Budget Breakdown: After a $322K Revamp, an Australian Beach House Fends Off Flooding

I knock on the front door of Cal Somni, but there’s no answer. It feels like the kind of place where you don’t knock anyway. You just arrive. There’s a car in the driveway indicating someone’s presence so I wander along a redbrick path toward a garden pavilion, its doors wide open with quiet invitation. Beyond the pavilion, the murmur of a creek calls my attention into the bushland where Nigel Chouri and Crick King emerge barefoot, fresh from a swim.