Our quest to build a new family home on our grazing property in North East Victoria began approximately 4 years ago when we sighted an article on Farm Houses of Australia. After visiting their website and seeing a design called “Cape Cod”, we instantly felt it would sit on our existing home site among an already established garden. 

It was an emotional decision because the existing home had been on the site since late last century and the family had lived there since 1950. The design of our new home was critical to our peace of mind and conscience.

However, the rapport struck with Doug (the builder) and the Farm Houses design team gave us the confidence to proceed. At all stages throughout the project, there has been a willingness to revised drawings or incorporate features such as an underground garage, extended verandahs or look at alternative materials.

We were initially concerned that Doug and his team would be travelling so far from their base at Merricks North, even so, they consistently turned up on-site and the project progressed from one stage to the next with ease and without time loss. One of the other challenges was that we continued to live on-site and Doug’s work was constantly being appraised. We could question whether we had made the right decision regarding materials, colours, etc. This actually added to the excitement as we were watching our new home being built and could participate. We enjoyed having them around. There was always a willingness to engage in friendly discussion.

Building a home can undoubtedly be stressful, but the best decision we could have made was to choose Farm Houses of Australia. We now feel we have a home built by “friends”. Ewen and I would have no hesitation recommending them to any aspiring home builder.