How do you get ‘project ready’ for a renovation so you can act quickly and make confident decisions?

Especially when you’re not sure exactly when your project will start, and what type of project you’ll be doing!

Elizabeth shares her steps and actions here as she embarks on renovating a brick home in a BAL Flame Zone area.

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 331, and I’m looking forward to introducing you to HOME Method member, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth has been one of our long-time members, having joined HOME Method, or an earlier iteration of the program, almost 5 years ago in 2019.

In the world of online businesses, that’s a long time … but for me as an architect having worked in this industry since 1994, it doesn’t feel that long!!

Elizabeth’s story is a really interesting one, because when she joined, she didn’t know what kind of project she was going to be working on, or where, or with who.

You see, Elizabeth’s home sits on land that was rezoned some years ago, which meant that a move was going to be on the cards, but there were a few hurdles to jump through first.

Elizabeth decided not to wait for those hurdles, and instead start upskilling herself, so that when they needed to act, she could feel much more comfortable and confident to do so quickly.

And, 5 years on – that’s exactly what’s happening right now! A speedy home purchase, a planned renovation, plus some other really amazing things have been happening that I’ll let Elizabeth share with you as we go. 

I’m sure you’re going to love meeting Elizabeth, and following along with her story from the start.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

How long should you spend researching before you begin your new build or renovation?

This is a question I receive, and to be frank with you, the answer is dependent on who you are, how you learn, and how quickly you take action.

However, there is a massive caveat in this answer. And that’s this: I see that many feel they haven’t formally ‘started’ their project until they’re diving into choosing and interviewing potential professionals and builders to work with.

Yet, they’ve potentially been researching, web surfing, pinning images and saving instagram posts for months, sometimes YEARS prior to that.

If you’re thinking about building or renovating your home, you’re most likely already researching, learning and preparing for your project journey. Even though you think you may not be ‘serious’ about your project just yet.

And if your research isn’t structured or informed, you can waste a lot of time being misled, having your expectations built up to unrealistic levels, and be starting your project really inefficiently.

Elizabeth chose to formalise and invest in her research early on, and to get structured guidance to support her ability to make good decisions, plus be able to act quickly when she needed to.

And boy, has she needed to act quickly!

For timeline context, Elizabeth joined HOME Method in September 2019. This conversation with Elizabeth actually happened in person at the end of July, 2024. 

The audio may be a little different as a result of our in-person recording. I was in Sydney unexpectedly, booked a meeting room in the State Library, and brought my podcasting gear – normally set up for only recording me – to record this conversation with Elizabeth.

Let’s hear it now.

This is the transcript of my conversation with Elizabeth and learning how she is getting project ready for her renovation.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, well, Elizabeth, this is a really amazing experience for me, because serendipitously, I’ve ended up in Sydney on the day that we were due to do a podcast conversation together. You live in Sydney and were kindly able to come in and meet me. I organised this meeting room in the State Library, and you’ve come in and met me. You’ve been in Undercover Architect’s program since 2019 and we were just chatting before that you’ve been part of the community for longer than that, and so we’ve had lots of online interactions. This is the first time we’re meeting in person. We’re sitting in very close quarters trying to make this work. I’ve got all of this makeshift stuff that I’ve brought here to try and have this conversation. And so I’m hoping that the sound works well for everybody, but it is just so lovely to be here with you, and to be finally able to talk about your project.  

Because you’ve got a really unique experience, I think, in terms of the length of time that you joined before you knew you were going to execute, and then when you’ve made the decision to execute, you are executing really quickly. And so I’m really keen to, I suppose, go through that and help people understand what it’s been like for you to research so proactively in the lead up to knowing that you are going to be doing a project, but you weren’t sure when or what it would look like, and then also what that’s meant for you personally, in terms of your own learning and those kinds of things.  

So I’m wondering if, before we dive into talking about your project, you could tell us a little bit about yourself and who this project is going to be for, your family, those kinds of things.

