If you've ever renovated an old house you'll know how weird and wonderful they can be! Our home had a fair few quirks once we started ripping walls down and measuring up for the extension. One of the biggest dramas (because there is always drama of some kind during a renovation!) was that the centre of our house was not quite the centre of the house. In fact, it was out by 10cm (that'd be 100mm in tradie speak. I'm still getting my head around talking in millimetres!). It doesn't sound like a huge amount but when you're lining up the steel posts that need to reach from the foundation all the way up to the centre of the roof - seven metres higher - it is a royal pain in the butt and meant a whole lot of mucking about with various components of the extension being increased by tiny increments so the centre of the extension lined up with the centre of the existing house. They got it to work, but it left us with an extra thick wall - two and a half times thicker than a normal wall. So, as we've done with all little hiccups throughout our renovations, we just made it work. And we thought a nice deep niche would be a good way to highlight what would otherwise be considered a bit of a flaw.

And when Steve brought some decking offcuts home from a job, I got to thinking: wouldn't this beautiful wide-planked spotted gum wood look smashing as a planter box in our niche? Yes, my thoughts said, yes it would.

So I looked around for something to fit the space and found an el cheapo $5 plastic planter from The Reject Shop which miraculously fit onto the ledge. Steve worked his magic with some mitre cuts and whipped me up this lovely wooden surround which now houses a very thriving Sansevieria Plant. I can easily slip it out to give it some extra light should the need arise. 

I sanded the timber really lightly and gave it a bit of a rub down with some homemade beeswax polish and it's been perfectly perfect ever since. And MOST importantly, I haven't killed my plant. This is quite the news! Of course I now have a list as long as my to-do list of things to make with decking offcuts (and my to-do list is reaaallllly long). Stay tuned!

Like every other aspect of every other renovation, how you do this will be different to the next person. I can only let you know what I experienced. Choosing a builder/carpenter/certifier etc might be done at the start of your project before you even get ideas. It might not be done until you have approval for your plans or somewhere in-between. The trick with this is this: you can get a ballpark figure of what something might cost you when you're throwing ideas around. But until the plans are approved, the engineer's report is done and they specify what materials are required to build your place, no-one can you give you an accurate price guide. And even then, there are always (ALWAYS!) surprises, problems, muck-ups and/or changes which will affect your bottom line. I discovered this when I started shooting off my draft plans to some local builders whose work I admired. They couldn't really give me a quote until I had the engineer's report. But I couldn't get an engineer's report until I had council approval. And what if what I had approval for ended up being a lot more than we estimated? Because engineers throw in things like steel, bracing, expensive materials, extra footings and extra... stuff! And with that extra stuff comes extra labour to put all the extras in. And it all adds up. To a lot.

But that part of things aside, how do you find the right person? Well sometimes, it's the one person who actually turns up and gives you a quote. Not even kidding - builders are notorious for just not showing up. I had two not arrive, one gave me an estimate range where the difference was $100,000. Another just said he wouldn't do it until I had all the plans. I thought with such a big build, we should go with a proper top-notch builder and complete team. And they all let me down. So we looked into home building courses and what was required and went back to our carpenter who had done some other works at our house. He was qualified as a builder but didn't enjoy doing it - preferred to actually build than manage. He broke down the build and gave us quotes for each aspect of it as he expected it to be if he had free reign to build. We knew there would be extra things that might come with the engineer, but we at least had a guide as to what wouldn't change (brick footings/roof etc) and what would differ depending on materials we chose (decks, flooring etc). He made suggestions and listened to ours. He was happy for us to go owner/builder and for Steve to labour occasionally when he was able to. We decided to go that route and waited for our approval.

Just before council finally stamped our plans (the first time!), Steve decided he had had it with his stressful job and the travel it took to get there (2.5 hours a day). The money was great, but health and happiness is worth more to us so we worked out he'd be able to take some time to work out what he wanted to do and we could still afford to eat and start our build. We just wouldn't be able to do it all in one hit. He decided carpentry was something he wanted to try - he might as well give it a go while work was being done here anyway, right? We spoke to our carpenter about him labouring full time whenever work started and Darren was more than happy with it. He was excited about being able to teach him and suggested there might even come a time when he could join his team. It turned out his apprentice left soon after and Steve had a job. So while we waited for final approval, then for the engineer, then for the certifier to issue our certificate of construction (this all took months after council's second - and final - approval), Steve earned some money working and learning. By the time it was our turn to start work on our job, he'd had a few months under his belt and was confident on the tools. With his new tradie nickname (Steve-O. Of course!) we were ready to begin.

