Original subtitles

[theme music playing]

[Sibella] Historic houses across Australia

are at risk of being lost forever.

They're links to our past and should be saved.

In this series, you'll meet families

facing the challenge of a lifetime.

[man grunts]

Here we are, dumb and dumber!

[laughs]

Half a million dollars on this?

Are we mad?

[Sibella] They'll quickly realize

the sheer scale of the projects...

[man] Not quite what I meant.

...as they restore these ruins to family homes.

I'm Sibella Court.

I'm a designer, author,

lover of old houses and restoration.

I'm passionate about old buildings

and the need to save our history.

To succeed, our families

must learn dying heritage skills

and stick to budget.

He just likes to spend the money.

Bastards, bastards, bastards.

Oh, Jo! No, don't!

It's a slow train wreck.

Can they rescue

their slice of Australia's history

before it's too late?

This is Restoration Australia.

[Sibella] I'm in southern Gippsland, Victoria.

It's a quiet, windswept farming area now

but in the 1850s, it was bustling with activity,

boasting one of the busiest ports in the new colony,

which rivaled Melbourne for size.

The dreams of those early settlers amounted to little

and almost all traces of that glorious past have crumbled,

but I've heard of a sole survivor.

A rundown gentleman's house built by a butler.

It's ripe with ghost stories and a bloody past.

From the road, this just looks like an average, rambling wooden cottage

but as you turn this corner onto the veranda

and see the repeat French doors and this beautiful tin work,

you know you're in for something really special.

-Hi. -Hi. How you going?

-Hi, Jo. -I'm Jo.

-And I'm Marcus. -Hi, Marcus.

-Well, welcome to Woodcot Park. -Thank you.

[Sibella] At first glance, this place looks in reasonable shape,

but when Marcus and Jo bought Woodcot Park a year ago,

it was about to collapse.

[Marcus] When we found the house, there was cows living in it

and so the place was, you know, fairly full of cow shit.

and they'd been kicking the doors.

[Jo] There was a massive beehive.

[Marcus] Birds everywhere. [Jo] Birds everywhere.

The wall on this side of the house had actually slipped off the foundations.

We went to a few clearing sales and bought a heap of old jacks

and then, while we had the wall all jacked up in the air,

had to re-brick

all the foundations around the bottom of t he house there,

which was a pretty massive task.

And then we could lower the house back onto the top of the foundations.

[Sibella] Inside, it's still in a dire state.

[Jo] So, about four weeks ago,

um, the ceiling caved in.

The previous tenant had actually ripped all the laths off

-[Jo] in this room as well. -[Marcus] Yeah.

[Jo] So, I mean, this room we'll probably just plaster with gyprock.

Yeah, and then trowel over the top of it

-to give an early look. -Yeah.

[Sibella] To restore this house professionally

could cost as much as $400,000

but these guys love restoring and want to do it all themselves.

They plan to use traditional and slower techniques

to faithfully recreate an 1850s interior

and they don't want to spend more than $100,000.

While authenticity is admirable,

Marcus and Jo are taking on a huge job and a huge amount of pressure.

[Marcus] As soon as I saw the front of it, I just said to Jo, I said,

"I reckon I could spend a bit of time out that veranda,

having a couple of quiet ones."

[Jo] A nd it was cheap.

[Marcus laughing]

No one else wanted it, though.

There was no-one else stupid enough to take it on but here we are,

dumb and dumber.

[laughs]

Twelve months in but we're...

[laughing] Who's dumb and who's dumber? Hang on a minute!

[Sibella] Marcus and Jo

want this 165-year-old house to be their new family home

and kids, Byron and Emerald, are really excited about it.

-[Emerald] Mom? -[Jo] Yeah.

Watch out for your head, bub.

[Jo] Watch it, bubby.

[Sibella] They want to move in one year from now.

That's ambitious but this family is seriously motivated.

What exactly does this project mean to you and your family?

Basically, we're moving on from the Black Saturday bushfires

because we were in Kinglake. We live in Kinglake.

We were there and we defended.

We saved our house but we lost everything else.

[Marcus] I lost about 25 people I knew

through growing up in the area,

so it's a lot to lose in one day and try a nd keep your sanity

and keep your kids and, you know, your family safe.

[Jo] We did go through a very rough time.

[Marcus] So we just thought, you know,

let's make a bit of a fresh start.

[Jo] Best medicine. You don't need a psychologist.

We're saving the house but,in a way, the house is saving us.

[Sibella] Marcus and Jo aren't the first to come here

in search of a fresh start and a new life.

One-hundred-and-sixty-five years ago,

a young man named James Nielson

made the long journey from Scotland.

[Jo] He'd come to the colony with a Scottish Highland chief

who literally packed up his entire clan

to come out here and start a new dairying business.

James came as his butler and they arrived in about 1840.

[Sibella] The Highland chief returned home after a year

but James stayed, sensing a chance to reinvent himself in the new colony.

And he became a publican in Tarraville

and he eventually built this house in the early 1850s.

[Sibella] And what a house it was, a bold statement

and a reflection of his new status.

no longer a butler but a gentleman with a bright future in a new world.

I love this place.

The proportions, the Georgian details. They all sing to me.

And this is spectacular.

The entrance room of grand proportions, 15 foot-high ceilings

and then this incredible symmetry behind us, with the three arches.

I just love it.

And even look at the size of these baseboards in red cedar.

The old Georgian architecture is just spectacular.

Marcus and Jo want to faithfully restore Woodcot Park

and that demands great attention to detail.

We have, um, had to re-build one window.

-Oh, the whole panel? - [Marcus] The whole lot, yeah.

[Jo] The whole panel--

Gosh. I wouldn't be able to pick it!

It's a beautiful job.

