MOVING HOUSE
After finding their dream home in Brisbane, a couple transported it to Lennox Head, NSW and returned it to its former glory, with a modern twist.
WHEN CHRISTIAN VON TRZCINSKI called his parents back in Germany and told them that he and his Australian wife, Sara, had bought a house in Brisbane, they were thrilled. However, as the conversation continued, Christian outlined how they were planning to buy land near the beach, chop the house in half, put it on the back of a truck and relocate it. “His parents had never heard anything like it,” says Sara. “They thought we were crazy.” But Sara, founder of ethical fashion label Amilita, and Christian, a carpenter, knew it could be done — they’d lived in Bangalow in northern NSW and had seen several of their neighbours relocate old Queenslander homes and restore them. Via a Google search, they found a holding yard in Brisbane and went to have a look when Sara was several months pregnant with their daughter, Sofia. “A house mover had multiple Queenslanders lined up on his property; classic timber structures that he’d saved from being demolished,” says Sara. “I saw ours and thought, ‘How could you want to get rid of such a beautiful home?’” It was theirs within a few days. Now they were in the unconventional situation of having a house and a baby on the way, but nowhere to put either of them. Buying a block of land was the next challenge. The couple decided on a plot not far from the ocean in Lennox Head, just south of Byron Bay, as they’re both self-confessed >
beach people — Christian moved to Australia to surf, and Sara grew up spending time by the sea in Sydney’s Cronulla. Three years passed before they moved in, with baby Sofia arriving in the midst of it. “Getting them to bring the house down from Brisbane took so long,” says Sara. “Christian lived in a caravan in the backyard while he worked on it, and my daughter and I were nomads between my mum’s, Airbnbs, and the caravan.” It can’t have been an easy couple of years, but the optimistic couple stayed focused on creating their dream home. While it had beautiful bones, the house was in a terrible state when it came off the truck. “It had no back wall on it,” says Sara, “but let’s just say it’s very handy being married to a carpenter.” More importantly in this situation, a carpenter with an impressive work ethic. Before the girls moved in, Christian sorted out structural issues, reframing the walls, as well as redoing the bathroom and kitchen. He constructed a deck out the back and a staircase out the front, built an outdoor laundry, and ripped up hideous lino to reveal gorgeous wide timber floorboards, which he sanded and polished to perfection. Christian got the house to the point where they could move in, then had a 10-month break to regroup and earn some more money before finishing it off — no small feat. The character and practicality of classic Queenslander architecture is what the couple love. “This style of house is just so brilliantly designed for a hot climate,” says Sara. “It’s up high on stilts so you get airflow under the house. The front door is in line with the back door, so you get a cross breeze. Then you’ve got rosettes in the ceilings, which are beautiful and ornate, but also functional, as the hot air rises up through them and goes out the roof.” It’s safe to say both Christian and Sara adore the finished house, which is the first home either of them have ever owned. “It feels extra special, because it was such a passion project,” says Sara. She loves hanging out in the backyard with three-year-old Sofia, their boxer-cross-english bulldog Lucy, and their three chickens. So now that all the work is done, are the couple spending lots of time relaxing with a glass of wine on their expansive verandah, surveying the burgeoning vegetable garden? Well, not exactly. Sofia’s been begging Christian for a cubby house, so that’s next on the to-do list. Given what he did with the family home, no doubt it will be the talk of preschool.