IT WAS THE TREES THAT DID IT. Three huge fruit trees – two mangoes and an avocado – in an overgrown backyard were enough to capture the imagination of Rhiannon Dawson and Steele Olney when they first visited their Hunter Valley, New South Wales, home on its auction day.
To be fair, the house itself had seen better days. The 100-year-old weatherboard cottage in Lorn, a pretty satellite village of Maitland – traditional Wonnarua land – was showing its age: its hardwood piers were rotting, the floorboards were warped and the plaster walls were crumbling. “The house had plenty of character, but it needed a lot of work,” recalls Rhiannon, 36. “For me, it was the yard. It had a