We have a few bonuses building our house this way: our builder acts as our project manager - he orders everything, organises other trades, liaises with the certifier and the engineer. We don't have to take on those trickier jobs. He also - so graciously - does this for no extra cost to his (special-for-us) hourly wage. Another bonus is he came with a ready-made team of other subcontractors so we don't have to go looking for the right electrician, plumber, Gyprocker, etc. And there are many: so far on this job we have used:

Termite and pest man

Brick-layers

Concrete mixer

Sand delivery

Electrician

Hire shop for concrete cutters, scaffold, giant ladders

Plumber

Window maker

Roofer

Crane driver

Welder

Gyprocker

Fireplace installer

Super special electrician to upgrade mains

Still to come (er, most likely not their official titles): stair man, waterproofer, tiler, tv and sound guy, rain tank dude... They're the ones I know about!

We are also lucky our builder is close with the local hardware and so is able to occasionally negotiate better prices on some materials (also, set up a trade account so you get a tradie discount - every little bit counts!). All this to say, we know exactly what things cost because we get a copy of every receipt so there is no mark-ups on materials which I do know can happen.

In the interest of keeping it real, the downside of all this of course is that we often get bumped for another job - generosity of mates rates can stretch so far! So we've been delayed several times as other jobs have spilled overtime or delayed as well due to weather etc. It's not the best way to build, obviously, but we've happily taken this aspect of it on as we know those in-between times mean Steve is earning money too and it's actually nice to have a break from people in and out of your house every day, the constant cleaning, the noise and the fact I have control issues and don't want to go too far in case someone makes a decision on something without me! Ha!

Now I realise this isn't possible for everyone, so I've included some tips on finding a good team. We've only ever used two carpenters in our renovations of our homes - one did the last one; this team has done this house. Coincidentally, our current builder actually apprenticed at one stage for our first one! My point is: find a good one and you'll likely develop a pretty close relationship with them. They see you at your worst - first thing in the morning, when your house is a tip, when you're yelling at the kids to get ready for school (and when they backchat you and the fun and games that comes after that happens!). They become part of your life for a while and so you want to find someone you're comfortable with and who gets what you're trying to do and isn't just out to take your money. This has become somewhat of a showhouse for our builder - it's become his pride and joy too as it's a good example of his work to show other potential clients. You want someone who is passionate about what they do and who wants to be proud of the work they do for you so much so they might photograph it for their website or portfolio - or tell potential clients to swing by and check out the deck/extension/cladding job they did at this place... How to find that person? Yes, well... it's not easy! Maybe we completely fluked it? Maybe it's because we still live in that small-town-feel-kinda-place where people are just happy to get their weekly wage to pay their mortgages and drink beer? Whatever the reason, we got lucky twice. So maybe some of these will help you too.

Speak to your local hardware

Ask for recommendations for a good carpenter/builder - this is how we found ours. Not from Bunnings (Bunnings aren't known to be a trade hardware - they've dedicated themselves to the home DIYer as trades make up such a tiny percentage of their clientele), try the smaller ones or trade chains such as Home Hardware or Mitre 10. These guys know them well - they're in there most days ordering or picking up materials. They chat about the jobs they're working on and they use the hardware as a kind of network to find other subcontractors or labourers if they need an extra pair of hands. The hardware guys aren't stupid - they know the ones who know their stuff, who are down to earth and who are passionate about their work. And they happily pass their details on if you ask them. Same goes for a plumber or electrician - ask at the local plumbing stores (Eagles or Reece Trade) or lighting/electrical stores.

Do a door knock 

I'm not ashamed to say I've door knocked several people and asked them who built/renovated their house! Turns out one builder who did three homes I loved lived in my street (and gave us a quote but the timing was all wrong. And then he moved!), while another I also really liked was booked out for around two years! But isn't that the best kind of advertising for a builder? Having a highly visible portfolio? And I was able to get first hand info on how happy the client was too. If you love a home nearby, go and knock on the door and chat to the owner. They might not know - maybe they moved in and it was already perfect - but if nothing else, you get to meet someone with taste similar to your own (and maybe even get to have a little snoop inside too!) and will probably make their day with your compliment!

Try

HiPages

 I've heard about this for so long and written about it so often but never really knew how it works. Basically, a builder (or pretty much any other trade) pays a large fee each year to be listed. When someone is after a quote for, say, a deck, they will get three quotes. From your end, you get three quotes for the same job. From the other end, if a carpenter agrees to do the quote, they have to pay a fee to HiPages regardless of whether or not they get the job. This means you're only going to get people who are serious about working - because they have to outlay money no matter what. It kind of weeds out the muck-arounds! It also has a good directory on their site for tradies of all sorts in your area.

Ask for recommendations

Oldie but a goodie, of course. If you know someone is renovating, ask them all about who they used, if they were happy with their work and if they'd use them again.

