Quixotically Restored Old School House at Valla

When you inspect this delightful, north facing, cottage with its little weatherboard studio and beautifully designed 2 acres of old world and Australian native gardens, you won’t be able to resist its many charms. It will be a purchase of the heart! It’s glorious display of camellias, frangipanis, ferns, palms, bottle brush, waratahs, climbing jasmin, wisteria, grevilleas, magnolias and a wonderful selection of fruit, citrus and nut trees is simply stunning. The vegetable garden, garden shed and chicken coop add further ambience to this country retreat ….. and there are no neighbours!

This is a well preserved 2 bedroom weatherboard cottage and self-contained studio, built as the local school house and weather shed in 1913. It will be your home or a retreat to enjoy away from the fast lane of the city. Relax on the veranda and the flowering wisteria twisting around its pergola shades the sun; or entertain friends in the “lean to” at the full brick barbecue. This property is pure ROMANCE!

The welcoming entrance from the veranda into the spacious open plan living, dining and kitchen areas suits entertaining on whatever scale you wish. The extensive use of louvred windows and ceiling fans throughout ensure excellent air flow and the slow combustion wood fire set into the brick chimney warms the house during the short winter months. White tiles, wood and stainless steel feature in the kitchen, along with its 5-burner Ilve stove top and oven. The entire open plan space has views to the gardens that finish in the gully below. All living areas have polished tallowwood floors.

Now let’s take a couple of steps down to the cement floored bedrooms sharing a central shower room, plenty of linen storage and separate toilet. The narrow floor to ceiling windows and French doors lead to the gardens and finish the picture perfectly. Lots of soft morning sun is a definite feature of this section of the house.

There is plenty of water with 9,000 gallons of water tanks, one of them being grey water storage for the gardens. The machinery and storage shed houses chopped wood and under the house is another toilet, laundry, workshop and more storage.

Some say there is no Eden ….. but this is pretty close!

Beautifully restored old school house
French doors in bedroom
Hardwood floors
Clever use of louvres
Slow combustion wood heater
Compact gas cook’s kitchen
Sunny veranda
Separate guest room
Meandering established gardens
Little potting shed
Chook run
2 Perfect acres
Close to great beaches
30 Mins to Coffs Harbour
25 Mins to Bellingen