Elizabeth
Okay, thank you for having me. I’m just so excited to be here and to meet you in person. It was very serendipitous, as you said. So thank you. This home is going to be for me, my husband of 30 years, our three boys who are Aiden’s 21, Brendan’s 18 and Julian, the baby, is 15. We have two standard Labradoodles who are house dogs, a free range Cockatiel who has the run of the house, and also nine, no eight, budgies that also live in a very big aviary in our house. So that’s who the home is for. And then all the family and friends who happen to come in as well.

Amelia Lee
Fantastic. That’s a lot for a house to hold, isn’t it?

Elizabeth
Very noisy, with all those birds and dogs.

Amelia Lee
And are you the only female or have you managed to bring some animals in to keep you company?

Elizabeth
Look, I think three of the budgies might be female. To be honest, they’re not very nice. They won’t go shopping with me. They won’t do their nails, hair, makeup. Yeah, I’m the only female. Big change for me. I grew up with five sisters, so totally female household and family, to totally male. It’s very bizarre.

Amelia Lee
That’s amazing. Oh, wow. So can you give us a bit of background about, I suppose, what your living arrangement has been like for the last few years, and why you made that decision to join HOME Method in 2019? Of course, back then, it wasn’t HOME Method, it was another iteration of the program. I suppose, where were you at? And what did you know was coming, and what made that call to invest in the program?

Elizabeth
Okay, so about nine years ago now, they rezoned where I live. So I’m in Castle Hill in Sydney, so just near Showground Station now. They rezoned it because they’re putting the Metroline in, and our place was given a higher density, and all the houses are going to be rezoned to be then developed into units. So we knew that at some point a developer would come by our place and we would have to move on. So I just started thinking about, well, what’s next? Where do we go? There are a lot of iterations in those early days, getting together with neighbours, talking to developers and those sorts of things. 

And then one day, I can’t remember why, I was curious about underfloor heating, so I googled it, and I came across your podcast, and I listened to it and I went, “Oh, that’s awesome. Let’s see what else is here.” So that got me listening to the podcast, and then as time rolled on, we realised we were in a contract. I thought, well, we need to go somewhere. 

I’ve always had a love of architecture. I’ve been drawing floor plans since I was a little kid. But I very quickly realised from listening to the podcast, I really didn’t know much at all, so I thought it was time to get educated. So I learned a lot from the podcast, but I felt like I needed to have more education so that I would be able to go into this, not be taken advantage of, be confident in the decisions I was making, be confident in my interactions with people. Had some bad experiences with tradies in the past, they said, “Oh yeah, I’ll just talk to your husband about that.” “But it’s my design. I’m the one who’s doing this. Don’t talk to him. He doesn’t know.” So I want the confidence to be able to know what I was talking about. Yeah, so that is what prompted me to sign up.

Amelia Lee
Fantastic. And so when you had that rezoning done, what kind of timeline expectation did you have about how much time you’d have to make that next call about where you were going?

Elizabeth
Initially, we thought it would all happen very quickly. We thought it would be a one year, two year turnaround, if that. The first contract we signed was actually a four month turnaround, and that contract fell over very quickly. Developers have a way of seeing a property, negotiating deals, getting very excited, trying to find finance, can’t find finance, falls over. So we very quickly realised that that one to two year time frame on the horizon, but we didn’t really know where. So we kept moving.  

I think we probably signed three or four different contracts along the way, and they all fell over at different points. So that horizon just kept moving and moving and moving, but we knew one day, it was going to happen one day.

Amelia Lee
Wow. How have you managed that, mindset wise? Because you’re kind of in a holding pattern, aren’t you, and at the same time you have to be ready to act. How have you handled that from a personal point of view?

Elizabeth
My husband will say I’m annoyingly optimistic, so that, I think probably helps and that knowing that on the horizon somewhere, I was going to finally realise the dream of building a house, which I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. So that kept me going, knowing that one day that house was going to materialise, it would be just how we wanted it, and it would be absolutely perfect. And it was worthwhile dealing with everything we’re dealing with.  

And there were certainly moments when there were tears and anger and not very nice words said about people, there were moments that wasn’t great, but for the most part, it’s just knowing that that was on the horizon, and that’s what kept me going for the most part. And the support of the family, of course. And the longer it went on, the more I got to educate myself. And actually, I quite enjoyed that. So yeah, that helped.

