Daggy Delight: The Best Uncool-But-We-Love-It Homes
Not every great house on this list is dripping in marble or built like a castle. Some of our favourite finds are just properly, unapologetically daggy — the kind of home that was never trying to impress anyone, and is somehow more charming for it. Think fibro beach shacks with decor from three decades ago, backyard additions that solved a problem in the most direct way possible, and interiors that were clearly decorated with love and a very tight budget. Daggy Delight is our tribute to the houses that never made a design magazine and never wanted to. They made us smile instead, which counts for more.
Under ContractThe House That Started At The Bar
Made the list for a built-in red bar so confidently placed that we're fairly sure the rest of the house was designed backwards from it, probably after a few too many.
For saleThe House The Jungle Ate
Made the list for presenting real estate's three great questions all at once: demolish, renovate, or hand the keys straight to a disaster-movie location scout.
SoldThe 3.4 Metre Wonder
Made the list for being so narrow a tape measure is the most alarming thing about the listing — and for hiding a clawfoot bath in the side passage that no plumber could fully explain.
For SaleWhat Was I Thinking?: Port Lincoln's Gold-And-Marble Fever Dream
Made the list for being two completely different houses stacked on top of each other: a gold-and-marble chandelier palace upstairs, and a full 1970s brick entertainment bunker downstairs, united only by a staircase with a golden nude on the newel post.
SoldThe Time Machine On Park Street
Made the list for a swirling green-and-gold carpet that runs uninterrupted from the front hallway clean through to the formal lounge, a built-in red leather bar still standing at attention for guests who stopped arriving decades ago, a bathroom committed head to toe in peach floral tile with gold tapware and a bidet on standby, and a backyard so vast the agent had to mention the rear laneway just to give it an exit.
Buy stuff from the houses.
We found the houses. We tracked down the vibe. We did the hard work so you can impulse-buy a cheetah-print cushion at 11pm and call it interior design.