[Marcus] There's a lot of man-hours out in the shed.

[Jo] So we want it very authentic to the way it was,

um, and so, when you walk in here,

you really get an idea of what it was like.

We wanna keep all the old patinas

and the old surfaces

and make it look like an old house that's loved.

Oh, that makes my heart sing, Jo.

[Sibella] What Marcus and Jo have achieved already is incredible.

Marcus jacked up the whole house himself to redo the foundations.

They've put in new bay windows with incredible craftsmanship,

rebuilt the cellar, amongst so many other things,

but this is no easy restoration job.

They've got a long way to go.

And they're about to make it even harder for themselves.

Marcus and Jo want to use

the old-fashioned lath-and-plaster technique to line the walls.

The trouble is, they've never done it before.

It's just as well they're only doing two rooms.

So these would've been the two, sort of

-entertaining rooms? -Entertaining rooms.

Yeah, absolutely.

[Marcus] This room here is pretty much just down to bare state, really.

[Sibella] It looks like a skeleton room. [Jo] Yeah.

Yeah, it does. Yeah.

And it was basically like this, um, when we purchased the property.

[Marcus] The previous owner

took the original horse-hair plaster off the top of the laths.

We think it was probably just to get good, clean, dry kindling

so he didn't have to go out in the rain to keep the fire going.

[Sibella] So how big a job is it?

[Jo] This is just like a monumental job.

We're just still trying to find a plasterer.

-Um, otherwise, if we don't... -Right.

-'Cause it's an old technique, yes? -It is, yeah.

[Marcus] Not many people around can actually do it

and it's a fairly forgotten art, really.

[Jo] We're hoping we can get someone down here,

at least to show us how to go about doing it.

And Marcus might be able to...

-[Marcus] Yeah, have a go at it. -[Jo] Have a go at it.

[Marcus] Be nice to get someone to do it. [Jo] But if we can't...

There's no-one as crazy as us to have a shot at it.

Yeah, so we'll have a crack at it .

I reckon that there'll be probably four to six weeks here.

[Jo] Oh, you-- I think a bit longer than that.

Four to six weeks?

Yeah, yeah,

four to six weeks, I reckon.

Can't be too hard. They were doing it 150 years ago.

[Sibella] The original builders

were an ingenious lot.

They built Woodcot Park using whatever was at hand, and a rich

resource on this treacherous coast was shipwrecks.

[Jo] This front door here,

we've been told that it come out of, um, an old sailing vessel.

[Marcus] Yeah, 'cause there was a lot of sailing ships

that had been wrecked

on the coast, coming through to the port.

[Jo] And so the flooring

-is the same. -Yeah, they believe that

the flooring's come off the deck of a sailing ship as well.

It's an unusual species for the area.

-[Jo] Pitch pine. Yep. -[Marcus] It's pitch pine.

[Jo] The house, or the bricks, sit on ballast, ship's ballast,

so big stone foundations.

Yeah, they would've come out in the base of a sailing ship

so that in the strong winds they wouldn't tip over

when they didn't have much cargo in the hold.

[Sibella] Along with these fascinating fixtures,

Marcus and Jo have found other traces of the past.

Clues, perhaps, that something tragic happened here a long time ago.

[Jo] My sister-in-law took a photo,

-when we first bought the house. -[Sibella] Yeah.

And in the window, there's an image of a--

[Sibella] Like a ghost baby? [Marcus] Yeah.

[Jo] That sent shivers up my spine.

Yeah, and this is the George Dunderdale room,

as you can see by his initials in the wind ow here.

[Sibella] Oh, yes.

[Marcus] It's got "GD" written up in ther e.

And we believe this is where he used to do a lot of his writing from.

[Sibella] George Dunderdale was an author, a judge

and the second owner of this house.

When he bought it, in 1873, it was already rumored to be haunted.

[Marcus] He bought the house because it apparently had a ghost.

[George Dunderdale] I bought the estate on very reasonable terms

with no extra charge being made for the gh ost.

If it was good enough for the ghost, it was good enough for him.

[Sibella] 75 years ago, a local named Syd Lang was riding past Woodcot Park

when, he claims, a ghost rose from the mist.

Although the locals laughed,

Syd swore it was true, even on his deathbed.

I, well and truly, believe that there is a presence here.

[Sibella] The stories they've uncovered here are so intriguing.

These kind of layers make a house really magic,

so much more than bricks and mortar.

It'll be fascinating to see what other stories are revealed

as the house is restored.

Seven months later and I'm back in Gippsland

to meet a man who could make all the difference to this restoration.

-Hey, Marcus. -Hey. How's it going, Sibella?

-Hi. How are you? -Yeah, good, thanks.

-Nice to see you. -Yeah. Likewise.

-It's been a few months. -Yeah. Yep, yep.

So, yeah, we've been busy.

So it looks like you've put a lot of effort into the prep work.

Yeah, there's been quite a few days in it,

um, with screwing all the mesh onto the walls.

I don't remember you telling me about any mesh.

Apparently, you can't actually put the lime mortar

straight over the original laths because they're just

too dry to actually hold the material.

[Sibella] Over the last few weeks,

plasterer Michael has been on the phone to Marcus,

schooling him up on the forgotten art of lath-and-plastering.

The mortar for the walls must be made at least a week in advance

so Michael sent down a mixer and the traditional recipe.

It's three parts fine river sand

to one part lime putty.

It's not a complicated process but it's hard work

and time-consuming.

So are you still on the four to six weeks for the plastering?

-I don't know. We'll see how we go. -[Sibella laughs]

Hello? Anybody home?

-[Marcus] Oh, hey. Michael. -You must be Marcus.

Yeah, how you going, mate?

-Not too bad. How are you? -That's the shot. Yeah, good.