Amelia Lee
You said you’ve been interested in architecture and home design since you’re a kid, you’ve wanted to have this project, this home that you’ve created for a long time. How did you find the education, I suppose, did it shift and change what you thought you wanted when you started? How’s that journey been for you?

Elizabeth
Absolutely. So very early on, we found a block of land that we loved, and I drew up a plan for that land. And look, I had some awareness of Eastern light and Northern light and those sorts of things. And if I look at that plan now, I laugh to myself, because I had a guest room. I actually don’t remember the last time we had guests stay. All our family’s in Sydney.  

If the boys’ friends stay over, they get a mattress on the floor. So didn’t need a guest room. That’s long gone. Had the obligatory theatre room. Well, that’s gone too. When would we have used it the way we consume media? With the boys being older and such a dedicated space, just a waste of money. I think I took out an extra bathroom that we didn’t need, so that has certainly changed. But I think there were a couple of other pivotal moments. 

Jane Hilliard’s Enoughness podcast, that really made me challenge my thinking about what do we really need, and how can we use that. That challenge my thing on what do we really need? But I also tied that in with using rooms well, rather than just having a dedicated space just used once, and it’s a lot of money to pay for that real estate. And also there was another episode that changed my way of thinking about the house, which was with Sarah Lebner on the significant renovation.  

So I’d always thought the only way to get the house I wanted was to build new. But then I listened to that and tied in with Enoughness and thinking about rooms being multi purpose and using the space that you’re paying for really shifted where I wanted to go with the building.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, it’s interesting, that podcast about enoughness is one that a lot of people talk about being a turning point for them. I know in Live Life Build, I have builder members who they’ll have clients that are struggling with their budget, and they know that really, the only solution for them is to consider the amount of area that they’re building. That’s going to make the biggest dent on saving cash in their project. And so they’ll send them to that conversation about enoughness.  

At the same time, it’s amazing how triggering that conversation about enoughness was too. The amount of messages I got saying, does Jane even have kids? How is she living? And I think it’s really interesting how different people, what they’ve made that mean for themselves. And at the end of the day, information is just information. It’s all about what we make it mean, as to how it lands with us. 

I love, though, that it was a conversation that we had, because it has been really useful for a lot of people just to reassess. And I think that’s the thing that I love most about the Undercover Architect community, is it’s full of people who are just choosing to be more intentional about what they create. Now, even though you’ve been waiting all of that time, and you mentioned a couple of contracts have fallen over, you’ve been making decisions about what you’re going to do next, you’ve been working through the idea of what it might be… What I’ve loved is you’ve actually been a really active member of our group. You’ve been in there generously offering your learnings to others. You’ve been really interested in other people’s projects.  

Why did you make that choice? Because I feel like there are some members who join early, and then they go, “I’m just going to research, and then I’ll get involved when my project starts.” But you’ve been very different in that regard, in terms of you have really dived in, and you’ve been so visible and contributed so much, even though your project wasn’t happening yet.

Elizabeth
I find it fascinating. I’ve learned so much. And I mean, we learn a lot from listening to the podcast and we learn from the courses that I’ve done. But the questions people ask are also fascinating, and reading through it and understanding other people’s takes has taught me things as well. So I think that’s why I’ve contributed and yeah, I think if I can give something, then I like doing that, because I’ve certainly gained so much more than anything I’ve contributed, just things I learned. There’s some key members there I’ve learned some amazing stuff from. And the things they deal with, I know things that I would deal with as well.  

So if they’ve asked that question, I don’t think many people ask totally unique questions in this world. So if they’ve asked a question, I know at some point I’m going to be asking the same question. So I think it’s benefited me to stay engaged. I think that’s the main reason, yeah.

Amelia Lee
It’s been really lovely, because now that the group’s been going for some time, we’ve seen projects right throughout. I mean, a project can take a long time, even when you’re ready to go as soon as you join, and yet, we’ve had the benefit now of it going for such a time that we’ve been seeing more and more homes finish. And so it is, it’s really awesome, isn’t it, to be part of seeing those projects come to fruition?

