By 45 I have lived in many types of housing. Sharing with grandparents, unit and later semi with parents, shared dorm room at uni, being roommate in apartment, having own unit with roommate, own house with and without roommate and now own small acreage.

Originally I thought my dream house would be flat in Prague. Which of course I had zero funds for as then I was twenty five your old fresh out of Uni. Flat should be anywhere within 1 hour commute to Prague CBD. After moving to Australia I have dreamed for many years about flat in Sydney. And we managed to buy 2 bedroom 90 sqm apartment on Northern Beaches in Sydney 5 min walk to the beach. That was pretty awesome as it was the first property we have owned. It was on slightly busy road at the back of the block with parking, large living area and most of the time you could hear all neighbors. Still proximity of the beach balanced most of the cons.

About 4  years later we have managed to buy large old house on the slope. The house was 10 min drive to the beach and over an hour commute to the CBD. I am not sure you could say it was a dream house as it was old and on the steep block, but due to its proximity to beaches, reasonable quietness and income potential it turned out better than almost any dream house ever would. Then the midlife crises ( or something similar) forced us to look for another house, but this search took almost half a decade. Why? I had no idea what type of house we would love. We saw hundreds of houses. Some in Sydney, some nearby, some faraway from Sydney, some were even waterfront, some were newish, mostly old. Many were beautiful and ticked a lots of boxes, but our hearts were missing something. Only once we realized after long time that we like space, then we suddenly started to see many beautiful properties. Generally it did not matter for me if the house is old and work is needed. As long as it was structurally sound I was fine. Important for us is location, noise, size of block and privacy.

First time we have realised we have been craving for space, privacy, quietness was when we saw our house in South Coast about 4.5 hours south from Sydney in tiny river town close to beaches. This was 70 years old cottage freshly renovated, transported onto the one hectare block close to town. Beaches were nearby, river was beautiful and nature was stunning. Neighbours in distance, paddock with cows next to us, small orchard with citrus trees and macadamias, shared dam and small well for bore water.

Inside was very practical 4 bedrooms 1 bathroom layout with open kitchen, living, dining area. We have added only outdoor deck, fireplace and extra water tank. Though we have stayed only 9 months, we have realised we like houses like this. It made great home. The only reason we have left was the decision to search for best place to live in the world when we liked the current house, had freedom to go wherever and kids were still small. And we thought we could find slightly warmer weather.

So this is the way how we stumbled on our current home on Sunshine Coast, Queensland. It is 30 years old brick house, quite a lot of work required and bit further from the beach than I wanted. So what we liked? Weather here is in my view better than anywhere in Australia (and maybe in the world). Except one months of sticky hot summer, all year is warm and pleasant with heaps of sun and warm ocean. 10,000 sqm block with neighbors 50-100 m away, long driveway lined with mature trees, park like front garden with many beautiful large trees, solid brick construction. Pretty awesome is second dwelling which is 3 bedroom brick cottage with private driveway and great privacy due to beautiful trees and bush screening. Rent from cottage  can cover almost half of total holding cost. Did I mention swimming pool?

As we have just finished most of the planned renovations and settled a bit, we have finally started to properly enjoy the house. Before that we had to clear overgrown garden, remove few walls, fully renovate 2 bathrooms, replace and fix most of the doors, put new floor tiles and repaint every room including ceilings with up to 3 coats. On the top of it there were many other smaller jobs like new roof on the shed, replace some parts of paving, bring some pebbles, gutter guards and plenty of others.

Now is the house very livable. What we like the best? Definitely large land with lots of grown trees, long driveway with lots of privacy and from indoor we like views into the garden, open plan large living dining kitchen and small fenced yard where our twins can play safely. Fireplace adds a lots of charm especially now in winter (though there was not a day here with temperature of less than 7 degrees at night and 18 degrees during the day).

I am happy to have now 6 laying chickens. They clear most of our family food scraps and require only minimal extra feed (on the top of some free range time in the afternoons). We have also bought beautiful kitten. The breed is Devon Rex and he is very smart, gentle and curious. Kids love him and somehow he prefers my wife’s attention though I am the one who is doing all his feeding and cleaning. Maybe we might also get a dog, but kids are still bit small to take him out, we have not decided the breed yet and we worry about our freedom to travel for now.

And next? I believe we should be happy in this house for a while. House is not big but sufficient for next 10 years I think. How the next dream house should look like? Few things to improve on our current home? Maybe even larger land ( at least 10-20 hectares?) so we can grow some more animals. Land should have some trees but at the same time it should offer nice green meadows views. It should not be just some steep bush block (we have seen quite a few of them).

Few fruit trees would be good on the top of our current mango, orange, grapefruit, banana, macadamia, lime, guava and mulberries.  Can it be even closer to the beach than current 30 min? Make neighbors invisible (though now we really cannot complain). I wish for total zero road noise to be able to hear only birds. That of course would not be so simple, once you are getting close to beach where Sunshine Coast get bit busy. Everyone wants to live close to the beach.

House could be at least 4-6 bedrooms, with fireplace and some aircon for the sticky January nights. Wrap around terrace would be great. So we can sit outside in the shade at different times of the day. Double garage with work bench and some shed.

Next house after that (now I am talking distant future hopefully), will be some nice retirement village with large grounds, independent villas, close to beach, shopping and hospital. That would be at the time when we would be happy for someone else to look after the grounds, while now we are happy to do it ourselves. I hope it would be peaceful and quiet. Quiet is something I have always loved and I still like very quiet properties in reasonable commuting distance to facilities.