Hi, Sibella.

-Sibella, nice to meet you. I'm Michael. -Nice to meet you.

This hallway looks absolutely amazing.

-[Sibella] It's grand, isn't it? -[Michael] It is, yeah.

-Grand's the word! -[Sibella] Yeah!

[Marcus laughs]

I suppose we'd better have a look at these walls.

Yeah, see what you reckon.

[Michael] I'm about the walls and the ceil ing,

you know, if there's a lot of stuff that can be saved.

Sounds a bit like medicine and saving lives

but, yeah, that's where I'm coming from, you know?

Wanna save as much as we can, as well as renewal.

The first thing that I can see is someone's put cement into it.

Cement was never meant to be here

and cement and lime don't go together.

[Sibella] They're not friends?

Not friends at all, no.

Bitter enemies, actually. You're right.

[Marcus] What we figured, at the start, we figured,

well, it's been done before.

[Michael] Yep. [Marcus] It can be done again.

[Marcus] We didn't really know,

like, where to head.

Then we sort of come across you on the Internet

and I thought, "This could be our savior."

[both laughing]

[Sibella] So, Michael, have you done a job this big before?

-No. -[both laughing]

-Definitely not. No. -[Sibella] How exciting.

Yeah, it is. It is really exciting, yeah.

It'd be lovely to know how many plasterers actually...

Actually worked here on it originally.

Um, at the moment, we've got one and a half.

[all laughing]

Hoping... Hoping to make it two!

-Yeah -[all laughing]

-But, uh, yeah, look, it's a big job. -Yeah.

This side's one that we call the "Weetie b ox"

because it's so sort of small and pokey.

Okay. Right.

[Sibella] This room is an unusual size

and, with two doors on one side, it's a bit of a mystery.

They're not sure how it would've been used back in the 1850s.

Now, I'll take you through into the main front room here,

where I've been doing some preparation.

[Michael] I don't see this every day.

Usually, I might get called in to do a ro om or maybe

one or two walls.

[chuckles] But... But never anything thi s big.

Let's get stuck into it and get some on the wall.

[all laughing]

-What do you reckon? -Yep. Let's do it.

[Sibella] Marcus has done a great job with the plaster mix

but before it goes on the walls, there's one final ingredient to add.

-So this is obviously man-made. -That's right.

[Michael] It was bullock hair they used.

[Sibella] And this does the same kind of job?

[Michael] That's right.

It's a reinforcing, yeah.

[Sibella] This is the moment that Marcus and Jo have dreamed of.

After years of neglect and abuse,

these walls are finally getting some love.

So it's a pretty big moment in the history of Woodcot Park.

[Marcus] Yeah, you're not wrong there. It's, um, been a long time coming.

[Sibella] Excited? [Marcus] Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's great.

Just changes the look of it all again.

[Sibella] Oh, completely.

You're heading in the right direction again, so...

-Things on the walls. -Yeah.

[Michael] This is exactly how they would'v e done it in the... Originally.

[Sibella] Right.

You must be looking forward to putting your hand to it.

[Marcus laughs]

I'll wait and see.

[both laughing]

[Michael] Okay, Marcus, just about a scoop of mud.

If you can take half of that off,

just like that.

-And just go up about that far. -Right.

And then just maybe put a third of your trowel onto that again.

Yep, and overlap it by one third.

-Yeah. -Yep.

So that's basically it. Be my guest.

[all laughing]

-Right. -Okay.

It's gonna be tougher than I thought.

[laughs] Yeah! It's gonna need more angle.

The biggest problem is

getting it off the hawk.

[Michael] You've gotta be able to do that.

[Marcus] Yep. Right.

[Michael] See if you can have another go.

Well done, well done. That's 100% improvem ent on the first one.

Don't worry about smoothing it.

-Don't worry about that. Get it on. -Get it on? Okay.

So, Marcus, how are you feeling about it?

[Marcus] Yeah, good.

I reckon give us a day at this, mate, and I'll be loving every minute of it.

[laughing]

It's great.

[Sibella] Do you think you'll make a professional of him, Michael?

[Marcus and Michael laughing]

[ Marcus] I don't think so!

[all laughing]

[Michael] Timing...

[Sibella] He's not a natural?

[Marcus] I don't think so, mate!

[Sibella] You're getting quicker, Marcus.

[Marcus] Oh, just feeling more comfortable , I suppose.

[Sibella] Yeah.

[Marcus] Once you get the rhythm of it, you're pretty right.

[Sibella] This is a great chance for me to have a go at such a rare trade

but after watching Marcus, I'm not confident.

-How's that? -That's good.

[Sibella grunting]

[Michael] Well done.

-Hey, there's talent here! -Got the job?

Well done. Yes. You do.

[Michael] I think she's done this before.

Yeah, she's got a really good feeling for it,

you know, the way she's pushing it.

[Marcus] Yep, get it up. [Michael] Yeah.

[Sibella] Feel like I'm re-creating a little bit of history.

[Michael] You are. [Sibella chuckles]

[Sibella] That's my patch, Marcus.

-I'm gonna carve my initials in on it. -You've done well. That looks good.

[Sibella] This is a really big moment

in Woodcot Park's history.

Not that long ago, it was derelict, it had slid off its foundations,

cows and bees were living in here.

But to see it coming to life like this

and having the passionate people around, you can't help but be excited about it.

-I bet Jo would like to be here. -Yeah. She'd be rapt.

[crickets chirping]

[bird cawing]

[Sibella] It's a three-hour drive to where Marcus and Jo live in Kinglake.

[sheep bleating]

When Marcus is away at Woodcot, Jo keeps the home fires burning.

She's also sourcing materials for the interior.