Elizabeth
Absolutely, in fact, I think once ours is done, I don’t think I’ll sign off. I don’t want to sign off, I’ll still be there.

Amelia Lee
Now, can I ask you, you also took your learning inside HOME Method to a whole nother level in terms of your own professional career. So can you talk through that and your decision making around all of that?

Elizabeth
Yeah, for sure. So coming through school, aside from the various different careers you think of as coming through, the one that I kept on to was architecture. But if anyone remembers back when I was leaving school, we had the recession that Paul Keating said we had to have, and the building industry collapsed.  

And with all the wisdom of a 17 year old, I concluded that meant that if I became an architect, I’d be unemployed, and I’d be designing kitchens for a living. So I went and did economics at university instead, and ended up down the chartered accounting path, which I don’t regret. It’s taken me to where I am. It’s fantastic. 

But I realised my boys were getting older, they were studying, and I sat down one night with my eldest doing University applications, and as I was scrolling through, architecture popped up and I went, “I wonder what would it be like to do an architecture degree?” So kept clicking all the links, and I realised, because I have a base degree, it was going to cost me 30 grand a year and five years of my life. And I knew it’s one of those professions, it’s heart and soul, and the study is heart and soul, and I would have to give up too much. So then I thought, “Well, what about TAFE Course?” So I did some research and inquired and sat on it for a bit, and I realised one night when I had dinner with a girlfriend I hadn’t seen for a while, she’s like, “Oh, what are you up to?” I said, “Oh, thinking of doing this TAFE Course.” She said, “You told me that a year ago.” Okay, so I’ve been seeing this for a while, and I’m starting to say the same thing over and over. I need to act. 

So I enrolled, so it’s a two part course, so you have to do residential drafting as a precursor to building design. So I’ve completed that. So technically, I’m a qualified drafter, but my interest is more the residential design. So I started that back up. I took a six month break just because of locations of courses. And so that started back in July this year. So that was it. So I’ve never lost that love of it. I’ve never walked into a house without thinking, if this was my house, what would I do? What would I change? 

I’ve always been drawn to floor plans. When I used to read magazines, Home Beautiful, I got that one because it had floor plans. And I’d look at the pictures and the relationships between the rooms, and I just go onto domain.com.au, to look at the houses and floor plans. Everyone just kept saying, do it, and the realisation that we’re alive for a long time, and life doesn’t have to end. You’re not set on this path. You can change direction. And I thought it was important for my boys to also realise that there’s more to a mum than just the person who says, “Hey, bring your dirty clothes out and come out for dinner.” I want them to see that I could also study and learn and evolve. And, yes, I think it’s all those things.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, it’s amazing. I mean, I have loved watching how that’s ignited in you, and then you’ve backed yourself to go and actually pursue it further. Because when you’ve done a career for a long time, it is a big personal shift and a mindset shift. And like you say, architecture is an all in thing. And I think too, architecture as well, you’d come out of your degree, and it would still be a very long apprenticeship to be doing probably what you want to be doing. Whereas doing building design, you’re going to get the chance to be able to be doing designing and drawing and things like that. 

And it’s been really amazing watching how that is the case for some HOME Method members. We’ve had Cindy on the podcast talking about her studies as a thermal performance assessor. We’ve got other members who have definitely shifted themselves career wise. Clare is now working part time for the builders that built her home. She’s helping them in terms of their processes and their client facing side of business. So I love seeing how this goes from being, “Oh, let’s do this for our own house,” to then, “Oh my gosh, actually, this is something that really does inspire me to do more.”

Elizabeth
Oh, definitely inspiring, absolutely.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Now, you’ve recently had a change in terms of all of that waiting and things sitting around and those contracts falling over. Can you talk us through what’s been happening for you over the last three to six months that has really shifted things?

