A Timber house with a fireplace

There are houses over here that we have not seen before, to my knowledge they don't exist in Australia, at least not in Queensland as the climate is so different and they really are not needed. The home is called a lockwood. They are built in a fashion that literally every piece of timber 'locks' into the next, they are built without nails and are incredibly sturdy.

The kitchen, and the timber... oh, the timber

Ours is around 30 years old and still going strong. When this one was built they left a lot (all) of the interior timber exposed. It got laquered, but not painted or tinted, so on every wall, and every ceiling, of every room on the entire top storey, there is timber. Much like this...


It's a little overwhelming.

So I debate daily, should I paint, should I plasterboard (Gib to the locals), should I put a tinted varnish over what's currently there.. or should I just leave it as is?

The lounge... also timber, & the fireplace with a timber safety guard

I think I'm ok with leaving the roof, but I think I want to change the walls... and update the kitchen... and rip up the carpet, and the broken old tiles... and perhaps change the shower heads, but they are a whole other story.

In the meantime, we also have a fireplace, which seeing as we have arrived in winter we sooooo appreciate, we have it on pretty much every night and bought 5 cubic metres of firewood which will hopefully last us two winters. If not, I 'spose we can always start burning the house ;)

The size of the house is fantastic, we have a lot of room to move and options for renovating. We also have wonderful views over the valley and get simply amazing sunsets. It's nice to be high on a hill with views, even if it's not of the harbour itself... and on a clear day, we can see the skytower!