What’s involved in getting it right in your renovation when working with your builder?

Anthony Hickey, Director and Builder at Two Tone Construction, recently finished a renovation project with HOME Method members, Tanya and Paul… and he has great insights to share about what makes your renovation project go well!

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 359, and I’m super excited to bring this conversation to you.

For some time on the podcast, we’ve been hearing the stories of HOME Method members in all different parts of their projects. Some right at the beginning, some mid-way through and keeping us updated over their project timeline, and some who have moved into their finished newly built or renovated home.

I’ve been getting so much great feedback from you about these episodes. About how much you’re loving these stories, as well as the people and homes in them, and how helpful they are for understanding more about your own project as well.

However, we’ve only been hearing from the homeowner’s side. And so, in this episode, I want to introduce you to Anthony Hickey, the Director and Builder in Melbourne-based building business, Two Tone Construction.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

Anthony recently finished a renovation for HOME Method members, Tanya and Paul. And this is a great opportunity to hear about how he found it to work with educated and informed homeowners, and how it impacted his work and the renovation project overall.

I regularly get messages from homeowners who are nervous to upskill themselves further in their project, concerned they’ll frustrate their professional team, or their designer, architect or builder will find it difficult and annoying to work with a client who is wanting to know more, be better prepared and informed as a collaborator in their own project.

If that’s what you’re worried about, or you’re simply curious about the role you can play in your project, and how your team may potentially receive that, then this episode will be fantastic for you.

And if you’re keen to understand what a builder thinks makes a great project and a great client, and their suggestions for how to ensure your project goes well, stay tuned.

Anthony is the founder and director of Two Tone Construction, a boutique home renovation and construction company located in the inner-west suburbs of Melbourne. 

Spawning from 3 generations of builders, it’s a deep love for their craft that allows them to deliver impeccable craftmanship and attention to detail for every project they complete. Specialising in high-end major renovations, extensions, and new builds in the western suburbs of Melbourne, they work closely with you to develop your vision for your unique home.

At the time of recording, Anthony is a much-loved member of Live Life Build’s ELEVATE. 

Live Life Build is another business I have with Co-Founder and Builder, Duayne Pearce, where we teach and mentor builders in how to improve their projects, businesses and lives. ELEVATE is our group coaching and mastermind program for custom residential builders, and Two Tone Construction is also listed as a PAC Process TRAINED builder – and you’ll learn more in our conversation about what that means.

Listen out as Anthony talks through some of the core basics EVERY builder should be doing with you in your project – but unfortunately they’re not. 

Namely, this is 

• providing you with a schedule or program that shows you the timeline of your project
• setting up a regular (ideally weekly) site meeting with you during construction
• and ensuring the meetings are minuted.

And just a quick note of clarification – you’ll hear Anthony refer to the design team on this project as ‘architects’, however the team who worked on this project is AlterEco, a practice of building designers and interior designers. So, different to registered architects, hence the clarification, but clearly the right fit for this client and project.

Now, let’s dive in!

This is the transcript of my conversation with Anthony about his work with HOME Method members, Tanya and Paul, in their Melbourne renovation.

Amelia Lee
Well, Anthony, I’m so excited to have you here. We’ve known each other personally through Live Life Build for some time now, and I’ve spoken with you about your work and about this project in particular. And so, I’m really looking forward to sharing your insights as a builder, working with a HOME Method member, and also just the incredible wisdom and knowledge that you can share with the Undercover Architect community about the projects that you work on, and introducing you to the Undercover Architect community as well. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. So, I’m wondering, as we kick off, if you can just share a little bit about yourself and how you became to be a builder and starting your own construction business.

Anthony Hickey
Thanks, Amelia, thanks for having me. Yes, I’m Anthony. I have two beautiful children, little Lenny, three and Evie, five. And my beautiful wife, Kirsty. I have been involved in building for the past over 20 years. Originally, growing up, my dad was a carpenter, and I’d see him come home in his car, key overalls, and I had a super amount of admiration for how he was able to build things with his hands and create things around the home. And, yeah, I was hooked from the get go. So, I am a third generation carpenter that is now a builder. 

And, it all started for me back when I was about four and got my first nail bag given to me by my dad, and building a cubby house down by the apple tree using timber and nails. And once mum and dad gave me a little bit of approval and a pat on the back, that just set me. I loved it. I loved everything about it. Fast forward, now, I started my apprenticeship when I was 18, straight out of school. Actually wanted to leave after year 10, but mum and dad kept me in and it was a blessing in disguise, because it was the best two years of my life. Year 11 and 12, really good social side of things. I started my apprenticeship when I was 18 with a builder who I was only there for three months, and actually left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I left there not wanting to be a carpenter anymore. Had a bit of a gap here, playing footy up in Queensland, which is where I met my wife, or my now wife. So, the universe works in mysterious ways. 