Try out-of-towners

I told our builder I think he keeps getting Sydney calls for quotes because they're hoping if they bring in an outsider, they might get a cheaper quote. And honestly, I think I'm right. I'm adamant that our extension and renovation would be close to triple the amount if we lived in Sydney. Everything outside of the major cities is more affordable - including tradespeople.

Good signs...

*

 They actually show up to your house (seriously).

* They listen to what you want and make suggestions of their own that enhance your idea or offer an on-par alternative.

* They do some measuring on the spot when you're unsure if something will fit and will try their best to make your ideas and plans work.

* They seem genuinely happy to be there and passionate about what they do.

* They will rework their quotes or offer alternatives/options to help you keep costs down or meet a budget.

* They're happy for you to help in some way.

Bad signs...

* They are straight-up negative about what you want to do. "It won't work." "It won't fit". "It's a nightmare job". etc

* They push you towards an easier/more common option because it's less work for them.

* They seem a bit iffy about when they could fit you in - it could be legitimate, but it could also mean they don't want the job.^

Going the owner/builder route

This is what we ended up doing. I'm not going to go too much into it because we kind of cheated and even though we're responsible etc, our builder has taken over this role for us (yay!). But, I'll link you to a section from the

Real Living Renovations

magazine I wrote for more information. And just FYI, we did our White Card/Owner Builder Permit course via

Absolute Education

. It's really not difficult at all - the answers are all there, you just have to read it!

^ FYI: if a tradie doesn't really want the hassle of a job (it's really labour-intensive/filthy/fiddly and time-consuming/lots of roof work in the height of summer or a potential landmine of extra nightmares such as an old house that has lots of secrets inside its walls you won't know about until you start pulling them down), then they tend to increase their quote by a fair bit. This is a hint they don't want the work, but it also means that if you agree to it, they are compensated for the crappiness that will come with them accepting. And I've been on the other side of this - Steve comes home completely exhausted and filthy some days. He's been covered in old insulation, stuck in confined spaces or has been jackhammering concrete floors ALL DAY. Compare that to the joys of building a deck or pergola on a nice spring day! I don't know many people who'd choose the former over the latter!

Well, I hope that helps a little. It's hard finding someone good and it's even harder getting their timings to line up perfectly with yours. But you'll find them - I'm sure of it!

And for more of my Reno Files posts...

{The reno files} A real-life renovation guide: the design process

{The reno files} A real-life renovation guide: introduction

Our house plans: spending big to live small(ish)

A very exciting renovation update

A real, hopefully helpful and honest guide to renovating your bathroom

Let's just ignore the fact more than six months have passed since I last published a post on this site. Let's also not talk about the numerous post ideas I have listed in my notebook that haven't seen the light of day. Let's instead focus on how we came up with the design for this extension of ours (which, despite six months later is still three roof sheets short of being watertight from above! It's been... well it was all good until last month when the rain didn't stop and we had no roof. But that is a story for another day... Not six months away though, promise!) 

So. When we were house hunting four years ago we had a few musts: it needed to be a fixer-upper because we wanted to make our own stamp on it. Location was important - we wanted to be close to the water. It had to have good light, good structural bones, a decent yard and the potential for us to add to it. We found the ugliest house in the best street with water views and snapped it up. The good thing about it being an ugly house was there was no history or architectural details which we had to work around which is often the case with old houses. This was fibro. It had plain walls, plain windows, plain cornices, plain everything. It was essentially a blank canvas (and I hate using that term, but it's true). Our last home had pretty cornices, timber windows and a real cottage-y feel to it we tried to keep while modernising it. Our first house was a historical semi we didn't dare touch aside from paint in tones true to its style. This house had nothing really. It gave us freedom to do what we wanted without feeling guilty about veering away from its "style" or stripping it of character. I believe in working with what you have and if it had any redeeming features, we'd definitely have worked with them in the design process. As it happened, we ended up creating the story of our house once work started - we recycled parts of the old roof into stair treads, changed the floor direction in the extension and kept a few original parts like the old knocker and house numbers. We have piles of hardwood from the roof that will become a bar top and library shelves. We reused the huge beams as heads above doorways and windows, moved some windows around and recycled doors. It's nice to have a kind-of-cool answer for the "why is that like that..." questions that might come.

