Queanbeyan has its own version of Grand Designs, after the winning restoration of a residential heritage building was last week awarded to the Nikolic family.
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The couple bought the rundown heritage home in 2012, one of three on the street with just two bedrooms and an add-on laundry and bathroom. They began renovations in 2016.
Now the family has celebrated coming first in the Queanbeyan Palerang 2022 Heritage Awards at Braidwood Museum for their home renovation.
As soon as they purchased the property, Joanna Nikolic knew it was going to be a big job and at first thought it looked "way too hard".
She said her husband, Rob Nikolic, had family with an extensive background in building, including his dad and brother who are bricklayers.
From the extra support of helping hands, Ms Nikolic knew it meant they "could take on the project with their skills and expertise".
It was a priority for the family to make sure the heritage of the building was maintained, which involved completely stripping the bungalow back and relaying the same bricks onto the improved structure.
"There's all these little stories that pop up of people who know the house or Beverly next door who was born in it and grew up in it so ... it was certainly something that we wanted to pay respect to," Ms Nikolic said.
The renovation process was "certainly challenging" and "time-consuming" for the family, especially as Ms Nikolic "had two babies" during the period of time, but they stayed motivated as they saw the house develop further to their vision.
Mr Nikolic was born and bred in Queanbeyan, loving the street and design of the cottage. He said while the process of modernising the cottage was stressful they were "passionate about the whole heritage side of things".
"With the help of an architect we designed an extension, a modern extension, but it was sympathetic with the front and it was connected by a glass corridor from an old cottage to a brand new build at the back," he said.
Another winner in the category of a new adaptation to a heritage garden award went to Douglas Taupin, whose property had been built in 1887 and said "building a garden was important" and "it felt like it needed a formal approach".
"I bought this place in 2010, I couldn't believe my luck in buying it as it's a beautiful heritage place on a big block in Queanbeyan," he said.
Mr Taupin said the design and immunity of the garden suited the heritage guidelines for the competition as the garden had not been around for decades.
"It's a new garden but it's attached to heritage items, so I guess that's how it fits that criteria and then the council got in touch with me and strongly suggested I attend the awards," he said.
The celebration was held at Braidwood Museum, which Mr Taupin said was "really good" to speak with a variety of people on heritage homes.
"There were different home owners with different types of places and I got a strong sense that everyone was pretty keen to enhance the heritage values," he said.
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