But came back and my dad was working for a builder as a carpenter, and I started my apprenticeship under him. Was there for a year and a half before the builder went quiet. And so that’s when I found another job at a company called Appetite for Construction in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, and that’s where I really got to cut my teeth. They saw something in me that warranted them giving me the plans to a project when I was in my third year of my apprenticeship, and letting me have a crack. And I certainly learned pretty quickly. The poor guys couldn’t tell you how many times I called him in those first few months, thankfully, they were paying my phone bills. But that was the best way for me to learn on the job. Really start to believe in myself and my skills and yeah. 

From there, I was there for about 10 years, running their projects, until I went out with a business partner, Maddie, who was actually an apprentice of mine at my old company. We started Two Tone Construction in 2016. I’m Anthony. My dad is Tony, so the name spawned from trying to pay homage to my dad. Funnily enough, when I was a little fella, I used to ask mum, when will I be old enough to turn into Tony and mum told me that will never happen. So, I’m still Anthony. But yeah, Maddie moved to Tassie in about 2021, and then I became the sole director and the license builder of Two Tone Construction, and that’s where we are today. So, again, we are in the west of Melbourne, and predominantly around here, there’s a lot of single-fronted and double-fronted miners cottages, which is the Victorian and Edwardian-style homes. And there’s also some California bungalows. So, that’s the scope or the projects that we tend to come up with the most. Most of our jobs around here are heritage overlay or heritage listed. So, us being in the renovation field, we love to be able to keep, which we have to anyway, the front part of the house, the frontage, and then try and meet or match the old with the new. And so that has its own challenges, but it’s certainly where we get to flex our craftsmanship muscles, I guess, and that’s what we love to do.

Amelia Lee
That’s awesome. The Undercover Architect audience know that I’m a big fan of renovations. I love the idea that you get to breathe new life into an old home and give it the ability to go on and keep living and tell a new story. And I remember seeing Kevin McLeod talk once, and he was saying that every time we demolish an old home, it’s like we’re tearing a page out of the book that contains the stories of our streets and our suburbs and our communities, and that there’s something really to be said for how we can work with these older style homes that respects them but also then reinvigorates them to suit current modern lifestyles, helps them be more thermally performing, helps them be more energy efficient, and gives them new life, and keeps all of that building material out of landfill as well. So I love that that’s the kind of work that you’re doing.

Anthony Hickey
And they’re just beautiful. Sorry, they are. They’re beautiful. Not sure if you’re familiar with Yarraville, but it’s very similar to all the inner cities around Melbourne, I guess. You drive down the streets and it’s like you’re going back in time. Those whole frontage as you drive through, like the big extensions that had no overlays, they stand out like a sore tooth or sore teeth and, yeah, that’s why we love what we do.

Amelia Lee
Now you’re PAC process-trained. So that means that you’ve completed the PAC challenge that we have at Live Life Build, which teaches you how to get paid as a consultant during pre construction. You’ve passed the test that we have inside that online course, and you’ve now got your details listed on the Live Life Build website as a PAC process-trained builder, which is how then homeowners can find you, and also architects and designers can find you to collaborate with. Why did you get PAC process trained? And how have you actually found the PAC process for you as a builder and for your projects generally?

Anthony Hickey
So I have been a member of Live Life Build now for just under two years, or just over 18 months. And when I initially started, I could see all the massive positive changes that it had made to a lot of the members that have been there longer than me. And I must admit, when I initially went through and did the training, I was skeptical about how I would be able to have that relate into our business and how to implement it. Not sure if the architects I work with or the clients that were coming through would be receptive to it, but once we had gone through our first PAC process with a client and seeing the value it not only brought for the client and the architects but ourselves, we are now sitting here, and our process is that we only work with clients that do engage us in our pre construction or our PAC process. And it just mitigates so much possible challenges from the construction start date on woods, because we’ve had the ability to really do our due diligence and inspect and assess the existing property, especially in our field, as we do renovations. 

We do keep a portion of the house nearly every time. So we really want to know what’s there and what we can utilise, and therefore, what we need to allow for. So yeah, it’s an absolute game changer for us, and it’s the only way we do work moving forward.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, that’s fantastic. And I know something we teach inside that PAC challenge is this notion of the project being king or queen, and that in all efforts that we want the consultants, be it the builder, the architect or designer, really working through with the client to collaborate with them, holding the project as the lead. And of course, it’s the client that’s driving that vision for what they want that project to become, and it’s the client who has the budget to make that project happen. 

Have you seen how that collaboration and working together with the right kinds of designers and architects to collaborate in that way with that agenda of the project being king or queen has really helped deliver really good outcomes for the client?