But before we even got to creating a story, we had to create a plan. And while it's tempting to look at magazines and Pinterest and blogs and imagine yourself in that space, there are so many more factors to consider aside from loving something because it looks pretty. Captain Obvious, right? Well yes and no because despite all my constant writing about this stuff, it's easy to get swept away imagining something when the reality is likely to be very different. And know that it's not just a matter of things being different due to your tastes or location, but it's to the rules of YOUR property - and they might be different to your immediate neighbour's. It's the way you live your life. It's your actual home's ability to handle the changes you wish to make. It's your budget. And weather patterns. It's your personal needs and those of every person who lives there. The list of things that can affect your home's design is endless, so by all means look to others for inspiration, but be sure to design the best space for you and your family, taking into consideration all the musts/have-tos and can'ts along the way. After a few harsh realities from Steve (who rolled his eyes every time I showed him an all-white Swedish space and explained "something like this!"), I wondered how close to the mark we would get in terms of creating a home perfect for us. While we've not finished or been able to use our space completely, so far, I can't see much I'd change if I had free reign. Which makes me think the long, long design path was the right road to take. If you're looking at taking yourself on a similar renovation journey, here are a few things we learnt along the way.

Resist the urge to get renovating immediately 

Any magazine article on renovating will tell you to live in your space before you do anything major to it. There is a good reason for this - because it helps you make better decisions. If you can do a full year, do it - because honestly, your home is so different throughout the seasons and you want to ensure you know it back to front. The light falls differently in winter to summer - we discovered the afternoon sun bounces off the verandah of the house across the street from us and rebounds into our bedroom in summer and lights up the south side of the home in winter. We know the afternoon sun is unbearable in summer at the back of our house (which faces West) but that the sea breeze cools things down most days too. We know how the yard floods and where the shade falls for prime planting. We've worked out where we have mould problems, where we like to dump our wallets and keys, how we don't walk down the driveway but across the middle of the lawn to the front door, which way the weather usually comes from and where the rain affects us most. Putting up with all the annoyances that come with an unrenovated house is worthwhile because you work out what annoys you, what you like, how you live, what you need to make living better - knowing all these things is essential for good design. 

Create a wishlist

For us, we needed more space - we had a tiny three-bedroom, one-bathroom home. It had a living room, kitchen/dining and that was it. All up, it was 80sqm. We weren't after a huge house, but with four kids, we definitely needed more space! We renovated the bathroom and kitchen spaces with an extension in mind - we decided we could just extend from the back out so worked out a way to do just that so whenever the time came, the existing house shouldn't require much work. And then we planned and planned. We worked out what we wanted exactly: some kind of loft space, raked ceilings, two living spaces and a fireplace. We wanted at least four bedrooms, but five would be better so everyone could have their own room if they wished (I am now DYING for them to all be in their own rooms because I'm over the bed-swapping, whinging, kicking and meltdowns over who gets to stay up later and who doesn't...). I wanted lots of storage because the house had none. So we incorporated a dedicated storeroom into the plans. It turned out that Steve changed careers while waiting for council approval and so the storeroom has been renamed his workshop for all his tools. It will be the world's tiniest workshop but still! Luckily I still had large storage areas planned for the roof - having a high-pitched roof means the unusable areas can be walled off and used to store alllll sorts of things!

Get drawing

I've been a lover of floorpans forever! I'd draw my dream homes all the time complete with indoor pools, ballrooms, sweeping staircases and libraries. Being able to draw up a more realistic one for my family that we would actually build was so exciting! Several variations were drawn up - the first was turning one of the bedrooms into a staircase and adding a whole second storey to take advantage of the water views. Then I thought maybe not the whole hog and just a really high-pitched roof so we can have an attic bedroom. Another version had a master bedroom at the back next to second living space. Another kept our master where it was but stole the bedroom next to it for an ensuite and wardrobe and added two smaller rooms to the back. Yet another plan extended to the side of the house over the driveway. But I kept coming back to the attic idea - why couldn't we just make one big room out the back with a staircase up to a loft bedroom in a new roof? Sounded pretty easy to me, so I called in the draftsman...

