AT WORK
Richard and Lise Browning on the tools in Kalumburu, in the Kimberley, WA.
Build it, and we will come No matter how remote the building or renovation project, Lise and Richard Browning will turn up, fully equipped, ready to swing their tools into action. STORY + PHOTOS KEN EASTWOOD
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n the steamy community of Kalumburu, with the smell of frangipanis ripe in the air and kids kicking a footy nearby, Lise and Richard Browning are wielding nail guns, circular saws and bush knowhow. It’s October, and while they’re working 250 kilometres north of the Gibb River Road – in one of the remotest parts of the Kimberley – on an old termiteinfested, cypress pine arts centre, they’re keeping one eye on the job at hand, and another on the weather. “We need to finish this, get the roof on and pour a huge concrete slab before it starts raining, before the wet. That includes mixing 35 tonnes of concrete by hand,” Lise says. “The wet season is predicted to come early this year and we have to get our rig out of here before that happens, because the locals say we could be stuck here until May.” Dealing with flooded roads and wet-season rains is just one of the many challenges the dynamic duo face in their business Remote Building Services. They’ve also faced huge bushfires and dealing with cock-ups with critical building supplies they’ve ordered – not easy when you’re 15 hours’ drive from the nearest Bunnings. Fully mobile, Lise, 46, and Richard, 45, travel with all their tools and a Bushtracker van, doing major renovations, repairs, roofing and building work on remote pastoral properties and in communities from Victoria and western New South Wales to Arnhem Land and the Kimberley. From building new houses or installing kitchen cabinetry, bathroom remodelling and tiling to painting and plastering or roofing, there seems little they can’t do. To ensure they can cover their travelling costs, the couple insists that projects be of a sufficient size to keep them occupied for at least three months. “Most of the stuff we do is a whole house or whole home renovation,” Lise says. “We start off
doing something like that, and we end up doing the whole farm complex. The list gets longer and longer and longer. People see what we’ve done and they say, ‘Can you do this as well?’ ‘Can you do that?’ ... and usually the neighbours say, ‘Can you quickly do this before you leave?”’ The business started by accident. “It’s something that we’ve fallen into – it wasn’t something we set out to do,” Lise says. They met as teenagers on the Sunshine Coast, before Richard began working at Lise’s family’s broiler farms. He became a carpenter and builder while Lise developed her interest in buying properties, renovating them and then renting or selling them. Seven years ago, the couple began travelling around Australia with their two children, aged 8 and 11, for what they thought was three months. They picked up a bit of work along the way, and then one job led to another, and they have pretty much been travelling ever since, generally heading north in the dry season, and in the wet season trying to remain within about five hours’ drive of New England, where the kids have gone to boarding school. “We just love meeting new people and doing interesting things,” Lise says. “It’s a lot about lifestyle for us … it’s about having great experiences and family.” The children have joined them when they can. “The kids have always flown out to wherever we are in the holidays,” Lise says. “They don’t know where they’re spending their school holidays.” Much of their work comes from word-of-mouth recommendations, but their website also has a growing collection of testimonials that describe their professional, practical and creative help. Keeping costs down is a priority, and when they first arrive or check out a job, they
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try to source or scrounge building materials on site before working out how best to order additional materials in. And despite constantly reminding people packing their orders to triple check, they are often disappointed when they receive the materials, such as a whole load of paint delivered to a job in Arnhem Land that was completely the wrong colour, despite sending a colour sample and asking for a match. The mistake resulted in an unplanned seven-hour freight trip from Darwin and a six-hour return drive to Katherine to pick up the replacement order. Some of the more challenging jobs have included houses with bullet holes in the windows, walls patched up with cardboard boxes, toilets that flush onto the garden and electric currents running through the taps. But no matter how bad the job first appears, Lise says, at the end of the project, she loves seeing the clients use something that has been repaired or built for the first time. “The people who we work for are just so poorly serviced, and they don’t get looked after. They’re used to just making do or going without,” she says. “We get a lot of satisfaction when everything is done and cleaned and finished. Things work properly and it’s not filthy and broken-down anymore. We get a lot back from that. It makes going to work really enjoyable.” The Remote Building Services vehicle set-up enables Lise and Richard to get into the most remote locations. OPPOSITE: Before and after shots in an Arnhem Land station.