[Jo] Marcus isn't interested in the decor.

But I am. And that's really exciting too, to be able to re-create,

um, an interior from the 1850s, and that's my goal.

I'm always searching the Internet

to try and find the exact textile that I want in a certain room.

[Sibella] But major restorations can come at a personal cost.

[Jo] The hardest thing about the whole process

is definitely the separation from Marcus.

In 20 years, we'd never spent a night apar t. It's hard!

[Marcus] And here we have the breakfast of true champions,

or so Michael says.

This is what all plasterers have before they start a big day.

Bacon, eggs and sand.

No, we're really drying the sand for the next day's final coat.

[Sibella] As the boys knuckle down for another hard day of plastering,

Michael's pulled up a bit tired.

[Michael] When he was introducing me to the sleeping arrangements,

he mentioned about the ghosts.

Coming from Ireland, I was brought up on ghost stories.

They just used to scare the living daylights out of me

and it still does.

I can't watch horror movies or anything like that.

And he's telling me ghost stories on the first night.

-He snores quite a bit too. -[Sibella laughs]

You might have to change rooms.

There is no other room!

[both chuckle]

Look, there's a couple of, um... There's a spot down here.

[Sibella] But it's not just the ghosts that have got Michael worried.

It's also yesterday's plastering effort from Marcus.

-[Michael] He's not here, is he? -[Sibella laughs] No!

I was a little bit horrified when I saw that.

I thought, "Oh, no."

He was dropping a lot of mud off the hawk

and his actions were jerky and not good.

It's gotta be smooth.

Almost like what you were doing yesterday, that was pretty good.

[Sibella] For now, Marcus has been relegated to lath duty.

Lime mortar doesn't stick to wood but the arrangement of the laths

enables the plaster to hang over and key to the wall.

[Marcus] There's about, um, three kilometers of laths to go up.

[Sibella] That's a lot of lath.

[Marcus] Yeah. A lot of nails, lot of laths.

So does that mean you don't have to put the wire up in here?

There's no wire, this'll have just the timber nailed to wall

and then with the lime mortar troweled straight over the top of 'em.

[Sibella] Putting up new plasterboard would be so much quicker,

but that's not the point of this restoration.

For Marcus, it's all about authenticity.

[Marcus] There's so much difference between a flat plasterboard

and a hand-made wall.

You can see the trowel marks and things.

You can see the grains of sand, and everything.

[Michael] The thing I really like about it is it lets water in

and lets it back out agai n.

It's like, um, it's like a wool jumper, yo u know?

It's just so organic and so sensible. [chuc kles]

[Sibella] Michael and his apprentice are powering on

and they've almost finished one room.

Michael planned to stay for another week

but he's been called home early

so it'll be up to Marcus to finish the other room.

Even Michael has his doubts.

The walls seem to grow bigger every day, he says,

and that just shows you how enormous this job is

for Marcus to tackle on his own.

[Michael] Uh, am I confident? Um. [laughs] I'd like to be.

But he will have to do it.

You can't half do it.

It will have to be 100% successful or a complete disaster.

[Jo] Have you got show-and-tell, Em erald? [Emerald] Uh, no.

All right. Jump in.

-Bye, mate. See you. -See ya.

-I'll see you tonight. -Yep.

[Sibella] Marcus and Jo are doing almost all the restoration work themselves,

which keeps costs down,

but they still have a family to run,

so Marcus has to keep working his day job.

He's a hot-rod mechanic,

known around the country for his attention to detail.

Jo has a background in fine art

and wants to pay tribute to Woodcot Park's previous owners.

[Jo] I've decided to do some portraits of the people that lived at the house

and I've started with George because I had a clear image

and I'm hopefully going to do more.

For me, the history is really important

and just learning about who lived at the house and what happened.

Unfortunately, there's no image of James.

[Sibella] So what exactly did happen to James Nielson,

the original owner of Woodcot Park?

Marcus and Jo are searching for clues

in papers given to them by descendants of James.

Would've been a fairly wild place at the time.

There was no, um, church and two pubs.

You wouldn't think that a butler could afford to build

this type of building.

[Sibella] But by 1853, James was no longer a butler.

In the nearby town of Tarraville, he built several houses

and a pub, which he ran successfully.

But tragedy struck with the death of his beloved wife, Isabella,

mother to his first six children.

Although James re-married,

his spending and his drinking began spiraling out of control.

[Jo] This is the mortgage against Woodcot Park.

He sort of looks like a man who's getting a bit desperate at the time.

He's trying to get rid of absolutely every thing he's got.

Even here it says that they're selling off ,

-"The superior and well-known horses..." - Yeah.

"Stumpy and Captain."

[Jo] He was desperate.

Tragically, in March of 1859,

James died.

[Marcus] " On the 12th instant, at his residence, Woodcot Park,

James Nielson, aged 49."

[gunshot]

[Sibella] At Woodcot Park, Michael is long gone,

leaving the entire plastering job to Marcus.

After his shaky start,

Marcus has successfully completed the second room.

Flush with confidence,

he and Jo have decided to lath-and-plaster the whole house,

doubling the size of the job.

[Marcus] Probably about 60% through the plastering now,

maybe a little bit more.

[Sibella] Michael thought they'd need to hire a few assistants

but Marcus has found a cheaper way.

[Jo] I'm not enjoying being Marcus's assistant.

In fact, I'm over the lath-and-plaster

because I'm the one that's doing all the m ixing.

Cup weekend, I mixed 40 buckets of lime plaster

so, no, I'm over it

and I've asked Marcus to get...

To see if we could hire a laborer and he's just not coming to the party!

He just will not have a bar of it.

[Marcus] Why pay for something when you can get it for free?

Oh, that's right, when you can get it for free

and have your wife working, you know? I me an...