Call in the experts

The thing with major renovations is this: there are SO MANY DIFFERENT ANNOYING RULES AND ASPECTS TO THE PROCESS. And you don't really know about any of them until you're at that stage. First up for us was the biggest bummer of all: we had to do a full development application for council. Many renovations and extensions won't require this - you can go through a private certifier and they can have your plans approved within a few weeks. But if you live in a flood or bushfire zone, you most likely won't be that lucky. We live in a flood zone and so straight up we had bonus conditions - the biggest being we had to raise the floor height by 60cm. This meant the nice walk-straight-out-of-your-living-room-onto-your-deck-onto-the-grass moments and easy view of the kids playing in the yard from anywhere in one side of your home wasn't going to happen. It would be about a metre or so off the actual ground. Having to step up the extension means a split level to the ground floor, which means extra materials in height (more bricks for footings/longer pieces of wood) extra precautions in stabilising the building and a more difficult build as it's higher off the ground (we had to lay a subfloor so the builders didn't just rely on standing on bearers and joists - this was an extra couple of thousand dollars immediately). The huge pitched ceiling I wanted with a bedroom in it? Couldn't quite do as I wanted - did you know habitable rooms (living/bedroom) require your ceiling height to be at a certain height (for memory it is 1.8m but I could be wrong there) for 2/3 of the volume of the room? We wanted the angled ceiling to just hit the floor, so in the end, knee walls had to be built to decrease the size of the room so our master bedroom won't quite be as we imagined it at first, but the library can be. There are also height restrictions (we just snuck in for how high our house can be), light-to-dark ratios through use of windows and doors, shading requirements (we need little awnings on our east-facing bedroom to shade them) and so. many. other. annoying. things. The draftsman/architect/builder who designs knows these tricky little things and will outline your options. In the end, our draftsman discovered if we submitted the second story as an "attic bedroom" rather than a second storey, we had a little more freedom with our plans. One thing I suggest is to give your draftsman/builder/architect a ball park figure of what you want to spend - underestimate it, though. Because if you give them no budget to work to, they will design just design to all your whims and you might end up with a house you actually can't afford to build! And never feel you have to do EVERYTHING all at once. It is a good idea to design your home and submit everything in one application with a view to doing it in stages as budget/time/circumstances allow. We never planned to complete our extension in one hit. We wanted to do it in two to three stages with our master bedroom and ensuite being the last thing. If you have plans to put in a pool or garage or separate studio down the track, consider doing it all as one DA and get the approval now. It will save you in extra drafting and application fees later on.

Draftsman vs architect vs builder vs carpenter

Depending on the scale of your works you might not need a draftsman or architect. Many builders are able to draw up and submit plans on your behalf and if it's less complicated works to a place that doesn't change the footprint of your home, a carpenter might be all you need. We knew we needed plans drawn up but as we had a good idea of what we wanted, we knew a draftsman was all we needed. If you're stuck for ideas about what you want, I'd still start with a builder who can at least point you in the right direction of an architect if they believe one is required. 

Make all your changes at this stage

Every time I got a draft plan from the draftsman I printed it out and got out my trusty red pen for changes - because there were always changes. I lived and breathed these plans - even dreamt about them sometimes! But that is the good thing about drafting plans - they are drafts and can be changed. And you should change them at the planning stage because it will cost you a lot more time, effort, money, patience and possibly relationships if you change them once the build begins! For me, I'd use the printouts to just see what it might look like if I moved the wall a little more this way. Or if I moved the door layout or added an extra room. Always sit on the current draft for a while and get a feel for what it might be like. Measure things out - I would use string and mark up the walls/doors/windows on the grass so I could physically see the floorplan in the right scale. Get a feel for the space in terms of size and look for things like views from windows and doors, door swings and potential furniture placement. There is often a little wiggle room for small changes once construction begins such as window size and placement, but nothing too drastic, so get it right now. We took our time with our plans - probably waaaay too long but there were a fair few delays on both sides of the process and in the end, we're glad there was a wait because we love our plans. We were also lucky in that our draftsman had a fixed price so it didn't matter how many changes we made, our $3000-odd fee for the measuring/drafting/submitting didn't budge. Spoiler alert: the engineering fees were a surprise $5000 we weren't expecting! 

Turn negatives into positives

There are going to be restrictions but it's what you do with them... We had to raise our floor level which brought a few headaches for the builders and extra costs for us, but we started to see the advantages of having this split level. For one, it broke up the extra-long space and created two distinct living areas. It allows us to see the water views from the back room and has created a large under-house space where we will able to store our water tanks, excess building materials, kids bikes and surfboards etc. The fact we have to apply builder's bracing (which is essentially thin plywood sheets made from hardwood at $35 a sheet) to all of our existing interior walls killed me (and here I was thinking we wouldn't have to touch the existing house too much!) but it meant we were able to insulate them as well, meaning the bedrooms on either side of the bathroom are now a little more soundproof. It also got rid of the wallpaper that had been painted over and often bubbled up during wet periods and means our Gyprock walls will be nice and straight and new. The engineer's obsession with bracing, particularly expensive materials and extra strengthening requirements means our house is the strongest, well-built thing in town. It's not going anywhere! 

Be realistic with your choices

Sometimes I would look at our plans and wish for larger expanses of glass by way of bifold doors from the family room onto the back deck. And then I remembered the heat in the middle of summer. And the bugs. And the sand and crap that would fall in the rails of the bifolds. And that I love French doors more... We went against the norm because it doesn't work for us. Realistically we knew we needed a decent size door opening but also windows on either side of them that could be open all night long if we wanted for safe, mozzie-free breezes and airflow. We knew as much as a big deck sounds great in theory, it would encroach too much into the backyard, which was more important. And we're not big entertainers anyway. We know pretty pendant lights are going to have to take a backseat to ceiling fans. And timber windows or louvres everywhere were just going to eat too much into the budget. Getting the right mix of practicality and aesthetics is hard and if you really want to live in a place, aesthetics will most of the time lose out to practicalities in a battle of the wits. Like my whitewashed floors. I love them to bits but we're going with a mid-range natural colour for floorboards because we're a rough and tumble family and that's the best colour to mask wear and tear and the inevitable dirt that comes with living with children. (Though Steve is still A-OK with my painting our eventual master bedroom floor pure white. It will have to be a no-shoe zone!) Think honestly about how you live, what your budget is and what is important to you and plan your home around them. 

