What does it take to have successful builder communication and collaboration in your new build or renovation project?

There’s specific steps to take and critical decisions to make, so you can set this up with your builder and team. And it’s key to your project going well.

Janet shares what worked in her new build project in Brisbane,as well the methods of builder communication, their collaboration as a team, and the hiccups along the way.

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 328, and it’s part 2 of my conversation with HOME Method member, Janet, about the pre-build and build phases of her project. 

Janet and her partner Paul, have been building a new home in Brisbane on a tricky site, and it’s almost finished!

If you haven’t listened to the first part of my conversation with Janet in Episode 327, listen or download the transcript to bring yourself up to speed. 

In this Episode, Janet shares with us how their construction process has been. At the time of recording this episode, Janet and Paul are only a few weeks away from moving into their new home. 

For many, this can be a time full of stories about battle scars, as homeowners recover from a stressful experience and recount horror stories of a treacherous building process.

Instead, you’ll hear how things went for Janet and Paul, as she shares what made their project more enjoyable, what helped manage her stress, and where hiccups did occur, and how they were resolved.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

Let me give you some context on the timing of Janet’s project before we jump into the conversation.

Janet and Paul purchased their block of land in 2021, and joined HOME Method in October of 2021.

They worked through their design in 2022, and went to tender in November of 2022. Work started on site in 2023, I had this conversation with Janet in April of 2024. She was only a few weeks away from moving into their finished home.

You can hear our previous conversations about the Pre-Design and Design Phases of their project in Episode 319 and Episode 320.

Now, let’s dive in!

This is the transcript of my conversation with Janet about designing a new home with a difference.

Amelia Lee
Obviously diving into construction, and so exciting that you’re almost finished, I think when you first got in touch with us to organise these podcast interviews, you said, “There’s no major dramas or burning questions we have right now. Going through HOME Method has taken care of issues before they arose. The builder’s been a dream, even running ahead of schedule. The design is so great. I love being in the house, even in its unformed state, because we took our time thinking through every aspect. We’ve made all our selections already so now we are just sitting back, watching our plans come to life.” And you said, “For us, UA podcast and HOME Method’s been so central to the success we have had.” I mean, that’s the thing is that when you actually get prepared, construction is just like a big weekly show and tell. “Well, this has happened and yey!”

Janet
Just check my Instagram, it’s completely show and tell. Everyone’s like, “Oh, when’s the next one? Give me more.”

Amelia Lee
So following along on Instagram, and I’ll put your Instagram profile in the resources for this episode, I think I saw it a couple of days ago, the interiors have just been installed. And yeah, everything’s starting to really come together, you are definitely at the pointy end. Can you talk through the construction process? Just generally, because I think that a lot of people would expect that it is where all of the action is happening. It is where all of the freneticism is, and what we teach inside HOME Method is it’s not that. It’s very much that you get yourself set up prior to construction so that construction can actually be an enjoyable experience of seeing all of this work be realised in the finished home. I’d love to know about your communication with the builder during construction, getting to visit site, how your budgets gone through that process, you mentioned some extra work has been added to the contract. And if there’s also been any surprises or anything unusual that’s cropped up for you, and just your construction experience generally would be really great to understand more about.

Janet
It’s been exactly that. It’s methodical, I think is the best way to describe it. And that I think comes down to the builder as well, that is the way he works. He’s very methodical. He and his site supervisor have been working together for 20 years. They call themselves an old backup. And it’s Shane and Dwain.

Amelia Lee
That’s excellent.

Janet
Shane, site supervisor, and head carpenter is Dwayne again. I think there’s another Shane, I’m like, “Dude, do you people not have any other names?” And the kitchen guy is Shane. So I have, inadvertently, speaking of communication, it’s been really fantastic. So, I think, straight up, Dwain said after we signed the contract, he’s like, “Okay, so Kurt who takes care of accounts and admin, he will get in touch with you within the next week or two. And he’ll give you the schedule, and have that all worked out.” I know, I’m sitting there going, “Come on, come on, come on. And what’s happening when, what’s happening when?” I’ve got on the fridge a happy house list. So we’re ticking off as we go. And pretty much, it’s been on schedule. 