Anthony Hickey
Yeah, absolutely, especially with our clients, one of the HOME Method clients we’re here to talk about as well, the ability for me to get involved early and just give cost implications of certain changes, so that they were aware and therefore could make a judgment based on what they see value in. And that was throughout the process, so for them to understand cost implications and understand where they can and would like to spend money also. 

So in this scope, in particular, like we had a scope for the external works as well, it was quite a high end finish internally. And the clients had a budget that was quite fixed. So in the process of this, we realised there was a little bit of a change of scope that was required to be able to allow to get as much as possible done for the budget that they had. And doubling back, I’ve also seen the opposite side of the adverse effect of not doing the pre construction. We’ll probably touch on it later. But the tender process, where we would have these complete construction drawings, the clients would have fallen in love with this beautiful design. The architects have done an incredible job of detailing it. It would go out to three or four builders. We would work our butts off, and some of us would be more itemised than others, but it would come back and we’re anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000 over budget, and we talk about the project being king and making sure we get it to a point where it gets built, these projects were not getting built. The poor clients had spent a huge amount of money. The architects had spent a huge amount of time. 

And all it needed was someone to come in and let the clients, and even the architects, understand what the cost implications were as it was being designed. And we would never have had those problems, and I guess wasted time on anyone’s behalf.

Amelia Lee
It fascinates me that for such a long time, and you’ve heard me say this inside Elevate in Live Life Build that I worked at Mirvac for seven or so years as a project architect. We would have regular design meetings where we’re working through the design of a project, and at every design meeting, there’s somebody from estimating and construction sitting at the table, providing input on cost and buildability, and it happens at every other sector of the industry. 

And yet, the personal homeowner who’s waging either a 30 year mortgage or a lifetime of savings or a combination of both, and there’s so much more financially at stake, isn’t getting the benefit of that input during the design phase, and is instead relying on their architect or their designer as their costing professional. And I know, as architects, we’re not legally allowed to do that. And when you’re an architect or designer that’s not getting to see projects right through construction, not getting to stand on site and understand how projects are actually turning out because a client’s decided that they don’t want to pay your fees for that for that duration, it’s very difficult to understand what those lines on a page are actually going to cost, and it’s also so dependent on how the builder might be deciding to deliver it. So yeah, I love that have had that experience, and I can understand that initial hesitation to do it. It’s, of course, it’s something that we see our Elevate members struggle with all the time. Nobody’s going to pay for this. Nobody’s going to want it. I’m really excited that it’s been positive for you, and I know it’s been positive for the clients that I see working with builders in this way. 

So, I’m wondering if we can jump into talking about the particular HOME Method members that we’re here to share the story of from your point of view. You said to me, they actually redefined your benchmark for your ideal client. And I know that they had an amazing time working with you on their project. They absolutely loved the work that they did with you. Can you tell us a little bit about the project, just to give us some background on it, what the scope of works was, the timeline, what you’re actually doing on the project?

Anthony Hickey
So, it was a late 1800s, early 1900s double brick home. It was quite drafty and quite tired inside, I guess, without being rude. And the main goal was to try and make it more energy efficient. Like I said, it was quite drafty. They also obviously wanted to modernise it, make it work for their growing family, and that has its own challenges, being a double brick home, it’s not too easy to just move walls. So that was the scope of work there. In order to make it more energy efficient, we fully insulated the envelope. So that meant falling under and insulating under the subfloor. We installed uPVC windows and doors in there, and we also taped all our floor junctions to the brick walls prior to the plaster finish. So, tried to make it as air tight as possible. We also had this beautiful, I guess it’s a shade screen you’d call it, which was on the northern wall to allow for solar gains in winter to let the sun through, but to alleviate the sun glaring in over the summertime, which was another part to help with our energy efficiency. So that was the scope. I’ve forgotten, what else you asked, sorry?

Amelia Lee
Oh, and just the timelines. How long did the project take? And, I suppose, in terms of you thinking about when you got involved with them and working through that overall duration.

Anthony Hickey
Yeah, so the timeline of the construction itself, we had just over nine months to get the project done. We allow extra time to make sure if there’s any possible hold ups, we’re covered. But we started July 1st, and I was always hopeful in my own head to try and get it done by Christmas. And it’s something that I say every year that I’ll never do again. And yet, we schedule our jobs out. We have a Gantt chart that we share with our clients. And as the project kept progressing, it was always looking good. And so, I guess trying to keep our clients expectations where they needed to be, it was always we’re still trying to get to this point, but realistically, we’ve still got X amount of months to go. So we ended up just missing out on the Christmas deadline, which was, what would that have been, six months? So we got the clients in just after Chrissy. It’s a mad time to try and get people in during Christmas time, so definitely ward people against that or allow enough time. But yeah, they came in just before Australia Day. 