-[chuckles] -You know, it's just ridiculous.

[Marcus] You only got another two rooms to do.

[Jo] Two and a half.

[Marcus] So it's nearly done!

[Jo] No, it's not nearly done.

-Don't even go-- It's not. -It's getting pretty close.

[radio plays]

[Jo] The lath-and-plaster is killing me.

It's really hard.

I mean, I can't mix another bucket of that stuff.

[Sibella] This restoration is physically and emotionally draining

but Marcus and Jo are still driven, determined to build a new life

and move on from the horrors of two major bush-fires.

The first was in 2006, when Jo was two weeks away from giving birth.

[Marcus] About four CFA units all came in.

They all said, "Oh, mate, this is too dangerous in here.

"We're all pulling out."

And then, one other CFA truck come in, the Emerald CFA,

and he goes, "Look, I'm happy staying here with you."

[Sibella] With the help of the Emerald CFA and a favorable wind change,

Marcus saved the house.

[Marcus] After the little one was born,

we named her Emerald, after the Emerald CFA,

for coming in and giving us a hand, and th at.

[Sibella] But it was just a taste of what was to come two years later.

[Marcus] That come from, like, this direction, over here.

-There was flames going right over. -Yeah .

-The flames were probably about... -Basically right over the house.

Eighty to a hundred feet off the tops of t he trees,

coming over, straight over the top of us here.

Everything was on fire and the wind blowing through

was strong enough to lift the kids' trampoline up

and throw it over the tops of those trees.

Yeah, she was going, that one. It was moving.

[Sibella] What a classic piece of Marcus understatement.

"That one" was Black Saturday, Australia's deadliest bush-fire.

It was moving that quick that even the birds couldn't escape.

Actually, in here, it was just raining bir ds.

Because everything was on fire,

it burnt all the oxygen out the air in here.

Stopped the pumps. Um, stopped me.

I ended up unconscious on the ground,

so just pretty much in the garden over there.

It was just lucky that I had the pump hose, like, laying on me chest.

I sort of come to and I remember looking around

and the pump wasn't going but everything else was.

Everything else was on fire so I got up, got the pump going.

The bloody black smoke from the tanks just about frickin' killed me,

you know, trying to put out all the shit that was burning in there.

[Sibella] With no time to escape,

Marcus and Jo had to stay and defend their home and their family.

[Marcus] The kids were sitting in the bath with a torch.

Got 'em to keep shining it.

[Jo] Byron was six and Emerald wa s three. [Marcus] Six. Three, or something. Yeah.

Six and three. But they helped.

[Jo] At the end, I just thought, "Oh, my God. We've made it...

We're alive," you know?

And then Emerald CFA turned up.

-Yeah. -That week.

Came to see if the house was still standing.

They come to see if we were all right.

-Bloody hell. They were in tears. -[Jo] The house was standing.

[Marcus] They couldn't believe it. Yeah.

[Jo] Yeah.

[Sibella] Marcus lost 25 people he knew that day.

[Marcus] The following six months were pretty hard.

There was a bit of a struggle in that.

[Jo] I mean, it's devastating, when you lose a community,

you know, your friends.

Life, as it was, was all of a sudden gone, and...

[Marcus] Yeah, it's just been turned on its head.

Hi. Got you a coffee.

Ah, bewdy. Thanks for that.

Thanks, mate. Ta.

-How's it going? -Yeah, good. Getting there.

[Jo] In terms of Marcus, um, I mean,

Woodcot Park has been the best thing that we could've done

because, I mean, after the fire, he, um, he really struggled.

It's been two years and I think I can see a massive difference

and I can see him healing.

For me, it's the same, really.

I mean, I'm really looking forward to the future

and, you know, I've got a focus and I'm really excited.

[Sibella] It's been a year and a half since I first met Marcus and Jo.

They've been hard at work and made real progress,

though the extra plastering has slowed them down.

-Hello. -Hello! It's good to see you.

-You, too. Hey, Jo. Hi, Marcus. -How you doing?

Looks a bit different the last time you were here.

Oh, my goodness. Well, last time, it was like inside of a whale.

Yeah, it was just all sticks and bits and pieces.

And I think this is my part of the wall.

Yeah! [chuckles] That's the bit!

Think you did a better job than Marcus!

-[Marcus] Yeah. Yeah. - [all laugh]

[Marcus] So this has got the smooth coat on it now.

[Sibella] It looks amazing. Are you happy?

-[Marcus] Yeah, it's good. Yep. -[Jo] Yeah.

Definitely worth it. It's been a lot of work but...

[Marcus] It's about eight times more work than the... [chuckles]

-Did you give him a hand, Byron? -Yeah.

Yeah, Byron's...

At the moment, Byron's learning how to use the hawk and trowel.

-[Sibella] Nice. How you going with it? -Yeah, all right.

-Yeah, a flick of the wrist? -Yep. Bit sketchy but...

-Yeah? -[all laugh]

I've been mixing plaster.

-[Marcus] Yeah, Jo's been the mixer. -That's my job.

-With the little bits of hair. -[Jo] Yeah, hair.

And, in the hall,

there was a lot of lath-and-plaster that was falling off.

I remember.

And as we've taken the plaster off, we've sieved through it,

and taken original hair out of the plaster

and then put it back into the new plaster.

[Marcus] The plaster hangs better so you get away with more.

[Sibella] I know, from the beginning,

you were pretty strict about using the traditional trades

but it seems like you've taken it to a whole other level.

When I first met these guys,

the plan was to hand-plaster just two rooms.

Now they've nearly completed the entire house.

That decision has cost them many extra months

and a lot more manual labor.

[Marcus] I think we worked out about 16

-or 18 tonne by hand. - [Sibella] My God.