Elizabeth
It’s been full on. We signed a contract with the developer, which we knew this time, it wasn’t going to fall over. Things felt different, and he was actually already moving in the area. He’d already done some demolition work, so we knew it was going to go ahead. So we signed a contract with him back in February, which we were due to settle in February next year. But he’s said to us, “If you find the right place, we’ll let you out early.” So we went to talk to a real estate agent to get a feel for the market, and he asked us what we wanted. We told him, “We still have to save a bit of space. My husband collects cars, and we wanted something that was untouched, because I didn’t want to pay for someone else’s crimes against architecture and have find spakfilla and paint covering up all manner of sins.

Amelia Lee
Were you looking for an existing house, or were you looking for a block of land?

Elizabeth
I was, at that stage. So the initial plan had been to find land and build, and the shifting Australian property market meant that the land and the build was probably going to be more than we wanted to spend and probably more than we could afford anyway. And coming back to the point before, of having listened to Sarah and Jane, I thought, well, maybe we actually look at something that we can renovate. And I’m hugely into sustainability, we’ve got one planet, we need to look after it. So I thought, well, what exists is the most sustainable option, so maybe the path we look at is actually renovating instead. So I’ve been looking on Domain for nine years, since this started, and I look at every house.  

And as I’ve learned more, I go straight to the map, look to see where it is. Then I go straight to the floor plan. I look for the north side. If I don’t see a north side, I don’t go any further. And if I see a North sign, I look at where the orientation of the rooms, then I think about, well, could this be changed? It’s amazing how many of them are poorly oriented.

Amelia Lee
I know there’s loads of existing houses that just face the wrong direction, don’t they? Yeah.

Elizabeth
Houses that don’t have any windows on the northern side. Blows my mind. So I had all that I’d been seeing, and all the years I’d only seen about two or three places I actually went, “Actually, that’s a good house I could do something with.” So we went to this agent I used to check this place out, and I got online and went, “Yeah, that’s it.” And it was a serendipitous moment, because we’d just been in the car that morning, and I’d always sit in the back of my mind, the toughest thing about this new house, however tough the last years have been with the whole redevelopment, the tougher part was going to be getting agreement on the next place, finding something that my husband and I agreed on, that the boys would be happy with. And that morning, in the car, before we even knew we’re going to real estate agent, he said, “It’ll be like when we got our current house. We’ll walk in and we’ll just know.” We walked into this house and we just knew. So it just felt right, and I could see its potential. 

So it was built in 1981, its original solid condition, but a much smaller, pokier house than we live today. And if you had little children, the little bedrooms, which are like 2 x 4, 2.4 x 3.1 or something like that, little kids could live in it. But when you got three strapping boys, and they don’t fit in single beds, and they study, then we needed something bigger than that. And the kitchen was a walk through one, you walk straight through the kitchen to get to other rooms and going that would just drive me insane.  

So this place had the right orientation. It was north facing, it had solid foundations, and I knew that I could stay within the existing footprint and roof, which would also hopefully keep down the cost of renovation and also ticked those sustainability boxes and maintaining what we possibly could. So we saw the place and made an offer. So within six days of seeing it, we actually had bought it. But the first thing I did before we did decide to do it, I got hold of the Section 10.7 certificate, and I went through and I checked all the overlays.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, rule number one, what are the rules?

Elizabeth
I’m delighted to know that we could have an oyster farm on our property. Who knew? Downtown Castle Hill, you can have an oyster farm. Well, there’s a creek at the bottom of the property, it runs down to the Hawkesbury eventually. So I did know going into that we would be able to do what we wanted to do. I think zoning is, I think they call it P4 or similar. So there’s a large part of the block we’re not allowed to do anything with. But because we were staying under the existing roof line, it’s not a problem.

Amelia Lee
Gotcha, how big is the block?

Elizabeth
4000 square metres.

Amelia Lee
Oh, so it’s on, it’s an acre, yeah.

Elizabeth
So it’s in Glenhaven, beautiful suburb outside of Castle Hill. And Glenhaven is largely a whole series of ridges with fingers of bush land coming through. We’re on a battle axe block. So the street we’re on is actually a beautiful, really hilly street. Our end is a little bit busier, but because we’re 20 metres back, you don’t hear anything. I’ve got three other houses fronting or backing onto us. But you don’t see it because of the arrangement of the trees.

