THERE are some buildings you look at, with cracked windows and rotting door frames, and you instantly know that some wild events have taken place inside.
Any tavern is a fantastic example and Pingelly Exchange Tavern is the textbook answer of a building that's seen perhaps a little too much.
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Walking inside the tavern, you are greeted by new owner Warren Duffy, whose extensive and ongoing renovations are an attempt to breathe new life into a building that is gasping for air.
You have to wonder, when do the renovations stop?
"I want to put my stamp on it - but I haven't even got a choice, I have to put my stamp on it," said Mr Duffy, who bought the property late last year for $400,000, and has already spent a substantial $220,000 on renovations.
"The place is falling apart, everything you touch is ready to go."
Everything appears to be breaking, but I'm more concerned about what the ceilings and floorboards have seen.
There have been reports of ghosts wandering around the halls and Mr Duffy recently hosted some "ghost hunters" to look through the building for apparitions.
Apparently they were extremely successful and found multiple spirits that decided to stay behind and haunt Pingelly.
Mr Duffy said due to the next door building - converted into a soon-to-be coffee shop - being a doctor's surgery back in the day, the ghost hunters could sense many spirits.
I am no ghost hunter, so to confirm the strangest thing I encountered during my time at the tavern was my own gurgling stomach from a dodgy sausage roll I had consumed on the road.
That and the trapdoor Mr Duffy led me down to see his sign-room.
The sign-room was exactly how it sounds - a very low-ceilinged basement room down some rickety stairs with road signs proudly hung on the wall.
Mr Duffy had a story behind each sign.
The tavern was a labyrinth of different rooms and Mr Duffy had grand plans for all of them.
There is a coffee shop at the end of the tavern, which has drinks and an ice-cream fridge.
Connected to the back of the tavern was a barn-style structure, which Mr Duffy was hoping to turn into a bottle shop.
The bar for the tavern has been recently redone with beautiful jarrah woodwork and Mr Duffy is hoping to open within the year for customers - all that he is waiting for is a liquor licence.
He has the biggest televisions he could find waiting in boxes to be hung - so that the tavern can have an excellent Friday night footy atmosphere - and he intends to project movies onto the building across the road.
He plans to cater with fantastic food, having secured two international chefs to cook up to 500 meals per day.
The kitchen looks good as new, with industrial cooktops, dishwashers and fridges installed.
Throughout the tavern are throwbacks to different eras and owners, which gives the building a wonderful heritage clash.
For example, in the function hall there are ornate curtains, dried flowers, lace tablecloths and hand-operated sewing machines, from a time much different to now.
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In comparison, from what I can only guess is from the era of hippies and flower power, the ceiling fans are all painted rainbow colours.
Mr Duffy said it was beyond him why anyone would do that.
It's been an incredibly long journey of renovations, with many more ideas in the pipeline.
When asked why he was undertaking such a large endeavour in the middle of Pingelly, with a population of about 1000, Mr Duffy said it was for the love of history.
Mr Duffy runs Lost Perth on Facebook, which has more than 200,000 likes and documents the history of WA.
He said sometimes he feels like he wasted 10 years of his life investing in the Facebook page, but then he meets people who follow his work.
"I've met so many people crying in tears in front of me, it makes me so grateful," Mr Duffy said.
"I met someone who said they were reading my book to someone who had dementia or Alzheimer's disease and she 'came out'.
"She talked to her again, which is really when I started to cry."
He is passionate about restoring the past and has taken on this passion project to have a more "hands-on" approach to history - rather than his usual written musings.
"I have always had a fascination with history and nostalgia," Mr Duffy said.
Having worked in fencing most of his life, he has spent hours upon hours working in paddocks without talking to anyone.
He said he was looking forward to human interaction.
"I love being happy and friendly and telling silly jokes - I like being available to people," Mr Duffy said.
