- [Matt] This video is brought to you by Squarespace.
I'll talk more about them later in the video.
(key jangling)
Wow, look at it.
Look at the, all the shit outside, Nat.
Nat, come here.
Look at this.
Oh my God.
- Holy shit.
- [Matt] After eight years of renting apartments together,
Nat and I decided to finally start looking for a house.
That meant stepping into the Sydney housing market.
And it was, as they say down under, completely cooked.
- What startled me was just like the real estate savviness
and fluency of everyone.
We just immediately felt out of our depth.
- [Matt] The Australian housing market is hard to describe.
It's one of the most competitive in the world
and ranked as the second least affordable behind Hong Kong.
Getting into it is hard enough,
but even if you secure a loan,
you have a laundry list of challenges ahead of you.
Dishonest agents, mind games from other buyers
and possibly tight open house windows and
of course live auctions.
I was honestly blown away when I found out
that Australians buy houses via auction.
Literally like old fashioned auctions where
you have an auctioneer and
Hey batter batter batter swing batter!
- What do they, what do they say?
- Put a 21501 bit away now.
- [Cameraman] Can I say one 175
- Double zero triple zero
- One one fifty to call right there.
(Michael Scott Babbling)
Do I see someone in the back.
- Sold
- Sold. Congratulations.
- [Matt] It's a f*cking circus.
Nosy neighbors drop in, people watch for entertainment
and crowds of up to a hundred people conform.
So yeah, we were a little over our head.
What were some of the criterias that we were after
in a house?
Like obviously there you could have any number
of things that are deal breakers.
- Yeah,
- But I feel like for us,
we had a pretty clear checklist of what
we were looking for.
- So we were looking for a place with charm.
So we didn't want something that was like too super modern
but something that like felt like it had some character
a little bit of heritage.
And then we were looking for good lighting.
This is like Matt's biggest thing.
So like not too dark inside of the house and
like the aspect of the house's placement had to be
like north facing or south facing.
- [Matt] North facing.
Cause we're in the southern hemisphere.
I think probably the biggest one for us was location
in an area that's safe.
- Yeah.
- Potentially has walking distance to coffee shops.
- Close-ish to the city.
At least close to a sense of community.
Like maybe has a local village, maybe like, you know
a few like little restaurants or something.
Oh, we definitely wanted like a backyard.
We're not talking a massive backyard, we're just talking
but like, can we put a table with a few chairs here
in the backyard?
Like that's it.
You know what I mean?
I think also we definitely were looking for a three bed.
- So we had a very short list.
- Yeah.
- [Matt] So running that back, we were looking
for a charming three bedroom home soaked
with natural light with an outdoor space
in a walkable area that's not too busy.
And after four months
of searching and losing one house, painfully
at an auction, and another painfully in private negotiations
we lucked out and placed the winning bid
on a home that was perfect for us.
And now we're heading over to our house.
Are you excited?
- I really am excited.
It seems like they've done a lot
in the last few days, so I think it's gonna look
very different.
- We've started to do a little bit of construction
and renovations before we move into the house.
So we've been staying at Nat's parents' place.
- [Matt] Dude, I like how you hold the wheel
like a race car driver.
- This is how you're supposed to do it.
- No, I know that's how you're supposed to do it.
Nobody holds the steering wheel like that.
- What do you mean?
- Everybody holds the steering wheel
like, you know, just one hand. Cool. Cool style.
- Not. No. What?
- Yeah
(car skidding)
- See this?
- [Matt] Wow.
- They actually have a floor.
- [Matt] Oh my goodness.
- This is really nice.
I mean, I know it doesn't look nice to everyone else
but we're like, this is nice.
We have a floor.
- [Matt] Solid floor.
- Really good.
- Here we are in our new
- House.
So what did you first love about this house,
when we first saw it?
- Oh, it was definitely the charm.
But I think like the layout and the location.
It just tipped so many boxes that we were looking for
and we just, at that point, we looked at so many properties
and so we could tell pretty quickly
if it was one that didn't work for us.
- Yeah.
- And this one just never had any things
that we didn't like.
- This house was literally built in 1890,
- 90. Which comes, it's a blessing and a curse.
- [Matt] We didn't plan on doing any big renovations
from the start, but when you pull up the carpet
on a 130 year old house
hoping to find beautiful hardwood floors,
you will be disappointed.
Not only did we have to replace the floorboards
because they were inconsistent and uneven
when we pulled them up, we found something even worse.
Termite damage.
And what we thought would be light cosmetic changes
to the bathroom and laundry
led to them getting fully gutted.
And then of course we ran into some more issues.
How you feeling?
- At least we're right hand butt wipers.
- If you're a left hand butt wiper you can't,
you can't do it.
- [Matt] Okay.
- Are you filming me right now?
- [Matt] Yeah. Do you wanna explain that?
- Well,
- [Matt] Let's
Come take a look.
This is our work in progress bathroom
and it's gonna be a shower screen here.
And we're a little concerned
about how close the shower screen's gonna be on the toilet.
Cause then when you sit on the toilet
you're gonna be like touching the shower screen.
- Yeah.
- So that's why I was thinking
at least we're right hand butt wipers.
- What's interesting is that a lot
of people are actually standing wipers.
So if you're standing wiper,
- [Nat] I'm a standing wiper.
- You're a standing wiper?
- Well, I'm a, I think I'm
it's like probably a 10 degree squat.
- This is the perfect transition
into my sponsor for this week's video, Squarespace.
