You've heard of drab to fab, now get ready for Nissen hut to Glisten hut.
A glammed-up wartime building in Belmont North has hit the market after a 14-year restoration project that transformed it into one of the region's most unique homes.
Named after the British officer who invented them, the semi-cylindrical steel-framed huts were mass-produced in both world wars for defence accommodation, storage shelters and hospitals.
In 1951, ex-Prime Minister and then-Immigration Minister Harold Holt signed off on a plan to accommodate 100 families of British coal mine workers in Belmont North.
A cluster of about 50 Nissen huts known as 'Pommy Town' was erected not long after, fewer than half of which remain standing today.
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The Nissen hut at 4 Somerset Street, Belmont North's only local heritage-listed hut, is likely to outlast the lot after it was transformed by Sydney Living Museums (formerly known as the Historic Houses Trust of NSW).
The organisation, which aims to restore significant at-risk properties and return them to the marketplace, listed their eye-catching renovation for sale last Friday.
"It's really stylishly and beautifully renovated," Sydney Living Museums' Susan Sedgwick said.
"We've done all the things that people would expect in a modern home, but it still acknowledges the history of the site and the importance of the Nissen huts.
"Our intention was really to show how you can conserve and keep a lot of that original fabric, but still have modern living facilities."
Nissen huts were not made for comfort or longevity.
They could be erected in a matter of hours, but provided little insulation from the weather in their most basic form.
"They weren't insulated, they were terrible in winter, really hot in summer - they weren't built for that," Ms Sedgwick said.
"So there aren't many of them around that are still being lived in, or [if they are] they've been adapted a lot."
The 525 square metre property has been listed with LJ Hooker Belmont's Steven Georgalas, who achieved a record $700,000 for another renovated Nissen hut at 14 Arlington Street late last year.
That sale, and the $615,000 transaction of another Arlington Street hut that sold as a knockdown in April, has Mr Georgalas expecting a price of $700,000-plus.
"This is a better proposition," he said.
"When I look at my recent sales I feel like we're north of that figure, how far north we're trying to figure out.
"They've done a fantastic job, it's a really interesting home."
The Somerset Street hut was built in 1953 and sold by the Commonwealth of Australia in 1982.
It had just one owner between 1982 and 2008, when SLM picked it up for a price CoreLogic reveals to be $190,000.
The renovation, which began in 2021 as something of a landmark for SLM, involved extensive structural and cosmetic improvements and the addition of a second bedroom and bathroom.
Ms Sedgwick said the organisation had mainly tackled colonial homes before taking on the Nissen hut, which she considers an important part of the local history.
"That was why we took on the challenge to take it from a semi-industrial building into a residential building and turn it into something that's your loved family home."
The home will go to auction on September 6.
