on forever, but my extremely impatient and cheap father never complained about the delays or the money once, which was beyond weird. Then it dawned on me and my siblings: Dad was convinced that as long as the porch was under construction, our mother, who had late stage cancer, wouldn’t die. We thought he was nuts. Maybe he was. But the fact is that Mom enjoyed many afternoons on that beautiful, completed screened-in porch before she left us.
There is something in our human nature that leads us to believe that as long as we are in the middle of a huge, complicated project that takes all our time and focus, nothing big and scary can happen: We are just too darned BUSY.
This belief is demonstrably, laughably wrong, yet we cling to it.
The ultimate example of this is the strange case of Sarah Winchester, the widow of the man who manufactured the Winchester rifle. She believed that as long as her home was under construction, the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles could not haunt her. Her home was under construction for about 40 years, right up until the day she died.
Be it cancer, ghosts, guilt or a relationship gone bad, you or someone you know has probably tried to keep it at bay with a massive home renovation project. Here are some of the most commonly seen forms of what I refer to as the Winchester Effect:
The Unemployment Delusion
Your company is on its last legs. There have already been three rounds of layoffs. You, a highly-placed employee, has survived them all, but who knows when the blood-letting will stop. Does this prevent you from hiring contractors to put in a massive 40-by-80 foot swimming pool with a gazebo, outdoor kitchen and wide-screen TV pavilion? It does not. You think that as long as you are spending and planning and living like a highly-placed executive with a stable, well-paying job, you will remain one. Who would possibly fire a person in the middle of such a project?
Pro tip: Your company would, that’s who. Unless you are expecting the mother of all severance packages, this is just a bad idea that will result in a giant muddy hole in your backyard that you can’t afford to fill in. Make living as frugally as possible your new big project.
Renovation Redirect
You are constantly involved in one home renovation project after another. You’re not methodically tackling one room at a time. You are maniacally reconstructing the whole shebang, from roof to cellar, as soon as the last project is done. Just like Mrs. Winchester.
What you’re really doing is creating enough mental static so that you can’t think about all the shady deals, the crappy relationships, the abandoned goals and dreams. You have the financial wherewithal to clutter up your brain with the sound of Sawzalls and nail guns. Who can think honestly and openly about committing massive securities fraud when you’re sleeping in a bedroom that’s been hermetically sealed to keep out construction debris? No one.
Pro tip: To paraphrase Buckaroo Banzai: no matter where you put the new kitchen, there you are. Instead of another gut reno, donate your construction budget to a relevant charity and stop being a horrible person. In the dark, when the bandsaws stop and the nail guns are silent, it’s just you and your guilty conscience and MAN is that thing noisy.
Historic Home Distraction
You are half of a disaffected couple that has decided that, in an effort to come together on a project—since the “marriage” project just isn’t as much fun as you thought it would be—you will buy and renovate a historic home. Well, my friend, you will be praying for just a simple, garden-variety crappy marriage the first time you tear down a horse-hair plaster wall and see the knob-and-tube electrical system that dates to the 1940s.
Pro Tip: Your marriage will not survive this house project so just sell the house now as is and pay for daily couple’s counselling. Compared to the house restoration, the marriage restoration will be about one-trillionth cheaper and it might actually work.
The Envy Endeavor
Your neighbors are attractive, wealthy and intelligent, their children are polite and their pets do not shed. You hate them all. Your life is a shambles baked into a hot mess. It is nothing like theirs, but your house can be! So you’re building a huge three-car garage with an in-law apartment above it, just like your neighbour’s.
Pro tip: Copy cat construction won’t make you feel like any less of a failure. Worse, you’ll attract the neighbours’ pity—they know you own only one car and don’t have in-laws. Stop construction and remember this: no family is as perfect as they appear through their picture window.
The Illness Illusion
You embark on a massive home renovation project when someone you love falls ill, convinced they cannot die until you’re done.
Pro tip: Sounds crazy, but what do I know?
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This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
This sky-high home on the Sunshine Coast with iconic shipping container pool is a testament to modern design and engineering.
3 min
A breathtaking view and a lush quarter-acre block are high up the wish list with any lifestyle property, but this contemporary Buderim residence takes things to another level.
Designed and built by owners Stu and Nat Faid, the Sunshine Coast home reflects their vision and incredible attention to detail.
As an architect and designer, Nat believes a prime position deserves an incredible project.
“The heart of the house is undoubtedly the living area and expansive deck. At over 100sq m and elevated more than 6m above the ground, you literally feel like you’re floating. We love how the views stretch from the Glass House Mountains along the coastline to Mooloolaba. Across the ocean, you can even see the sandbanks on Moreton Island,” she says.
While the views and the 1024sq m land parcel make their mark, it’s the suspended 12m heated shipping container swimming pool that’s making waves locally.
“When people arrive, the first thing they do is look up,” Nat adds.
After purchasing the property in 2021, the pair knew the existing house wouldn’t live up to their family of four, but they fell in love with the location and outlook so decided to adapt.
Initially, the pool’s unique design was simply a reaction to an everyday Queensland problem, but ultimately became a feature.
“The pool was at first a product of practicality. We wanted to be able to watch the kids in the pool from the house, but to do that required elevating the pool more than six meters off the ground,” Stu says.
“When we looked at the engineering required, it conflicted with our minimal-touch ethos in preserving the land and the visual aesthetic of the finished design. What followed was a lot of searching for a solution, and as luck would have it, the answer was almost on our doorstep.”
Shipping Container Pools seemed like a no-brainer answer to the pool problem. Having moved internationally multiple times, the couple saw an opportunity to weave their personal story into the fabric of their new home.
“The opportunity to incorporate a nod to that chapter of our life into the build was too good to miss,” he says.
“It also unashamedly reinforces the origins of the pool construction, which ties into the rest of the design in the house. Throughout the home, we have embraced where the old meets the new, we have not tried to blend, cover or hide the origins of the home, we have chosen instead to make sure the evolution of the house is clear to see.”
The Faids’ global family journey is evident throughout the home, from the grand Middle Eastern entry doors sourced from Dubai where the couple once lived, to the remarkable views from the Glass House Mountains to Mooloolaba.
Created to enjoy every season, the house has a space for all eventualities with an open plan living area spilling out to the full-width deck and pool, a sleek kitchen with an Ilve integrated fridge and freezer, Bosch ovens, an induction cooktop, built-in coffee machine and microwave, two dishwashers, filtered water and a butler’s pantry.
Four spacious bedrooms each have built-ins, the main features a large ensuite with twin vanities and two more bedrooms share a“Jack and Jill” style bathroom. There is also a third full bathroom.
The Buderim home is 12.5kms from Mooloolaba and the Mooloolaba River National Park with the Sunshine Coast Airport 13.5kms to the north, however Stu adds that there is rarely a reason to leave.
“It would be fair to say that apart from popping down the hill to go to the beach, we often go days without ever leaving the village. It’s really is a wonderful spot.”
Packed with mod cons, the Buderim home also features six-zone ducted air-conditioning, engineered oak floors and a double-sided Stuv wood-burning fireplace, a mudroom, heated floors and sensor lights in the bathrooms. There is also a private elevator, solar power and battery, as well as landscaped gardens and a large lock up garage and shed.
The property at 10 Orient Court, Buderim is listed with Zoe Byrne and Greg Ward from Ray White Buderim and will go to auction on September 22 at 9am at Mercedes-Benz Sunshine Coast, 65 Maroochy Blvd, Maroochydore.
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