Amelia Lee
And so obviously, you looked at it, had that offer accepted, and you’d already made a decision about what you could roughly do with it. What else did you find out about it in terms of the constraints? Because it’s a bush block so…

Elizabeth
Well, yeah, the little voice in my head proved correct. We knew it was definitely in a bushfire zone. I’d done that research as well. I went on to the council maps anyway, and it was definitely bushfire zone. And I just looked at the proximity of the trees to the back of the house and went, “Yeah, optimistically, it’s 29 in terms of its BAL rating.” I thought, “I don’t think it is.” So before we actually put in the offer, I got into a bushfire consultant, and he said, “Send me the address.” And he got back to me straight away.  

And he went, “Yeah, 100% that’s flame zone.” We knew what we were going into. But that block, we just went, “Oh, it’s just beautiful. The outlook is just everything we wanted.” I grew up at the foothills of the mountains, so maybe that looking at mountains, we spend a lot of time in Blue Mountains as kids. So we just could see ourselves there. And we just went, “Well, if it’s flame zone, it’s flame zone.”

Amelia Lee
Yeah. So, for anyone who’s listening, in Australia, we rate blocks on their bushfire attack level. Flame Zone is the highest level. So it brings a bunch of conditions in terms of building material choices, glazing choices, what a house needs to do in the event of it protecting itself from fire, and then also specific things that you need to do to the actual block, in terms of firefighting, water supply, asset protection zones, all of those kinds of things. So it is a whole constraint that you’ve embraced because of your love of the block.  

And I think too, that decision of, okay, how can we rationalise what we do renovation wise, keep the footprint as it is, work with what we’ve got, so that you’re not, I suppose, extending the house significantly and then balancing the cost of doing that with having to build to that flame zone. The work that you’ll do to the existing house, part of that, I imagine, is that you’re going to be targeting upgrading the existing house so that it meets all of those requirements?

Elizabeth
Absolutely. The house was built in 1981 before there were any requirements too, for bushfire protection. The house is rectangular, with the long side facing onto the bush, and our block, it’s basically square, aside from the handle of the battle axe. From the diagonal corner, from the battle axe to the bottom, is about 26 metres, so we’re uphill of all those big trees. But from the back window, back room, if we went 100 metres, we’re sitting in someone else’s family room.  

So it’s a long, skinny finger of tract of land, so I wouldn’t say there would never be a fire. I think it’s a different risk to sitting with the Blue Mountains in your backyard. Or we actually looked at another block a little bit further out, where, again, you did swear in the Blue Mountains was that much bush. I think that’s a much higher risk. To personally escape from the fire in this house, you just walk up there into the driveway near the middle of suburbia. I’m not going to dismiss the risk, but we were more comfortable with that than hundreds of kilometres of bush land in our backyard.

Amelia Lee
And so you say, sorry, you’re looking down a hill. So that’s going to play into that flame zone exactly rating as well, because obviously fire moves faster up a hill, and if that hill has got trees all over it… I know with our property, that’s what’s driving a lot of the bushfire zoning on it, because it is a hilly property and those hill faces are quite steep and they’re all treed. So that does drive that because of the way that fire moves in those conditions.

Elizabeth
And 10 of the windows in the house are actually full size doors with a full size window next to it, the French doors. And they’ve got the wooden… I always get munsons…

Amelia Lee
Mullions and transoms?

Elizabeth
Yeah, so very colonial looking. And I reckon they would last about two seconds. So from day one, from the very first thing, it was like the windows being upgraded. And the windows were going to be upgraded anyway, even before I knew about bushfire confirmation, because I wanted to be thermally efficient. So I’m sick of living in a cold, draughty house, so I was always going to upgrade those windows anyway. This means that these ones will either have to be upgraded to the full flame zone spec or some sort of shutter system. And I understand there’s a bit of a trade off there, depending on what window you get, depends on what shutter you get, and you can trade off the strength of each.

Amelia Lee
Gotcha, yeah. Okay. And so you sound like you’ve already been doing a lot of research. What are your plans in terms of, when you’re thinking you’ll formalise what you’re going to do, the steps that you’re taking, what is next? How is that all playing out for you?