Running up to Christmas, they were running ahead of schedule. But then we had a lot, a lot of rain. So after Christmas, the painters had been delayed at other jobs, which meant that they were delayed at our jobs. The electrician got delayed at other jobs, which means he was delayed at our job. And then there was also issues with locating the mains. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be. So things got delayed. But communication, email, phone, text message, they’re all open to. If it was urgent, we get a text message. Sometimes it’s, “Can you talk?” And if I couldn’t, then Paul could usually. Because normally they contact me first. But they did know two days out of the week, I was not really contactable. But he texts me anyway, just in case. If it was just a simple, yes, no, I can normally check and go yes, do that. 

If it was a non urgent, we’d normally get an email. So had to make checking emails a real priority because you never know when there’s going to be something there from Dwain or Shane, or the cabinet maker, or someone building a deck. What’s there? What do we have to check? What do we have to okay? And oh my gosh, the amount of decisions we’ve had to make, it really did take us by surprise. You think, “We’ve made all our selections, it’s totally fine. There’s nothing to decide.” Oh my gosh, that is so wrong. There’s so many moving parts on a build, there’s no way you can possibly decide everything. And then even if it is really well drawn up in your plans, there’s still things that a good builder will check in with you on, “Hey, on the drawings, it’s done this way. Do you really want it done that way? Or is that just representational? If you really want it done that way, this is what happens. If you don’t, here’s the cheaper, easier way of doing it. It’s up to you. I don’t mind, it’s your house, you have to live here.” So there was a lot of that. 

And so prior to the frame walkthrough, Dwayne sent through a huge, long list of questions to be talked through at that meeting. And so the couple of nights before was me doing homework of open plans, check. And then once we’ve made a decision, he then comes back and says, “This is what you want, yeah?” And then maybe a month later, “This is your final check. This is how you want it, yes? They’re coming in tomorrow.” But he really was so good about just checking in, “Is this how you want it? Is this how you want it?” So nothing was assumed, so good. Our previous experience with renovating was so much was assumed and then you didn’t actually get the product you want. Yes, again, everything you say in HOME Method. So yeah, he didn’t leave room for assumptions, and neither did we, as well. But there’s so many different things that we had no idea about.

Amelia Lee
Can you imagine if you’re having to make your selections as well during that time? Like if you hadn’t done that prior to starting? And you’re having to also choose the materials, the products, the fixtures, the finishes at the same time?

Janet
Fine, if you have no job or family. Who has time for that? Oh my gosh. Even just making the selections took a really long time. I mean, I suppose it’s different if you’re going volume builder. They’ll walk you into a room, you’ve got an hour and a half. But still, I mean, Paul was saying the other night, “I don’t know how you would manage that. How can you make a good decision with here’s everything you have to choose from, go. You’ve got an hour and a half.” How do you even walk away going, “Yes, we’ve made a coherent choice here that everything actually looks good together?” Anyway, I don’t know how that works. But still, we took our time. And then we still had decisions to make.

Amelia Lee
I love that Dwain was sending you that it’s a really great thing, I think, to discuss with your team about. A lot of builders don’t get themselves really familiar with the construction documentation, especially those that the first time they’re seeing the construction documentation is when they’re pricing it for a contract, because they’re tinkering on it competitively. And so the fact that he was being proactive like that, and then preparing you with that list of questions to say, “These are the things I’m going to need information on.” Is that how you found your site communication has generally gone? He’s given you a heads up, and then you’ve been able to flesh it out on site, understand the options, then make a decision, and then that gets put into action, rather than what often happens when things are all a bit hectic and rushed is that you’re literally standing on site and say, “Okay, this meeting, you need to decide X, Y, and Z.” And you don’t get any opportunity to walk away and digest it and think about it, and do that pencil and ruler on a piece of paper and really figure it out for yourself?

Janet
The only time that happened was with the paint. But I think that was far enough down the track that he’s like, “Yeah, that’ll be fine.” I think a good builder has to be a leader. And a good builder leads their team. That’s really their job. They are the captain. He’s not on tools. He’s not on site often. But he’s all over what’s going on. And the people who are on site are in constant communication with him. And then he’s in constant communication with us or site supervisor is with us. And he said, “All communication, please cc both of us because we both need to know what’s going on. So yeah, definitely, it’s always been, “Hey, this is happening in two weeks time. Prior to this, you need to consider or make sure that you understand all these different things.” 