Expect delays and to pay a lot upfront 

Dear God did we have delays... The whole process has had delays! And they will happen at one stage or another. For us it was just getting the plans right, then not pushing the draftsman to get them back to us as quickly as we should have. Then it was council approving our plans (after a couple of months) but not noticing we had asked for a one-metre extension to the existing house (four square metres in total) at the existing floor height to give the dining room a little more space before the floor level rose. So it was back to council for another six or so weeks as they had to start all over again. Then it was a matter of organising a certifier who couldn't give you a construction certificate to start works until you had waded through their list of things: engineer's report, home builder's course etc. In the end we forked out close to around the $15,000 mark before we even bought any materials or began labour. Here are some approximate figures for you because I honestly can't recall exact amounts and I am too lazy to sift through my disorganised paperwork to find them (sorry!)

Draftsman: 

$3300

Engineer: 

$5000

Council fees:

 $2000

Certifier: 

$3000

Surveyor:

 $200

Home owner/builder course and white card:

 $250

Long-service builder's levy:

 $500

In short, an architect told me when I wrote the 

Real Living Renovations magazine

 to never sign up and start building if all you have is the dollars the builder quoted you. Because it will ALWAYS cost you more, somewhere along the line. And it's usually before the builder even begins! 

I hope this was somewhat helpful. Because frankly I haven't typed this much in a while and my fingers hurt (Kidding. I still write a fair bit; just not here!). If you're about to renovate, you can track down a copy of the reno magazine 

here

 or at your newsagent if they still have them in stock. Otherwise I did find a lot of what I wrote has been uploaded to the Homes to Love website. It's not everything, but it's a fair bit. I've linked to a few of the sections below.

Guide to hiring an expert

Choosing the right team

Researching and shopping

Surviving the construction stage

8 steps to a well-designed home 

Kitchen design

Bathroom renovation

The owner/builder: what you need to know

The power of paint

Spotting the warning signs

Where your money goes

Renovating sourcebook

And for more of my Reno Files posts...

{The reno files} A real-life renovation guide: introduction

Our house plans: spending big to live small(ish)

A very exciting renovation update

A real, hopefully helpful and honest guide to renovating your bathroom

Two years in August, we contacted a local draftsman to talk about drawing up plans for our house extension. TWO YEARS AGO. Ever heard this old gem - that renovations always take twice as long and cost twice as much as you planned for? Yeah, so far, the first part is true. We're yet to find out about the other part because, well, we’re only a few weeks in and while the bills have been frequent and hefty, we really won’t know final costs for a while! We were originally told if all went smoothly we could have our plans drawn up, submitted and approved through council in a maximum of 12 weeks. Hahahahahahahaha. No. Not even close. It took us a year to do plans, soooo many months in council, stuff-ups and surprises and life stuff too. And so two years after showing our little sketches to the draftsman, here we are, seeing them come to life. It’s SO exciting - we might even be able to host Christmas here this year (I’ve had to swap with my sisters for the past three years!) But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself - read those first few sentences again!

I’m so tempted to throw in all the pics of the stages so far (although if you follow me on

Instagram

I’ve been posting daily pics and images of what’s going on in InstaStories), but I really want to document this properly from start to finish - how we came up with the design, what we spent upfront before we even started building, the process of going through council and the build itself. And so, I’m going to have to get cracking on writing to catch up to where we’re at! Bare with me… So what ARE we doing? Well, we're extending out and up - creating a family room with laundry and workshop on the ground floor and an attic library and master bedroom in the high-pitched roof. You can read more our plans

here

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When we bought this house we knew we were going to extend it - it was just a matter of how. If we had gone with the very first suggestion by a builder who lived a few doors down, it would have been a very different home to the one we're creating now! And it would have been very wrong for us. So there is a lot to the "live in a house for a while before you touch it" advice… 