-So you've been busy? -Yeah, been no down time.

We made a...

[Sibella] As if the lath-and-plaster wasn't enough,

Marcus has spent hours crafting historically accurate profiles

on architraves and skirting boards

[Marcus] It'd be much easier to go down the hardware store

and buy a profile and put it up,

but we wanted to make it so it was very traditional

and a match to everything that was here so we just made everything.

I think you have to tell everyone that walks into this house,

when you've finished it, that this is all hand-tooled...

-[all laugh] -Hand-made, done with love.

Marcus is so humble and downplays everything

but when you start to get into what he has done in this place,

it's absolutely amazing.

The detail in the profiles is just so finicky and labor-intensive

and he's an absolute perfectionist.

[Marcus] Jo lets me know if it's not r ight.

[Jo] I'll let him know.

[Sibella] Oh, it goes into the reject pile?

[Jo] Oh, it does, yeah.

-He's gotta redo it. -Quality control, like...

[all laugh]

This is looking a bit different.

[Marcus] Yeah, we've been doing a little b it of, um, deconstruction out here.

[Jo] I love the ceiling.

It's like it was in the 1870s, 1880s, when it was built.

We assumed that it was 1950s

because you walk in and that's what it appears to be.

-When was the add-on put on? -Well, George built the add-on.

As we go, we can sort of date the periods

by the nails and things that are used

so you can sort of see here,

the original one was a square, hand-made n ail.

[Sibella] Yup.

And then, when the extension's gone on,

they've gone to wire nails, like, which is sort of around the 1870s.

We found this little bit of timber

just sort of pushed into the side in there

and, when we took it out, we discovered that

this is the original door jamb.

-But it has George's kids' names-- -Their heights on it.

[Sibella] Oh, their heights. That's fantastic.

[Jo] Isn't it amazing, to discover that?

[Sibella] You guys are discovering lots of things about this house,

with a keen eye.

-Yeah, yeah. -Yeah.

Did you ever think that you'd find

all this, sort of, treasure trove of history?

-No. It keeps us motivated. -When you saw cows grazing in it?

[Sibella] There's a real sensitivity

to how Jo and Marcus approached the restoration of this house.

Anything that I touch in there or any question I have,

they seem to have the historical answer for it.

They want to really respect the house and listen to the house

and, in doing that, the house has really revealed

all these hidden secrets and histories that they're enjoying so much.

This is quite the history journey, isn't it?

It is, yeah, just being a bit of a detective as you go along, so...

[Sibella] This careful approach

has helped to solve the mystery of the "Weetie box"room.

This is a wall that we actually put back in that was here originally.

We found some of the studs up in the roof.

-Which was really exciting. -Yeah.

[Jo] When we found the timber in the roof cavity,

we realized there was a small, like, butler's pantry or something.

[Sibella] This discovery is significant, as it helps them to piece together

James Nielson's final minutes in Woodcot Park.

So what we think happened was that, um, Jessie, his wife,

was in here with the nursery maid, Mary-Ellen Williams.

They'd just had a baby.

And James came in

and he asked if his little dog had been thrown in the river.

And Jessie basically says to him,

"You're acting under delirium tremens.

"I'll get your tea for you."

And James says, "No, no. I'll get it."

He grabs the keys, he comes across here, he goes in,

he locks the door and they've heard that he's locked the door

and they've thought, "Why is he locking the door?"

And he had his gun.

Basically, what happened is, um,

within three minutes, he'd killed himself.

[gunshot]

[Jo] They were too late.

-[Sibella] And is that all in this? -It's all in this.

Where did you find this?

Brian had it, who is an ancestor of James.

-Wow. What a thing to find. -Yeah, I know. It's amazing. I know.

"A transcription of the inquest into the death of James Nielson."

What date have we got here? "13th of March, 1859."

"When I heard the report, Mrs. Nielson screamed

"and I ran towards the road for help.

"The report of the gun took place about half past eight last evening."

-Oh, it sends shivers up my spine. -Doesn't it?

"I believe he'd been drinking two days before his death

"and had not touched any spirits since."

Heavy drinkers who stop suddenly can experience hallucinations

associated with delirium tremens, the DTs.

Maybe that's what led James to make his fatal decision.

Tragically, the baby they were tending that day,

James' 10th child, died six months later.

Do you think the house is haunted?

[Marcus] The presence you feel is not angry, or anything.

Sometimes some unusual things happen.

We were in the cellar one time

and we'd found half a brick with some writing on it

and then, a few days later,

we had a massive big pile of broken bricks

and we said, "Wouldn't it be great to be able to find the other half?"

And the first brick that Jo picked up out of the pile

was the other half.

[Sibella] It matched it?

[Marcus] Written on the brick, it says "first brick" and it's got the date.

-[Sibella] Oh, that's fantastic. -[Marcus] From when the bricks were made.

-[Sibella] It seems uncanny, doesn't it? -It is very uncanny.

Look at the watch.

[Sibella] Whose headstone is this? James'?

That's James' wife, first wife.

[Sibella] Jo feels a real connection with the first lady of the house, Isabella.

She's buried at the local cemetery

but last time Jo checked, there was no trace of a headstone.

[Jo] We know it's facing the river. We might be able to find where it was.

Yeah, I did a painting and it's just my interpretation

of what it would've been like when

-James lived here. -[Sibella] It's beautiful.

[Sibella] It looks old, Jo.

[Jo] Yeah, I was trying to make it look ol d.

[Sibella] You did a great job.

Just trying to, you know, imagine what it would've been like

when, um, James was living in the house.

[Sibella] The sky was like that today.

-[Jo] Was it? -Yeah. Gorgeous.

