Mim Fergie and Jordan Lomas built a shed house in regional Qld
Priced out of the housing market after selling up to live on the land, Miriam Fergie and Jordan Lomas turned to a flat-pack build for their family home.
The Scenic Rim couple, aged 33 and 34, completed the main structure in just five weeks and cut their construction costs by about half.
They flipped their first Brisbane home for $750,000 in 2024, using the proceeds to buy a 1.11ha vacant block in Dugandan for $385,000, with plans to build a family home and establish a flower farm for their two young sons.
The house frame arrived in pieces. Pic: Supplied
“We knew we wanted to move out of the city and have a slower pace of life,” florist Ms Fergie said. “We looked at buying an existing house, but we couldn’t find anything we really loved, and it felt wasted money to demolish or renovate.
“So we found a block of land and committed to it.”
That decision soon collided with rising construction costs.
“We thought we had plenty of money to build but were quickly served some humble pie,” Ms Fergie said.
“We spoke to two different architects just to get a gauge of cost and we were shocked. It was way above our budget.”
They moved to the country to establish a flower farm. Pic: Supplied/Instagram
Initial estimates put a traditional shed-style home at about $440,000. “And honestly, now that we’ve been through the process, I think it would have been even more,” Ms Fergie said.
Instead, the couple chose an owner-builder route, purchasing a flat-pack kit from Aussie company Shed House, inspired by the classic farm sheds in the surrounding paddocks
“A friend sent us a picture of a shed house and it just clicked,” she said. “It’s that familiar silver shed you see on every working farm — tough, low-key, built to handle whatever the seasons throw at it. But this one is more than a shed, it’s our home.”
Mr Lomas put up the frame single-handedly, while they outsourced external cladding
Despite having no construction background — “I think I bought Jordan his first drill when we bought our first house,” Ms Fergie joked — Mr Lomas, a sales consultant with a background in hospitality, assembled the frame largely solo once the slab was poured. “It felt like a giant Meccano set when it arrived but the instructions were really comprehensive.”
Building largely in cash added pressure. “Once the money runs out, the build stops,” Ms Fergie said. “It’s been daunting, but going slow has been a blessing in disguise.”
The cost to reach lock-up, excluding interior finishes, came to $218,353, with major expenses including $65,230 for the kit and frame, $25,850 for the slab, $44,596 for plumbing and wastewater, $23,000 for roofing and cladding, and $14,244 for plans and drawings, alongside council fees and service connections.
The couple bought their first home in Brisbane and worked in hospitality
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Ms Fergie said the experience had reshaped how they thought about housing. “So many people told us, ‘you can’t do this’, but that actually motivated us,” she said. “Thinking about what we actually need as a family and not going beyond our means has been the best thing we’ve done.”
Their approach reflects a broader shift across Queensland. New data from Shed House Australia shows the state led the country for kit-home enquiries late last year, recording 195 build enquiries in November and December 2025, ahead of Victoria (166) and Western Australia (100) — an eightfold increase year-on-year.
Katie Penfold of Shed House Australia
“The increase out of Queensland is particularly unique, coming mostly from young families going owner-builder using land they already own,” Shed House director Katie Penfold said.
The trend aligned with research from Great Southern Bank, which found 35 per cent of Queensland home buyers believe there are not enough homes available, well above the national average of 27 per cent.
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