Part way through our council-approval-stage delay,

Real Living magazine

asked me to write an entire magazine on renovating. I'd been planning to contact them about writing again - it'd been a while since I’d done any kind of work and I was feeling like the time was right. In the end, they got me first and I agreed, although about two weeks in I started to regret it as it was a HUGE job - and not exactly easing back into work, which I'd envisioned I'd be doing! But once I got past the "OMG where do I start?!" I started to enjoy it. I've always been annoyed by magazine articles on renovation or those bathroom and kitchen guides - I never feel as though they cover the right things. It's all so general or about aesthetics - or with huge budgets And don’t even get my started on renovation shows… I can’t watch them. And I LIVE for this stuff. I’ll only watch the UK version of Grand Designs - that’s it! Anyway, for the reno guide, I was pretty much given free reign to write about what I wanted to write about as long as it fitted within their general section guides. And so I did. I wrote 40,000 words on renovating - why you should, where to start, who to contact, what things might cost, how long things might take, things you should or shouldn't do, how to shop, how to deal with tradies, how to decorate, how to be environmentally savvy, all things about windows, doors, floors, paint, hardware, lights, all the rooms, outside/inside and behind the scenes. I tried to include meaty information like measurements for placement of bathroom and kitchen fittings, who to contact for what job (you don't always need a builder or architect), what you'll be out of pocket before you even lift a hammer, and even if going the home builder route is for you. Basically, it was a 101 in renovating. It was something I always wanted to write and something I always wanted to read.

Real Living Renovations

is out now in newsagents and I do hope it's helpful! 

And yet despite a whole magazine dedicated to it, I couldn’t cover everything - and I couldn’t get specific on something that is going to be entirely different one build to the next. And so, as a kind of extension (ha! see what I did there?) on that magazine, I thought I'd outline our own project here - what we've gone through, how long things took, what they cost, our problems and solutions, the good, the bad, the ugly! We are going the owner/builder route ourselves and one step further than that: Steve is literally building it! After being over his career for a while (politics/media!!!!! Not surprising!), he resigned late last year to start a whole new career: carpentery! We've often longed for a more relaxed, simple lifestyle - less stress, timeless skills, more time together... We came to that great understanding that earning a lot of money didn’t mean happiness, so we changed our stars. We spoke to the carpenter we planned to use for our build and he was so keen for Steve to work on our house - he was happy to show him the ropes and build up his skills with a view to being accredited down the track via prior learning. In the end, his apprentice left and he offered Steve some work before our place was ready to go, so Steve donned the tools earlier this year and has been his trusty sidekick ever since, starting from scratch in a new career. I'm so proud - and so excited he will have such a huge part in building our extension. 

Another thing we’ll be doing - and documenting - is paying for everything ourselves. It’s kind of bugged me for a long time now that somewhere along the line, blogs equal freebies - especially in the DIY/home arena. I often can’t look past the fact that someone got something for free and that’s why it is in their house. I can appreciate people earning money from their blog or turning it into their career and I really enjoy a lot of the blogs that do accept freebies - some of my faves manage to work it well. But that side of things is not for me. I’d love to some day, somehow, monetise my blog, but the current model with sponsorships/gifts/freebies etc isn’t for me anymore.

I stopped it all a while back

and while it’s tempting sometimes to say yes to things that are offered - especially if it really is something I’d probably buy - I don’t feel it’s a true reflection of what renovating/decorating/home-making is about. And I’m all for sharing the real side of things. So if it comes down to real budgets, real compromises are going to be made. And by real I don't mean hundreds of thousands of dollars and top-end everything. Ours is ballparked at $170k but that is for a huge extension, second storey, laundry, two decks and balcony. I know in parts of Sydney that money might buy you a couple of decks and a bathroom renovation. I also know in other parts of Australia it could buy you a beautiful house. I'm not saying it's a budget renovation, I'm just saying our money is going to have to work really hard to get what we want. We aren't taking out a loan or extending our mortgage, it's our hard-earned money going back into our home with hard physical work (well, Steve's hard physical work!!), careful choices and lots of compromises. And because of that - our home is not going to be Pinterest perfect. And it’s not going to be designery, too tricky or trendy. It’ll just be a home that reflects our wants and needs - and that is what everyone’s home should be: a reflection of the people who live there. Not those who live in photoshopped pages of magazines! Because no-one lives in those rooms as they're portrayed. I KNOW what goes on before a house makes it into a magazine - lots of props (I recall a house having its entire contents replaced for a photoshoot!) rearranging, seeking of good angles, professional photographers and stylists, editing, cropping, photoshopping… Don’t ever feel bad you don’t measure up. All that applies to Instagram images of people’s homes and lives too, by the way! Consider them inspiration and use them to inspire your own spin on it. It's taken me a while, but that's what I do now.

I figure by sharing our journey, you might pick up something (or pick up what NOT to do on some occasions! That’s good too!) to help you on your own renovation journey. If you have something you’re particularly keen on knowing about, please let me know. I’ll try to work it in somewhere! Next up: working out the design….

Belinda x

PS:

Speaking about renovations... For a guide to renovating your bathroom, head

here

.

 One day I'll get around to doing a kitchen one too. One day!

