EDITOR’S LETTER

“The GREAT Australian dream of home ownership is still a part of OUR psyche despite the challenges young Australians face in BUYING their first abode.”

a nation, we are obsessed with property, homes, and renovating. I can’t stop thinking about as I write this. The great Australian dream of homeownership is still a part of our psyche despite the challenges young Australians face in buying their first abode and I am pleased that our love of beautiful homes and interior photography continues. The amount of fabulous homes magazines, books, television shows, and digital offerings per head is incredible. And we are not just viewing – we are doing! Of readers alone, 66 per cent renovated in the last year and a whopping 80 per cent worked in the garden over the previous three months. Our renovation stories, beginning on page 115, remind me that we all want to get our space right. But when owners talk about their newly madeover homes, they mostly tend to mention their favourite spot to relax with their partner or child. There is angst in getting the space right, but when you do, you have the perfect base for a forever home. In the words of Bud Tingwell playing Lawrence Hamill in : “You can acquire a house, but you can’t acquire a home. Because a home is not built of bricks and mortar, but love and memories.”