We didn’t have weekly site meetings, but we did have regular access to site. And we were encouraged too, that if there was something that we saw during those regular visits that we were not sure about or that we thought was not on point, to bring them up. And so that was really great that we were encouraged to bring up defects, for want of a better word, as we went along. Because most of the time, in fact, all the time, they already knew about them. But every time they’re like, “Hey, thanks for letting us know. Appreciate that. We have done this, that, and the other about that. Or the reason there’s nothing done about that is because we’re waiting on this particular product, or this is our workflow timeline that we’re working to.” So communication has been really good, site access has been really good.

Amelia Lee
I love that you had a schedule. I know that we say in HOME Method that I only work with builders who have schedules, but I know that there’s lots of builders who still don’t. Did you find that that was really great, just in terms of managing your expectations about where things were at and staying ahead of decision making that you needed?

Janet
Yeah, definitely. I didn’t actually need to go into HOME Method and look at the stages of what’s happening, because Dwain kept us so well informed. And he led so well in that through that, that I actually didn’t have time to go and look at HOME Method, what’s happening at different stages to go back and check it because I already knew, firstly.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, you’d already done the work, then he showed you the schedule, and then the schedule reinforced what you’d already learned. So it’s fantastic, isn’t it?

Janet
Yeah. So in that way, he was leading really well, he was showing us what was going on. And because of the advice that we got through HOME Method, I was able to then stay on top of what we needed to do to not cause delays on our end and not cause problems on our end. So for those major site meetings that we had, frame stage, they sent through a list of things that we needed to check. And then because of HOME Method, we also knew things that we needed to check. 

So two, three hours the night before, sticky noting, and tagging and asking questions on all three different pages of this, and making notes of exactly the heights that I wanted the towel rails to be and the handrails to be, and things like that. So that when I got to site, I was able to say yes, I want them foot or hand towels 1400 off the floor. And I wasn’t there going, “Um, I don’t know, what’s good? What do you normally do? I don’t know.” So I went around the house and I went, “Well, I don’t like this one. What if I use that one?” And then the next day, having my big documentation, Shane site supervisor’s like, “Jeez, you’re organised.” I’m forgetful. I’m not organised, I’m forgetful. And there’s no way I would cover everything if I didn’t write all these notes down. And there’s no way that I can give you everything that you need if I didn’t write all this down. And they appreciated that so much. It just meant that frame visit sets up the flow from there on. Because that was framing, electrical and cabinetry all in one visit. Huge. We did separate for that, Paul and I, and I let him do electrical. I shouldn’t say I let him, I said, “You’re an electrician. You got to do electrical with the electrician.” But then afterwards, there was a few things that I’m like, “You did what?” He’s like, ” Oh I don’t know, just seemed good.” He’s like, “Too late, don’t argue. It’s too late.” 

Don’t try to make life hard. He said, “You did cabinetry, all the cabinetry’s done the way you wanted.”

Amelia Lee
Joy of building and renovating as a couple, huh? 

Have there been any surprises along the way?

Janet
The two major surprises in terms of construction came as a result of them not being very well detailed in the spec or the schedule. For me, I was relieved because of that. I was relieved that was the reason because I went, “Oh, it’s not my fault. Yes, I missed this. But I missed it for a reason. Because it’s not clearly labelled, it’s not clearly laid out.” So the first thing was, I think we talked about this last time, was that I wanted the floors to be flushed, the sills to be flush with the floor, so that there was no major step over.  