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Wow, look at it.
Look at the, all the shit outside Nat.
Nat come here. Look at this.
So we've got a lot of work left to do
before we turn our house into a home, but let's take a look
at where these renovations are heading.
- Alright, Natalie, let's get the tour.
- Okay, the royal tour.
Well, right now you're in the living room.
Couch will be here.
We'll have a little living room table here.
Arm chair in this corner.
And then we've got the TV right in here.
So it'll be like a pullout.
- A lot of people in the room.
You need more space.
Voila. Right into the wall.
- Wow.
- Now you are in the dining room.
And I'm standing on the dining room table
and we'll have six seats, we can have lots of friends over,
but not really lots, only a few.
And then.
- [Matt] Because we don't have friends.
- We don't have friends.
This is gonna be storage under the stairs fully.
- [Matt] Probably the most exciting renovation we're doing.
- Yeah, we're actually thrilled about this.
We get very excited about storage.
They're gonna be like cascading cubbies, right?
So it's like pushed to open doors, paneled doors
and they'll be like five, five of them, which will be nice.
And they'll blend in to the facade of the stairs.
They won't even look like storage.
Until you
(clicking noise)
click it open.
Oh, next we've got the kitchen.
We're not doing much to the kitchen, but we are putting
in like a island, putting in a kitchen island.
Okay.
- This is my favorite part.
- This is our backyard.
There's gonna be like a outdoor dining table here.
So we can kind of eat our fresco underneath the pergula.
Very lush backyard
with a humongous tree.
We've been told it's a lemon scented gum.
You're gonna hit, you're gonna,
you're gonna hit my big forward with that mic.
And then this is a sunroom, which we're very excited about.
This is gonna be my office, which, yay.
So we get glorious sun in here.
This will be like my little workman's table.
This will be a day bed here.
So I can kind of, I like working whilst lying down.
I'm very lazy.
We'll have laundry here and then toilet here.
And it's kind of like a weird placement,
because like these are the doors.
So it's weird.
Who doesn't love a house with character?
- You wanted charm.
- Yeah.
- And then these beautiful like glass doors
which again feels very like Mediterranean-y.
Yeah, let's go upstairs.
So the team just built the subfloor and then
the floorboards are starting to go in tomorrow.
So it's very exciting.
And then this will eventually be a room for the kids
which is nice.
And then, oh, I can't open this.
(door slamming open)
So this is our patio.
Oh God, that door is so-
(Nat laughs)
- Attached to the third bedroom
that bedroom there, which is nice.
So it's really actually spacious.
Like it's not a balcony, it's a
it's a separate patio, which is beautiful.
So we're gonna have like outdoor furniture out here.
We'll have like an outdoor sofa
a little like dining table
and two outdoor armchairs, which will be nice.
Beautiful view of that big gum tree from downstairs.
So, yeah!
We only really have one true bathroom in this place.
And it is small.
Luckily Matt and I are short people, so that's fine.
We'll have like a vanity here with a sink, obviously.
This'll be a mirror.
Here I am, standing in the shower.
- [Matt] Woo woo.
- Okay.
- Hi there. Hi.
This right here is my office.
Please come in.
- [Nat] Sorry.
- That's okay.
Right now it's like a staging ground
for the bathroom set up.
My desk in the corner here, I've got some antique furniture
we picked out, shelving unit,
trying to figure out the best way
to set up the office so I can film in it every day.
But it also feels nice and cozy.
Again, love the doors.
Nice hardwood doors, keeps out
Oh. Oh my god.
- I think what's gonna be nice is that like
this is gonna be the backdrop
for all of your YouTube videos.
Like you know, from now, from once we move in
which will be really cool.
- [Matt] Yeah. So you get to see the before.
- Yeah.
- So you guys will see this room a lot
which will be really, really fun.
Okay, so this is our master bedroom,
which we're very excited about.
So the bed's gonna go here.
We'll have two bedside tables.
It'll be back against this wall.
We're gonna put a vanity here for me.
And that'll be for like my beauty, skincare,
I can do my hair there, just cause our bathroom's so small
so it wouldn't be able to have all my stuff in there.
So we'll just do like a little vanity corner here
with a pendant light and a stool, which will be nice.
And then storage here.
We love these ceiling roses throughout the house
which is very like heritage charm.
We think it's beautiful.
And then we love this like natural light
from the skylight here.
Like obsessed with these little archways
and the beautiful wooden banisters.
I don't know, it's just really cool to like, like be
in a place that has such a story and has had so many lives
before us and yeah, and had a lot of love, which is nice.
- It's obviously gonna take a lot of work.
- But it's exciting.
- Yeah
- Like I've really been enjoying the process.
- Every little update we get, like every bit of progress.
- And we've been lucky to have the most
amazing interior designer and project manager
who has been coordinating all of the contractors.
And we just found her on Instagram.
Her name's Yasmin from Fay Co Interiors.
Well tag it underneath.
- Tag it in the description below.
- And she services Sydney and Blue Mountains. She has been-
- Could not have done any of this without her.
- An absolute godsend.
We were really excited
about a place that we could mold and obsess over
like making it perfect for us and our lifestyle.
- It really feels like we're putting
down roots and we are investing
in our life here, which is really exciting.
And it's a place that we're gonna live in
for a very long time.
Longer than any place we've ever lived in.
And we're excited to make it feel like home.
Do you wanna say any, anything else?
Any final words?
- Yeah