When most people picture falling for a Queenslander they’re probably picturing a sun-tanned, salt-bleached surfer, not a cyclone-scarred, slightly overgrown weatherboard shack. So if you came here for beachy babes—sorry, but this isn’t that story.
This is a different kind of love story— the girl meets boy, they meet a fixer-upper kind.
My name’s Maddy—a Sunshine State native and loyal East-coaster—and before I ever held a spirit-level, I fell for a rural-raised Kiwi named Sebastian. Luckily for me, Seb apparently has a thing for quirky Queenslanders- first myself, and now a slightly crooked shack on stilts. She’s charming, haunted with just a slight lean. She’s Level-ish.
The universe and a purple Queenslander.
Some moments in life seem very serendipitous, like finding the perfect job or stumbling into your new favourite cafe on a random Sunday, but I like to believe that ‘fate’ is just an alignment between hard work a sprinkle of opportunity. Kind of like when you spend months manifesting the perfect outfit to appear in an op shop and then just ‘stumble’ upon it like destiny! Except you’ve already spent hours scrolling Pinterest for ideas, browsing Depop for prices and returning empty handed from the salvos over and over until MAGIC— that festival set is suddenly there! Was it really fate, or a little bit of nudging from you to point the universe in the right direction? Well, finding this house was a little bit like that serendipitous feeling.
In this case, the Pinterest board was filled with wraparound verandas, timber floors and light, airy rooms. And luckily, there’s no one more determined to executing a vision as Seb— especially when that vision is house ownership. So when he finally had the deposit ready and a mortgage broker lined up, it really did feel like the stars had aligned. This little Queenslander appeared for the perfect price, in the exact location he’d been obsessively browsing morning and night. Never mind that she was a bit overgrown and dripping purple paint over the original lead—she had enough personality to make up for all of that. And just like everything else with this house, even the handover process was a little quirky. But hey, we got the keys—and the rest is character-building. Right?
So why blog it?
Now she’s entirely ours, and all that’s left to do it document the process so we can have something to look back on while I’m floating in the pool with a margi in a years time! And that’s why I’m writing it all down here— I created this blog to record this journey through a series of progress updates, before and afters, DIYs, product reviews and mood boards (as well as a few rants I’m sure). So if you can stomach the cheesy humour and are curious to see how we go, I welcome you to follow along and cringe at each mistake with me.
First week in will be all about clearing out the clutter. I felt like I needed a sage stick to smudge out the previous owners vibes when we finally walked through the front door— but honestly one stick wouldn’t have stood a chance. We are talking fresh holes in the walls and floor, some questionably painted pallet furniture and a rug whose previous life might’ve been as a kitty litter tray… Standing in the kitchen surrounded by neglected trinkets and forgotten cardboard piles, it felt like the house had been paused mid-chaos, and now we were here hitting play.
Next up: cleaning, scrubbing and maybe staging a mild house exorcism.
Level-ish 
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