In November 2010, Kate and Michael drove up to Beverley to buy the House that Rocks. We signed all the required paperwork, which then had to be photocopied. Our real estate agent’s “office”, which contained her photocopier, was in a group of four decrepit shops on Vincent Street (the main drag of Beverley) with an attached “residence” out the back. And so we met the Forbes Building.

Michael was smitten on the spot. With a torch to navigate, he plunged his way into its innards. 390 square metres of building, two parcels of land with separate titles and more work needed to salvage the place than we ever could have imagined…

The Forbes building had been around for generations of families living and working in Beverley. The original wooden shops, evident from before 1914, gave way for a new brick building, photographed in 1919 at the dedication of the War Memorial across the road. Then in 1929, DH Forbes bought the building, extended and renovated it. He also changed the facade to the one present to this day. Tenants had included a rural supplies shop, tea rooms, hairdresser, bakery, deli, dressmaker, drum depot and most recently, a second-hand business.

The building was nominally for sale. The owners in 2010 had thought they could buy it, renovate it quickly and turn a quick buck. The amount they wanted for the shops was beyond our financial capabilities, so we had to walk away…

But the building kept drawing us in. Over 18 months, Michael visited the building, explored it, dreamed about it, drew it, and longed for it. I thought the Forbes Building was a disaster. The amount of time, effort and money seemed insurmountable.

The Forbes Building was under offer in early 2012. Then the sale fell through. Michael was elated and terrified. He convinced me to take another look through the building. I walked through it again, trying to imagine what Michael could see.

Then, much to my amazement, I saw past the piles of rubble, the disintegrating walls, doors that led nowhere, the rising damp, the smell and the cavernous cracks. The soaring pressed tin ceilings were beautiful, the wooden floorboards were salvageable and there was enough space under the main roof to hopefully renovate without the need for an extension.

The so-called “residence” – a one bedroom solo unit – could have minimal improvements in order to rent it out. At last, I could glimpse its potential

We put in an offer. Somehow the miracle happened. The Forbes Building became ours in July 2012. We had an indoor BBQ to celebrate! Most of our friends thought we were quite mad.

Then the work started. Power connection. Dave the Brave, our electrician, found ancient wiring, a burnt out meter box and the remains of a long departed cat in the ceiling. The job was mammoth and expensive. But gradually, all our extension cords disappeared, each shop had its own meter and electricity became a reality. Until the roof leaked and fried the new meter in Shop 4!

Michael’s trips to the roof were frequent. He cleaned and hosed and repaired and sealed. Gradually, the leaks were stopping. The building was drying out at last.

Filling, bogging, plastering and painting the internal walls never ceased. Once one crack was repaired, a new one appeared without warning. The cracks also opened or contracted depending on the season. The back door of Shop 1 jammed due to the movement of the building on multiple occasions. Michael planed that door again and again and had to move the handle and the lock because they just wouldn’t line up anymore.

Some of the cracks were so wide I could put my arm inside the wall. We repaired the first two shops, painted them, polished the magnificent jarrah floorboards in one and installed a floating laminate floor in the other. A window was resurrected from behind plaster in Shop 2 and the fireplace restored. The change was jaw-dropping. Both these shops were rented out by the end of 2012.

Michael was itching to begin work on Shops 3 and 4, which was to become his metal art gallery. Fate and the building had other ideas. The external wall had to be reinforced before it collapsed. Michael and Dan the Man, our brickie, spent three days in the December heat, replacing broken bricks, mortaring and then rendering the wall to secure that end of the building.

Then Gary, a long time friend of Michael’s needed somewhere to stay, urgently. They worked nonstop on the residence for 3 months to make it fit for human habitation. The bathroom (Black Hole of Calcutta) was painted, tiled, received a new toilet, a hot water system and a laundry trough. The Hallway to Hell had its demonically dreadful wooden floor re-laid, covered in lino and painted. Doors were fixed. A pot belly stove was installed. The ceiling stopped falling in and received a well-deserved coat of paint. The windows were fitted with new panes. The bedroom window even had a flyscreen! The walls were all painted, the smell more or less disappeared and the residence became Gary’s home.

Ideas kept bombarding Michael’s brain. The gallery was put on the back burner once again. This time, he needed to excavate an underground water storage tank directly behind the wet areas.

This tank was a relic of Beverley’s past, used for water storage prior to the town being connected to the Kalgoorlie water pipeline in 1907. Michael managed to put his camera through a porthole at the top and photographed the interior. We knew it was big, we just didn’t know how big. And he was sure the tank would be lined with bricks, which he wanted to recover for our boundary wall.

We learnt how big when excavation began. The tank was over four metres deep and almost four metres wide. It was lined with two layers of bricks. Michael, Gary and another friend Steve moved the bricks out by hand. It was an insane, monumental task and took all of March. By the end of the excavation, Michael was utterly exhausted and already very sick with “walking pneumonia”.

Michael spent nearly all of April 2014 in hospital. His survival is testament to the fantastic staff at Joondalup Hospital. He tottered home, still on IV antibiotics. A further two days in hospital at the end of May reminded us about the fragility of his recovery. A trip to his beloved Goldfields in June assisted with the renewal of his well being. By July, Michael was feeling alive and enthusiastic once more.

He started work on Shop 3, with the help of Gary, in August. In the space of four weeks, the shop was transformed. We set up a display some of Michael’s sculptures in September to test the water. We realised we needed more art pieces.

The dream for the gallery gained momentum. We met Tim Burns, an internationally renowned artist who became our friend and mentor. At the same time, Michael and Gary were converting the dark, hot and neglected area behind the shops into Michael’s workshop and studio. In the middle of this work, Michael spent over a week in hospital with bronchitis.

A Christmas Exhibition was locked in. Tim and Murray Cook, a ceramic sculptor, convinced fellow artists to display their work in our gallery. Local artists were coming out of the woodwork.

We opened the East End Gallery on 19 December 2014 with over fifty pieces of art. We hosted a BBQ for the artists and their partners in the studio, which had been finished only the day before.

Fast forward four years. We are approaching our December birthday party for the Gallery once more. The Forbes Building has come into her own. From the humble beginnings, we now support and promote seventy artists throughout our one hundred and fifty square metres of space.

We turned a dream into a wondrous and magical reality. And I still pinch myself sometimes