That’s also a rebate. I wanted them rebated in the slab. But that’s a really early decision that has to be made at slab stage. It wasn’t in the documents that either way, or if it was, it was written in the code that I didn’t understand, not being a builder. And it was in my brief, I brought it up with both of them. They both went, “Yep, yeah.” Both designer and builder went, “Yep, yep”, made note. So what can you do? And then it comes time at the frame stage walkthrough and I said, “Hey, Shane, just checking, this sill, they’re rebated, yeah? He’s like, “No. Do you want them to be?” I said, “Yes.” And bless Dwain, it freaked him right out, he went through all of our communications, he tried to find it, tried to find where I’d said that I wanted them rebated, and it had been in a meeting that he’d made a note on something. So, of course, you wouldn’t find it in email communications. So is it my fault? Is it my fault? I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault at this point. And he was so accommodating, he met us on site. He said, “When can you meet? I’ll meet you tomorrow at six o’clock in the morning, okay?” “Okay.” He knows I’m not much of a morning person, at least not for meeting. I can get up at six. So he met with us on site, he walked through, said, “If you want to rebate, this is what will happen. It has flow on effect with this, this, this, this. So it will slow down the timeline in terms of this, that, and the other. But if you want to do this, we will do this. And this is how much it will cost you extra.” It was a variation. But he did it at cost, and he didn’t put his margin on top. That’s not standard, people.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, that’s a builder trying to figure out how do we resolve this? Knowing that legally, they don’t have to do it that way, but trying to smooth things through.

Janet
Yeah, and so he’s been really great like that. The other main hiccup was to do with the robe. So when we had robe fit out, in the design, there is a cupboard in the media room. And I just went, it’s a cupboard, it’s going to have shelves and doors. I missed, in all the decisions, that it had sliding doors. Or it didn’t tweak, or I think I just figured they’d be just plain sliders, just regular sliders. In the spec, it just said cupboards and it didn’t say which cupboards. It just said wardrobes, I think, or robes. But it had no detail about this particular cupboard. And so when we’re doing the walkthrough, we’d settled to do the robes. He said, “Okay, so I’m doing this cupboard here.” “Oh, okay.” And so he said, “Okay, so this is what we put in.” And it was a very basic, internal, just one shelf and a top. And it was, I think, the top of it was at 1500. And it had two robe mirrored sliders.

Amelia Le
And you’re like, “No, this isn’t what I imagined.”

Janet
Would you do that? It’s not a bedroom, it’s kind of weird. And so then, it was even should have been a conversation backwards. So it was a big surprise. I went, “Oh, okay.” He said, “So what do you want me to do?” And that was one of those decide on the moment things. So Paul, and I went, “How about you go measure up the other room? And we’ll have a quick chat.” And I said, “Does that sound good to you?” He said no, “Doesn’t sound good to me either.” “Okay, all right. How about we just get him to leave it? And we’ll either do it later on, if we can’t come to a decision with Dwain. Or we’ll get him to put some proper shelves in there.” 

I met Shane on site and he said, “So what do you want to do?” I said, “Look, my absolute ideal would be to have swing doors that are not robe sliders, and to have shelves at here, here and here that are fully reinforced and strong and usable and the full depth.” He said, “Okay, now we’ve got doors coming in three days time. If I can’t get standard doors, we’re going to have to order them. So it means that a $100 door is going to cost you $400, $600, $800.” And at the end of it, he’s saying, “If we do this the way you want to do it, it’s probably going to cost you an extra $1000 plus.” And I went, “Oh, don’t worry about it then. Yeah, we’ll go with the sliders, and it just will be some shelves. It’s fine. Yep, we’ll do that.”So they said, “Okay, that’s fine. We’ll get our carpenters back. We’ll get him to build stuff.” And bless Dwain, he’s so lovely. Shane said to Dwain, “Look, if we got our carpenters going in there, why can’t we just put doors on for her?” So they rang Paul, because I think I must have been busy at work that day, and then said, “Okay, this is what we can do for you. And it’ll cost you the same as if we just put the sliders on.” Because I think in the end, I went, “I’ll go with glass rather than mirror.” Because it’ll be a bit extra, but at least it won’t look stupid. And so they went ahead and did it. I think, at the next site visit, we’re just wandering around, I didn’t even bother going near the multipurpose room. And I think I walked straight pass, Paul had his phone out at that point.

Amelia Lee
Waiting to film the reaction, was he?

Janet
He said, “Hey, Jan.” Turned around, he’s like, “Look in here.” It was so beautiful. Every time I open that cupboard and get out a board game or blankets in there or whatever, I’m gonna go, “I love you Shane and Dwain.”

