Retired residents of Chalker Ridge John Nankiville and Christine Smith have dedicated the past eight years of their lives to turning a cow paddock into a five acre house, shed, farm and multiple impressive gardens.
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"It's a full time job, but it's the best job in the world," Ms Smith said.
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The gardens have been so impressive that the couple took out the prize for Best First Time Garden entry at this year's Goulburn Lilac City Festival.
"We were very proud to get the awards, there are so many beautiful gardens across Goulburn so to be recognised for our work was fantastic," Ms Smith said.
The pair moved from Canberra eight years ago, and started their operation by building a 100 square metre shed, a third of which they converted into a live-in unit.
They spent three years living in the converted space while they continued to finish up their work building a four-bedroom house.
The project of erecting the two buildings took a total of five years.
The shed is now split into three sections: one for when guests come over, where they can utilise the outdoor plumbing facilities, one for tools, and one for all other farming supplies.
But for the pair the job still wasn't done.
The duo has spent every day since, moving to the property, and working on their award winning gardens.
This work has included planting more than 600 trees, some of which include seeds from the iconic trees in Belmore park, as well as hundreds of other plants including lilac plants, especially planted for the Festival.
Ms Smith said that they were especially proud of the well that they created using leftover materials from their house, as well as bricks that were hundreds of years old.
"Some of the bricks that we used to create the well in one of our gardens were sourced from Goulburn Brickworks, some were even made by convicts," Ms Smith said.
Along with the well, other features of the multiple gardens include "a secret garden" filled with plenty of native plants, ceramic views of the countryside, and a sitting area surrounded by overarching trees.
The couple said it was the best life they could ask for.
"Goulburn is just so beautiful, we just love working on the house and garden every day," Ms Smith said.
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