Elizabeth
So I’ve drawn up what I’m calling my conceptual design, not a builder, not a structural engineer. So the very next thing we’re doing is getting a builder on board. So I spoke to four, approached four. Two weren’t available. One says it’s just not really in our price, it’s not what we do. And the other one’s said we just don’t have the space. But I’ve got two other builders I’m talking to, one known personally, kids sport, get changed, people on the sidelines. And same with the other one, recommended through friends who know him through sport. So we’re trying to get them onto the site. They both said, “Can we come and visit the site?” Unfortunately, the current owners don’t want to let us on the site, which is proving to be a bit of a problem.

Amelia Lee
That’s challenging, isn’t it?

Elizabeth
It’s very challenging.

Amelia Lee
So they’re not going to do that until you settle?

Elizabeth
That’s what they’re saying. We settle on the 18th of October. So that’s a problem. I thought I might be able to at least get hold of the floor plans. And we had asked before, actually agreed on the contract, or I was sort of in the negotiation phase of the contract, and the owner said, “Oh, I have them, but I don’t know whether I’ve packed them.”  

So I approached Council, but because we’re not registered as the owners, they won’t release them either. So, yes, that’s kind of a bit of a glitch. I’m hoping that the owner is going to come around. To be fair to her, her husband isn’t well, so she has a lot of stress. They’re an older couple. She’s got a lot on, so we’re just going to give her a little bit of space.

Amelia Lee
Have they been in the house for a long time?

Elizabeth
They built it.

Amelia Lee
Okay, so I can imagine there’s a massive emotional shift for them actually moving from there as well. And if he’s unwell, maybe it’s not happened by choice. And all of that’s going to be challenging, isn’t it?

Elizabeth
Yeah, and it’s not a movement by choice, she just realised she can’t maintain that bigger property on her own. And they want to move closer to their children, so I totally understand where she’s coming from. But I’m also going, “Please, let me in, I just need two hours.” 

So we’ll give her some space and try again when maybe she’s on a better day. So I thought I might write a nice letter and explain how much it means to us, because if we can’t get the builders locked in, we might lose that opportunity with the builders. And then, to the question that I put up, do we live through a renovation? And the overriding one was all, whether you want or not, the builder may actually say no. And given the number of walls that are moving, I think a builder will probably reasonably say no.

Amelia Lee
So Elizabeth asked in the group recently, what were people’s thoughts on her living in the house with a family whilst it was being renovated, because of trying to navigate that timing of settlement of the other property, of your existing property, moving, making those works done, trying to compress not paying rent somewhere, and navigating all of that.  

And yeah, there was a lot of feedback in “Well, you can, you just need to know what you’re going to be dealing with.” And then checking with the builder, because some builders will just insist that you’re not on site for the renovation, particularly if the whole house is being dealt with. Sometimes builders will accommodate it if where they’re working can be securitized and kept quite separate, but from a workplace health and safety point of view, it’s in a builder’s interest to not have you on site on a regular basis during a project. And so navigating that’s always a bit tricky.

RESOURCES:

Building or renovating in a Bushfire prone area? Listen to Season 12 here >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/season-12/ 

Here are my conversations with Jane Hilliard from Designful:

• Episode 237 ‘Designing Your Home Using ‘Enoughness’ with Jane Hilliard from Designful’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-designing-your-home-using-enoughness-jane-hilliard-designful/ 
• Episode 238 ‘Creating Your Ideal Home with Jane Hilliard, Designful’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-creating-your-ideal-home-jane-hilliard-designful/ 

Here are my conversations with Sarah Lebner from Cooee Architecture:

• Episode 260 ‘Connecting Regional People with Low-Carbon Homes with Sarah Lebner from Cooee Architecture’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-connecting-regional-people-with-low-carbon-homes-sarah-lebner-cooee-architecture/ 
• Episode 261 Sustainable Retrofitting and Renovating with Sarah Lebner, Cooee Architecture’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-sustainable-retrofitting-and-renovating-sarah-lebner-cooee-architecture/ 

Access the support and guidance you need (like Elizabeth 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