Amelia Lee
That’s awesome.

Janet
There was a couple of surprises in terms of the build, but they were not dreadful shocks. And Dwain even got back and said, “Look, yes, I can see why this has tended to be an issue because it wasn’t well detailed.” Because I think I said, “Where is this detail? I am completely surprised by this. I don’t see this anywhere in the schedule, how it’s been detailed.” He said, “Oh, it’s under number five, under schedule, whatever.” “But it just says robes.” He’s like, “Oh. Yeah, okay. Fair enough. That is a problem. Not a problem for me, because I know what it is, but a problem for you.”

Amelia Lee
And so how do you think this would have gone or been different without HOME Method? You’ve mentioned a couple of things along the way. Obviously, you’ve now got the benefit of this hindsight, having used the program to navigate a very long duration of your project. How do you think it would have been if you hadn’t had HOME Method in your arsenal of tools and resources?

Janet
Oh, man, it would have been so hard. I can’t even imagine Amelia, honestly. So if we had never even found your podcast, we would have just gone volume build. And then I would have got a fairly ho hum house, I think, that did the job. And I liked it, but it wasn’t like, “Oh, this is everything I’ve ever dreamed to be.” We found the podcast, we decided to go custom and we decided to go architect, as a result of the podcast. We found our building designer as a result of the podcast. Somewhere in there we joined HOME Method. 

I just can’t even imagine. Because the checklist on how to choose your builder, ah, so useful. How to choose your designer, so useful. Because we did talk to other designers, not just Aaron, just superduper useful and I can’t imagine. It just would have been horrible, I would have just been feeling my way in the dark the entire time. I would have been completely reliant on the professionals, I would have not been brave enough to ask the questions that I asked, I would not have been brave enough to push back on the things that I pushed back on, I would have just accepted the things that we’d been told. And then I wouldn’t have the house of God. Definitely not. I would’ve had lots of budget overruns and variations, and I don’t know. 

I have to say though, one thing I haven’t done, which I’m a bit ashamed of, is in the midst of all of the construction, we went and chose a landscape designer. Because the landscape for our build is really integral. And we were hoping to have the interior courtyard completely landscaped before moving in, it hasn’t worked that way due to just timings of different things. And then we can’t touch the backyard because we’ve got easements and constraints on. No touchy touchy before certifications. If one certification goes, then we can put some gardening in, things like that. So probably should have used HOME Method processes for the same thing. It just weird, because choosing a designer for your home is one thing, and then choosing a designer for your garden feels like a completely different thing. But it is the same thing. But we didn’t use the same processes, we went purely by recommendation. We did ask questions, but I didn’t check the checklist. 

And then we ended up having to direct it a lot more and lead the process a lot more than we wanted to. And then when we didn’t lead the process, things went wrong. And then we were told that, “Well you’ve completely changed the brief”, when I came back and said, “Hey, this stuff that you’ve given us back, it wasn’t what we wanted, and it’s way beyond the brief and it’s way too expensive and we can’t afford it and it impinges on the easement so we can’t even build it.” And she’s like, “You’ve just changed the brief. I said, “I don’t think I’ve changed the brief, it is all in the brief. You told me this is the best brief you’ve ever seen.” So now we have have a design. And I think the best thing would have been is if at concept stage, then we have had a meeting. If she had rang us and said, “Hey, we finished the concept. I know you’re focused on the courtyard, but I’ve done the concept for the whole front, inside and out. Let’s have a meeting. Let’s talk through everything.” But that didn’t happen. And then again, Christmas, there was that shutdown period. So I was focused on trying to get that courtyard moving, get stuff done for that. Researching planting, researching stuff, and I wasn’t looking at the backyard at all. And when she said, “I’m going to go ahead and detail the backyard”, I thought, surely not, she knows that we don’t want that. I should have gotten in touch then and said, “Please don’t.” Or, “Hey, can we have a meeting before you do that?” But I wasn’t leading the process. It’s not my job to lead the process. And so she was leading the best way she thought was best, but it just ended up not being the best way for us. So that that’s been our biggest disappointment.

