The couple reconnecting with a simpler life in an 1888 headmaster’s quarters

When they were eight weeks’ pregnant with their first child, Samantha and Ben Gehrmann left Brisbane for the rural town of Ma Ma Creek to live in an old headmaster’s quarters on a 0.6-hectare block.

Built in 1888, the house is the only building left on the site of the original school.

The Gehrmanns bought the place in 2018 after their offers on properties in Ipswich and the Sunshine Coast were knocked back.

“I ended up Googling ‘homesteads for sale in Australia’ and then this house came up,” Samantha says. “We came out and saw it and loved it – it just felt like home as soon as we walked in.”

After

Before

The headmaster’s quarters was in good shape when the couple, now parents to 19-month-old daughter Magnolia, took ownership.

The original two-bedroom home had been extended around 1910 to add another living area and two sleep-outs. A bonus for the couple is the external room, which they use as a studio to house textile artist Samantha’s loom and yarns, and a workshop area for Ben.

While the 132-year-old house is comfortable, the Gehrmanns are pragmatic about what it will take to get it the way they’d like. “We will always have something to save for and do over the next decade or two,” Samantha says.

So far, that’s included sanding back and re-coating the old wooden floors, and removing a purple paint job from the much-loved fireplace. Ben recently carried out an emergency repair of the front steps when they broke.

The verandah and guest bedroom will soon need work due to rot, and then there’s the kitchen, which Samantha estimates was last updated in the 1950s.

The outdoor areas of the large block have required lots of attention too, after being neglected for years.

“When we moved in, the soil was what they consider ‘dead’ in areas, nothing was growing. No weeds, no grass, no worms,” Samantha says. “We’ve been enriching the soil as much as we can and trying to get on top of the weeds.”

Those weeds were large enough to almost block the view of the house from the road when they first moved in.

The Gehrmanns are also slowly adding external structures to complement the house – they’ve built a chicken coop made from repurposed materials including old french windows sourced from Samantha’s mum, and they’re doing a picket fence at the front with an elegant arbour at the gate.

As a design technology teacher, Ben’s construction skills are put to good use during each term break.

“These holidays we’re still fencing,” Samantha says. “We started fencing when we moved in, and we’re still fencing.”

Golden retrievers Chester and Grace are keen observers of all the work, and recent adoptee Dougal, a 22-year-old Shetland pony who is blind in one eye, now lives in the yard as “our little lawnmower”.

It’s slow going, but the couple enjoys the ride.

Living more simply allows former photographer Samantha to be stay-at-home parent to Magnolia, and make luxury hand-spun yarns and woven textiles when she has the time. In the future she hopes to teach others from her studio.

And the difficulty of living far away from their families has been eased by the warmth of Ma Ma Creek’s population.

The tiny town – “we’ve got four houses, two churches, a school, a general store and a hall,” Ben says – and surrounding farmers come together each month for a community market held next door to the Gehrmanns’ home, where fresh produce, honey and locally made salami and hand-crafted children’s clothes are on offer.

It also makes a popular stopping point for Brisbane visitors on what Samantha says is “a really pretty drive”.

“It’s a really lovely close-knit community. We know everyone,” she says. “We feel really, really lucky. We knew we loved the house, but you don’t get to know the community before you move anywhere so we’re just so fortunate.”