Sounds so silly, doesn't it? Spending big to live small. That's my life at the moment - a bundle of contradictions! I feel so hypocritical talking about living more simply and with less stuff yet planning to spend a small fortune in order to extend our house! But to us it makes sense. We're realists. We know we can't do teeny tiny living - we plan to be here for a while and want our tweens and teenagers to have their own space. But we're not knocking our house down and building a McMansion and we're not adding on masses of extra rooms or installing luxury fittings or giving each child an ensuite or spaces that won't get used. We're working with the existing structure and attempting to make it look better, flow better and suit our family of six. It took us two years and many, many different versions, but we finally got a final plan together and submitted to council and I think we nailed it - for us. Want to take a peek?

Front and back in line-drawing form, above. The windows are still to be decided in terms of their exact looks (I'm thinking part of the centre upstairs windows will be louvres and the rest fixed. And probably not so many panels. The back is also going to be slightly different - the deck cover will just be pergola style, not a second roof or the hot west Summer sun will just cook us! My little illustration of the front and back of the house will be more like it (hopefully not as wonky in the structure's lines though!!) 

Ground floor, above: So everything right of the dotted red line is our existing house. See? It's tiny! Since moving in we renovated the bathroom and painted the bedrooms. Then after playing with several floor plans we decided to rejig what we had already and eventually extend onto the back of the house only. So we knocked out several walls to open the living room side of the house all the way up front to back. It's like living in a fishbowl at times, but it's made a huge difference to light and my sanity. I love being able to supervise the kids when they're playing outside from pretty much anywhere on that side of the house. The good thing about our plan is, we now don't need to make any drastic changes to the existing structure - no bedrooms need to be converted to staircases or anything like that. All we want to do is slightly extend the dining room area as it's so tiny - we're hoping council lets us continue the floor at this height for one more metre as well as the laundry and storeroom. We have to increase the floor height due to living in a flood zone (the downside to living so close to the water!) so past the dining room will be a couple of stairs up to the new floor height family room. The wall dividing the family room from the laundry and storeroom will have a long built-in low shelf along it with a fireplace. The ceiling in this family room will be raked so it will be a huge open room with lots of light. The stairs will feature a large linen cupboard built under the highest steps; the middle and lower stairs will have a bar built in underneath them. French doors will open outwards onto a covered deck and there will be plenty of windows to keep it light and airy. The windows on the north wall in the family room will be high ones purely for light. The laundry will have an L-shaped bench with another linen cupboard and extra pantry - our kitchen is not huge so it'll be the go-to place for extra everything as well as the recycle bin. We'll be installing Ikea kitchen cabinetry for this room again and I want to cram as much storage into it as is physically possible! Next to the laundry will be a built-in tool/garden/bike/scooter/fishing kit storage room. Steve wants it to be all old-school and a bit beat up like a Grandad's shed at the back of the yard kind of room. 

Top floor, above: Upstairs you'll come into a large open landing. The roof will literally slope down to the floor on either side of this landing area - the bigger side will be Steve's library looking out into the family room and the small side will maybe eventually be turned into a small study/bedroom for Annika. Above the laundry and store room will be a long narrow storage area built into the sloped roof - perfect for office paraphernalia if we ever start a business, which is a future goal. There will also be a laundry shute in there - yesssss. This excites more than it probably should. I mean, it's a laundry shute!?
Through the doors is our master bedroom suite. The ensuite will have a super-large shower - we'd like a walk-through one but I don't think the space is big enough. Bummer! Still, it will be nice to have a dedicated shower again! There will be no door to the ensuite - in fact, the walls on either side of the doorway will be low-height. Opposite the ensuite will be a wardrobe built into the eaves. The rest of that narrow storage area I'm thinking of using as my sewing/craft space. It should be just big enough to sit in comfortably. Our bed will sit alongside the knee wall under a roof window and there will be a small door or large window out onto a little balcony. Access to the other storage area will be from the small study/little bedroom area and I'm picturing it hidden in a cupboard and being a magical play space for the kids eventually. Both of these storage spaces at the front of the house will have large fixed windows in them and plenty of light, so I might as well make them useable!

So providing we get the all-ok from council (neighbours had until last Friday to object so we should  hear something from them very soon), this is what our house should hopefully end up looking like. It's not too big, it's not too small, it's just right for us. There isn't anything too tricky or unique in the design, but it's not your bog-standard home extension either, which we like. The entire look and feel of the house will just start off pretty clean and simple and we'll see where we go from there. I don't want clutter or all surfaces filled with things. We just want to surround ourselves with pieces we love, that are comfortable, made from natural materials and hopefully pleasing to the eye too! With a fair bit of breathing space in-between it all with white walls and natural-stained timber floors. I'm calling it cosy simplicity - can that be a thing? I think it could be...