[Sibella] How much longer do you think the project has taken

because you decided to lath-and-plaster and repair it?

[Marcus] Oh, that probably added a year.

[Jo] What do you do, though?

[Sibella] There's such a softness to the finish of the plaster

'cause there's real movement in it.

[Marcus] That's got a part of you in it. That's the thing.

Whereas a flat bit of plasterboard gives you nothing. It's just flat.

[Sibella] With the amount of effort that's gone into these walls,

you'd think they'd want to show off the finish

but that's not what they did back in the 1850s.

[Marcus] Nearly ready to get covered up with wallpaper now.

-Do you wanna see some? -Yeah, I do.

[Sibella] Did you have it hand-printed?

[Jo] Yeah, there's a lady in Melbourne

that hand-blocks them from original Victorian designs.

-Oh, that's lovely. -Yeah.

-It's absolutely beautiful. -It is beautiful, isn't it?

-The colors are gorgeous. -And they always had wallpaper.

[Sibella] They did, paper upon paper upon paper.

I think they call it a paper sandwich.

-Do they? Oh, how interesting. -Mmm.

So how are you gonna attach this to the wall?

-Well, that's Marcus's job. -All the good ones are.

So we're just working out how much lining paper and what glues,

actually what size to use to adhere it to the lime mortar.

[Sibella] A local wall-paperer was reluctant to tackle this job

because he thought the walls were too rough.

When we did our test,

we were sort of having a look at what the surface would be like

and, I mean, we're pretty happy with that.

I mean, you have a look. What do you think?

-I like it. I like it not smooth. -I like it. I know. Same.

Otherwise, you should've just plaster-boarded the room.

That's right.

[Sibella] One year after they originally planned to move in,

Marcus and Jo have finished the plastering

and they're onto the next job,

lining the walls with newspaper in preparation for the wallpaper.

[Marcus] We opted for the newspaper 'cause that's what they used to do back then.

I think, when we pulled some of the old paper off here,

there was newspaper from 1932 and '34.

[Sibella] And although Marcus won't admit it,

there is, of course, one other reason.

[Jo] It was cost and availability. It's just there.

And, Marcus, he's a bit of a tight arse so, yeah.

[Sibella] The decision to lath-and-plaster the whole house

added a year to this project.

The extra time apart has taken a toll.

It dragged on and on

and when he was down here over winter

and I'm at home, it was... Yeah, it was hard,

him being away from the family.

I mean, it's a sacrifice.

It's a sacrifice like you wouldn't believe.

But, I mean, if you have a passion for old houses, you just do it.

Yeah, she was a big job but it was worth the result in the end.

[Sibella] They have some hand-printed paper left from another restoration

but it's not enough.

-Hi! We're here! -Hi, Barbara! How are you?

-Good to see you again. -Great to see you.

Can't believe it! After all this time!

[Sibella] Barbara is a heritage wallpaper expert.

She has some special paper she's been saving for years.

She hopes it will suit Woodcot Park.

[gasps] You've got the original ceiling rose.

[Marcus] Yeah. It's actually papie r mache.

[Sibella] Looks like an acanthus leaf. [Marcus] Yeah.

A wonderful surprise, to find something like this.

Part of our ancient history, really.

-There's not much of it left. -[Marcus] No. No.

And to find two people who are prepared to do it...

-You're a rare pair these days. -Oh, thank you.

Yeah, it's so hard to find people who've got that in their heart

and they can put it back into our history.

[Sibella] One of the most impressive features of Woodcot Park

is its grand entrance hall.

Hopefully, Barbara can find a paper to match.

Ta-da! [laughs]

We'll take this small one so it's easy to handle.

-Who wants to pull it out? -Marcus can.

Okay. Okay. [chuckles]

[gasps] Oh, my God. I can see it! Oh!

It's beautiful! Oh, isn't that gorgeous?

-Oh, yeah. That's amazing. -Oh!

[Barbara] Now, this is what they call a mock marble,

which is what would've been in a house like this.

I've had it sitting underneath the benches for years,

waiting for the right people to come along.

No, you've done well.

I've seen so many people who've undertaken things like this

and they can't go the distance and it either makes or breaks a marriage

and, for you two, it's come closer.

I'm so pleased. I'm so pleased that it's gone to you at this house.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

Oh, Jo! No, don't! [laughs]

-Don't! Oh! -You all right?

You all right? Oh, I shouldn't have-- I didn't mean to upset you.

-No, you haven't upset me! -[laughs]

-Here, I've got some tissue here. -Sorry!

Oh! You'll have to cuddle her properly tonight, Marcus.

Let's put it...

[Jo] If you don't have the passion, you don't survive

because it's not an easy thing and not everybody wants it.

Wow. Yeah, that's great, isn't it?

-Is it what you thought it would be? -Yeah.

Oh, it's better.

[Barbara] Jo and Marcus are the right owners.

No, it's good, isn't it?

[Sibella] Jo's really nervous about the wallpapering.

You explaining it to me really sort of isn't enough.

I think, until I do it, then I might feel more comfortable with it.

It'll turn out all right.

It's a matter of setting the first one str aight

and working your way around.

[Sibella] With Barbara's help, these guys are reviving another fading craft.

A lot of people think of wallpaper as something that was big in the '70s

but it actually has a much longer, richer history.

[Barbara] During the gold rush, particularly in Victoria,

anybody who struck gold, you know, that was the first thing they did.

They'd wallpaper their tents.

Most of the houses that were built in the early days

were wallpapered from top to toe.

It was used as a building material.

The internal walls used to let in the elements,

they'd let in the insects

and the dust and the flies and all that sort of thing.

Wallpaper kept it all out.

[Marcus] Now that it's all sealed up and there's no birds flying through

and cows wandering through the middle of it,

it's turned back into a family home

and, you know, it's full of laughter and fun again.