Amelia Lee
Janet, in the grand scheme of all the things that could have gone wrong on this project, I don’t think you need to be ashamed about anything. 

But we should have used, honestly, for whatever professionals you end up hiring, people, use the processes, use the checklist. 

I think too, it would have been interesting, as well. Landscape designers usually want to become involved in the project, actually, at the point of designing of the building itself, and being involved from that collaborative point. And a lot of people do put it off, because landscaping is always parked as this I can spend that money later when I know that I’ve got enough money to do all of the other things that I want to get done before then. And so it’s always tricky because by that stage, you’ve been through the experience of a few years of making tens of thousands of decisions so your decision fatigue becomes quite real. At that pointy end of when you’re trying to make better choices for finishing something that’s actually going to have a really big impact on this final piece of the puzzle of pulling your home together. So I can completely understand that you took your eye off the ball.

Janet
And even choosing a landscape designer in that design phase, it felt like a lot to do. So like, “Oh, I want to do this, but it’s just a bit much for me right now.” And I can see how it would be useful, and Aaron would have been totally fine with us bringing another professional on board. And even early on, Dwain was saying, “Oh, you should probably get somebody involved.” Like, “Yeah, we’ll definitely do that, definitely do that.” But just, life.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, very understandable. So you’re only weeks away from moving in, what are you most excited about? I’m really looking forward to having another check in with you when you’ve been in the home for a while and hearing how it’s lived up to. I think that when you’ve had this much intention, you’ve educated yourself this way, you’ve invested this much effort, time, energy, money in creating this incredible result, that then living in it gets to be this surprising, delightful, enriching experience. So I’m really looking forward to that check in. What are you most excited about when you get to move in in the next few weeks?

Janet
Just starting life. Oh, I’m just really excited. It’s exactly like having a baby, you’ve waited this long, and just, “Alright, get out. I’m done. Let’s just have this new space. Come on, I just want to start this new phase of my life with you in it.” And that’s the same way, I want to start this new phase of my life with my house in it. And just enjoy doing normal day to day life with this house as a part of it, not as a job. Not as this thing I’ve got to attend to all the time, this thing I’ve got to keep thinking about. 

The thing that actually supports you doing everything else. 

Yeah, in a really good way. And everywhere, every step along, I’m sure it’s completely normal, at the “Okay, here’s everything for tender. Gosh, I hope we’ve got this right. Okay, here’s the contract, sign the contract. Gosh, I hope we’ve got this right.” And now moving towards moving in, “Gosh, I hope we’ve got this right.” Look, that’s me, my husband doesn’t seem to be having those thoughts at all. He feels cool as a cucumber, happy. He knows everything’s totally fine. But every now and then I’m like, “Ooh, I think we’ve got this right. I hope we’ve got this right. I think we’ll find out if we’ve got this right.” It’s normal. I’m just looking forward to just it being a normal part of life and enjoying the house. I’m just looking forward to it. Normal life, being a house and not a project.

Amelia Lee
Oh, well, Janet, thank you so much for sharing so much information with us about this construction phase. And as I said, I’m really looking forward to being able to check in with you, for you to let us know how the experience of living in this dream that you’ve made real is actually for you on a day to day basis. I really appreciate your time and being so generous with your information and your journey. And yeah, just really, really grateful that you could be here on the podcast.

Janet
Yeah, yeah, my pleasure. It’s been really fun, really good.

RESOURCES:

Janet’s Project Instagram >>> ‘buildscarlettshomewithahole’ https://www.instagram.com/buildscarlettshomewithahole?igsh=MXRmYXU4M2x3Nnd0NQ==

Listen to the Pre-Design and Design phases of Janet’s project in her earlier episodes:

• Episode 319 ‘Designing a new home with a difference, with Janet’ https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-designing-a-new-home-janet/
• Episode 320 ‘Building a new home on a challenging site, with Janet’ https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-building-a-new-home-challenging-site-janet/

Access the support and guidance you need (like Janet is) to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my flagship online program, HOME METHOD >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/

Learn more about how to interview and select the right builder with the Choose Your Builder mini-course >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/choose-your-builder 

Access my free online workshop “Your Project Plan” >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/projectplan