Welcome Home

English-born Angela Perry bought her multi-coloured, two-bedroom, one-bathroom, storage-free cottage in Fitzroy in 2001 after going to an open-for-inspection next door. “I really loved the energy of this property,” she recalls. “It felt very comfortable, very spacious, and I probably overlooked a lot of the things that we then had to go back and fix.”

When partner Rahul Prasad moved in six years later, and his parents began annual extended visits from India, they muddled along with a fixed-up kitchen and new rear deck and for dream renovation ideas. “We’re quite sociable,” Rahul explains. “We both don’t have our families here so our neighbours are like our family. We entertain a lot. But we were finding that house was too cluttered and not in line with our vibrant, outgoing personalities. The house was painted in different colours and didn’t flow properly. It was dark – a 1927 Victorian weatherboard house – and things were falling apart.”