The idea is to have the boat in the driveway to show off to the neighbours. The DLUG is for the his and hers 4wds that never make an unsealed road.

Yeah, you have to rip out all that old woodwork, and put some decent plasterboard sheeting up in its place, looks much nicer then


Now dashing for cover away from Mrs D ..

Ok, maybe you dont have to modernise them, but who wants to live in a house that has outdated wiring (also can be dangerous), drafty rooms, inadequate heating, dysfunctional plumbing and crumbling plaster?
All these things were present in the first house i rented when i came to Australia. Admittedly, the style and design of the house was lovely, but living in it was horrendous.

You are forgetting replacing the fireplace with mock granite and putting in aluminium window frames.

I spent my teens living on Bribie Island. There was a creek across the road from our house where I could set a mullet trap and catch some poddy for a bit of flathead fishing. I could walk up the creek which was an outlet from a springfed swamp and wade waistdeep through the reeds. There was another major creek that that was also feed by the same swamp and spring where I could canoe almost to the middle of the island. When the water got so shallow you would touch the muddy bottom with the paddle and every now and then disturb a stingray, that would then rise from the bottom - in protest at being disturbed - with a flap of its wings and swirl the water and stir the mud.

I would paddle into the mangroves and tie up to a tree and just sit there or lie in the bottom of the canoe and listen to the crabs, plovers, the sounds of breathing of a living environment. I loved those places. The council was conservative in their planning and development on Bribie was slow. The developers got sick of the resistance to change and got elected onto council, rammed through their plans, and left.

The swamp was drained, the spring funnelled into drainage pipes, the creek across the road was filled in and houses were built on top of the spot where had I watched the poddys sneek into the trap to eat the bread. My beloved paddling creek was stripped of mangroves, the whole site enclosed in sand parapets so the destruction was hidden from prying eyes. The dredges finished the job. The canal front blocks were snapped up and the concrete seawalls ensured that no silt built up to allow the mangroves a chance of rebirth. You can drive your boat up the canals, where the sound of the outboards drown out the last gasps of that once glorious place.

I once bought a lovely 1930's semi in Derby. It had some wonderful 'proper' wood panelled doors.
Someone, in the past, had nailed plywood sheeting to them

Must have been fashionable at one time

I took the sheeting off but still had to fill all the nail holes before they looked right

G

Cadabra, some of those things should be fixed ie the wiring, plumbing. As for the drafty rooms etc, thats one of the things you put up with to live in an old house. Nothing wrong with doing things to make them liveable, but ripping out a kitchen & putting in granite & stainless steel instead of one that is in keeping with the period of the house is sad.

I dont mind that you dont like it, but if you want *new* then there are plenty of *new* houses to pick from. But please, dont destroy the beauty for those of us that actually love *old* things . (btw, when I say "you" I dont mean specifically you, only people in general ). I agree with your first post, if new is appealing for you, then go for it!

Florida, that made me cry. I have similar memories

I agree wholeheartedly DB. That is why i do not wish to live in an old house anymore.
To destroy old houses by putting in "plastic" improvements wil never look right anyway. If you are going ot modernise and upgrade an old house, you will need a lot of spare cash to make it look good and authentic.

As for the drafts. I have arthritis and just couldnt bare it for long.

It all boils down to tastes and individual lifestyle needs. I think the older you get the less likely you are to want the hassle of an older house.

Florida
I have seen some lovely 'water meadows'. in the south of England destroyed in exactly the same way

Wild flowers, birds and common grazing rights have given way to featureless housing estates

Fortunately (not if you live there) nature has a way of geting her own back . Some of these houses now flood regularly and are becoming virtually uninsurable:scared:

G

I like to think we learn from the past. However, my experience is that Australian politics has entrenched levels of corruption that will see the continued, unabated destruction of the land I love.

Unfortunately, that, almost always, tends to never be the case, no matter where you are.

Britain has some tough choices about where to put the housing. Australia has huge expanses of land yet governments are very unwilling to plan the expansion of the cities and leave the developers to harrass and bribe them into place.

Britain does have poor planning however there is a great deal of effort made to keep what is left. Here the resisters are branded tree hugging greenies and dismissed. Central Sydney has realised this and the growth in green and independant politicians is great news. Sadly Labour and the Liberals have ganged up to stop the new polis from forming government in Marrickville and Leichardt.

I do hope the Greens and Independants get much more power here as change is needed to stop the blatant graft and corruption.

I like old, but in Perth you are not going to get anything old unless you have a million or so to live near the city so I am happy enough with our 8 year old box in th burbs.

Thing is though, why is it in decorating mags they have all these character houses with skirting boards, architrave and nooks and crannys

I still hanker after the country cottage thing with an overgrown garden, I think I'm in the wrong country..

Me too Di, Im going to be banned from watching programs like Location Location (UK version) by Dagboy soon cos I see all the gorgeous houses & cottages on there & want to move to the UK :scared: LOL.

You just dont get that sort of thing here, although Im hoping that when we go to Tassie next week I will be pleasantly surprised. Im sure I could get used to the cold down there .

Cadabra, yes, the getting older thing can be very true. But at 39 (almost 40 though :scared: ), I dont consider myself very old yet, ask me again when Im about 70 .

Your not alone. At the sunshine coast expats meet a few had been through the area where that show was filmed, Kawana isnt it? General opinion was the houses are crammed as close together as you can possibly get, you would hear every sound you neighbours make, most houses have a view! of looking straight into the neighbours house. Its awful in my opinion and that of others too, but someone loves it, a plot is about $320,000 upwards, ones with a public walkway in front of them but you can see canal water cost over the million just for the land. Then you have to build the house on top of that price.