The previous residents, no doubt,

would be happy to see it all back up and running again

and, um, yeah, just see it turned back into a family home again,

like what they had it, over the years.

[Sibella] The first people to call Woodcot Park home

were James and Isabella Nielson.

Today, Marcus and Jo want to honor their memory at the local cemetery.

Last time Jo was here, she couldn't find Isabella's headstone.

[Jo] Oh, wow. Look at this.

[Sibella] But she's unearthed another photo of the headstone

and this time she's hopeful.

[Marcus] Yeah, I reckon that's it. [Jo] Yeah, I do too.

We'll shoot down the back, see if we can find it.

-Okay. Yep. -Let's go.

[Sibella] For these guys, Woodcot Park is much more than a building.

It's a family home with a rich history they want to honor.

Yeah, that is it.

-Oh, my God. It is it. -Yeah, that is it.

-Yeah, that's it for sure. -Look.

-Yeah. -It's the same shape. It is.

[Marcus] That's Isabella. Yep. [Byron] Isabella. Yeah.

[Jo] Isabella. [Byron] What about James?

Well, James is in an unmarked grave so I'm not sure where he is.

-He could be either side. -Could be next to her.

Could be right here somewhere.

[Sibella] So Isabella's headstone is here after all

but snapped in three and in poor condition.

[Marcus] Come on, guys.

[Sibella] It looks like Marcus and Jo

have found themselves one more restoration job.

Respects paid, it's back to the wallpapering.

This is not a simple job.

These walls are high and this hand-printed paper is tricky.

[Sibella] I'm back in Gippsland, going down to see Jo and Marcus.

I haven't seen them for quite some time

but they do tell me that the house is finished.

I know how hard they work and their attention to detail is remarkable

so I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what they've done.

[Jo] Hello. [Sibella] Hi. How are you?

[Marcus] Yeah, good.

-Oh, you're both looking relaxed. -Yeah.

-Oh, well, we're finished. Yeah! -You've finished? That's amazing.

I've been looking forward to coming down.

-Let's go and have a look. -Come and have a look.

Great.

-Wow. It's like a theater set. -[Jo] It is, isn't it?

-[Marcus] It come up all right. It's good . -Oh, it's amazing!

- Yeah, yeah. Mmm! -And what about these walls?

Oh, my goodness.

[Marcus] Gives you that grand entrance feeling, so...

[Sibella] It certainly does. It was grand before.

[Jo] Yeah, I know!

This is almost like the summer room, isn't it?

-[Marcus] Yeah. Yeah. -Light and bright.

[Jo] Informal. [Sibella] Yeah, it's gorgeous.

[Marcus] No more bees in here now, or birds flying around, so...

[Sibella] The hard work and sweat

that have gone into this restoration are remarkable

but I'm equally impressed

by the attention to detail in the furnishings.

What was your approach to furniture?

They're all from the period, from the 1840s, 1850s,

furniture that could've been in this house.

Woodcot Park is no longer a building site.

The way that they've chosen their papers and their colors

and their soft furnishings

make it a really comfortable, inviting, warm home.

You chose to tackle a huge task, restoring this house.

It's been two years. How are you feeling?

-Tired. -Exhausted.

We never intended to do the lath-and-plaster

and that was 12 months' worth

-of really physical, tough work. -Yeah, hard yakka.

Thought it might take four to six weeks.

-Yep. Forget it. - [both laugh]

-That's a joke. -It is just that labor-intensive.

I think we put about 16 tonne of plaster on.

Sixteen tonne put on, on a 12-inch-long trowel.

That's a few trowel strokes.

[Sibella] Rejecting modern building methods has cost them time

but it's paid off in other ways.

[Marcus] To do it the traditional way was very rewarding

and it just has a different feel.

[Sibella] But did they stick to their budget?

[Marcus] We would've done the restoration for under 100,000.

You don't even get an extension put on your house for that.

[Sibella] Jo and Marcus really listened to the story that this house told them.

It was a tragic tale

but they seem to have made their peace with the ghosts of the past.

[Marcus] Yeah, it's just part of its history.

It makes it interesting, I suppose.

I'm quite comfortable living here. It doesn't worry me.

I mean, it is part of the house's history and, you know, I feel good about it.

Ah, you've been true to it.

Do you think James and George would be proud

and impressed by your efforts?

[Marcus] Yeah, they'd be rapt. [Jo] Yeah!

[Marcus] The time that they've spent here hasn't been lost.

[Sibella] You really have saved this house but has it saved you as well?

[Jo] It's definitely helped.

[Marcus] Oh, yeah, it's definitely helpe d.

We've had this to work on together

and it's sort of strengthened our relationship, and things,

and it's been great.

[Jo] You have to stay focused when working on a project like this,

and you have to work together as a team.

[Marcus] Yeah, we're a pretty good team.

Yeah, doing this has certainly helped us.

[Sibella] It's been such a treat to follow you over a two-year period

to see what's achievable

when two people are as determined and precise

-and then get this incredible result. -Mmm.

It is incredibly impressive.

-Congratulations. -Thank you.

-Well, thanks. -Thank you.

-It's incredible. -It means a lot, coming from you.

[Sibella] Over the last two years, watching these two work together,

even though, yes, there is bickering, like any relationship,

they have stuck together and what they've achieved

has given them an incredible confidence.

In this kind of time-frame, to pull this off is quite magical

and you see a real unity in the family now.

It's lovely for them. What a way to heal and recover.

Jo and Marcus set out to save this house and their family.

It was a totally ambitious project that, amazingly, they pulled off.

It's so inspiring and just goes to show,

with focus and quiet determination, remarkable things can be achieved.

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