17 Browning Street

17 Browning Street is a big old Queenslander house over 2 levels. From 1937 it was a rooming house until it was sealed shut, frozen in time since 2002 when the owner died. Everything in it remains exactly as she had left it down to the sheets on the bed and the crockery on the shelves. Elizabeth Jeffs wrote a book about the house and the lives that passed through it.

During the recent Brisbane Festival, they re-opened the house so you could wander through the rooms, hear sounds and see actors playing the parts of the residents going about their daily business. It was great wandering around, being able to poke about in people's rooms and belongings! This lady was playing the part of Juliette. She spent the whole time I was there wandering around the garden idly hanging out washing on a broken Hills Hoist with a far away look in her eyes.