I guess the pre construction side of things, we were probably engaged with them for the best part of nine months beforehand. We were ready to rock and roll with this job much earlier than July 1st. But there was a few hold ups with Council and documentation, which held things up a little bit. But, yeah, that gave us a great ability to understand the job, really understand the client’s wants and needs, and build that relationship with our clients, which was, that’s the number one for us.

Amelia Lee
And when you said that they were that your ideal benchmark of clients, what were they like as clients, I suppose, in that initial approach to use? Did they stand out in terms of those early conversations and how things started to roll out?

Anthony Hickey
So, yeah, a bit of backstory. So Tanya and Paul didn’t actually see my name on any websites or anything. It was actually the architects Altereco, who are amazing architects and they do some really great work in the Passive House and high performing homes area. And I’d reached out to them a few months prior, I guess, just to try and make a connection with the local architects around the area. And they put my name forth. 

And so I had this Zoom meeting, which I was probably just as nervous as I was for this meeting, but we had a good chat. They had a lot of questions for me, and I was able to answer them. And there was one in particular which ended up, I guess, putting me ahead of the other builders, which was the daughter has this one spot in the hallway that she loved the floor. It really resonated with her or reminded her of what the house was for her, I guess. And something that we love to do, because we do renovations, we love to keep a piece of the old home and be able to transform it into something for when the new home arrives, whether it be a picture frame or whether it be a shelf or table, depending on what we’re using. And I was just chatting to Tanya about that, and that clicked in her head. I might be going too deep in here, but I spoke to Tanya a few weeks ago just to get some clarity on how I was the lucky one to be picked. And she did say there was a builder who came across more experienced in the area of Passive House, which is fair, because we’ve only just recently been trained. But it was a gut feeling that she had. She had a good connection with me.  

And I have to thank the HOME Method members because she let me know that she put it out to the group, and they all came back to follow their gut, as opposed to go with necessarily the more experienced builder. And don’t get me wrong, we’re very experienced in what that was as a refurb, but to know that I had made a connection with her in that way, and both Paul as well, and for them to trust me to build their forever home was something that I’m eternally grateful for. And so the relationship was created from the start, but throughout the build, as far as how we see them as our ideal avatar, if you will, for clients, we started the project, and we were met with a beautiful card that was an appreciation card for what we were about to embark on, and thanking us for where our relationship was up to that point. It was a huge jar of chocolates and lollies, which got the boys excited. And also, my little boy, Lenny, all of a sudden, wanted to come to site every afternoon to pop in and get a Choccy, and a little voucher for the coffee shop down the road. I said to my wife, “Have a look at this.” And other than saying this is how you should be thinking when you give gifts to me, she and I were both in awe of how someone would spend that time and have such a thoughtful gift to give to us before we’d even put a shovel in the dirt. So it started off incredible. 

I guess the other side of things was, so we have site meetings every week. This gives us the ability to let the clients know what’s happened for the week, we gauge it against our Gantt chart to see where we’re at in relation to our schedule, for them to voice any queries, for us to let them know what’s happening ahead. And after our first meeting, which went well, I received an email from Tanya, and it was a meeting minutes with action points for myself, action points for them, and the general discussion. And I’m a little bit embarrassed to say it, because now that’s what we do moving forward, and I’m the one doing it, but Tanya did that off her own bat. And guess that, again, is a credit to the HOME Method, because I had never thought of that before, and it made the job just an absolute dream. 

So, I guess, coupled with the fact that they’re incredible human beings, the fact that they were so invested and well-versed, they hadn’t renovated before, and yet I was learning things from them. So yeah, I guess that’s part and parcel of why they’ve been so incredible.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you for taking that through us. I remember that conversation of Tanya asking that in the group and the other members saying, “What does your gut feel?” What I see happen when a homeowner gets educated, because often we say, “Oh, you’ve got to go with your gut.” But your gut is about intuition and self trust, and so it’s very difficult. I see a lot of homeowners find it to trust themselves if they haven’t educated themselves, if they’re dipping their toe into something they’ve never done before, they’re thinking of the fears and the concerns that they have about the project going wrong, to access that self trust and to access that gut feel becomes very challenging. Whereas, if you have taken the time to educate yourself and surround yourself with a like-minded community and understand what to expect and anticipate, accessing that self trust becomes a lot more straightforward, and so then that gut feel resonates a lot more strongly. And I see that play out for people really amazingly, because I’ll often get emails from people that say, “Oh, look, I naively trusted that this builder was going to be okay.” And they realise, in hindsight, they thought they were going with their gut, but basically they were just jumping into the deep end with their eyes shut, hoping that it would go well. Whereas it’s a very different feeling when you can lean into the way that you’ve prepared yourself and the way that you have invested your efforts and operate from that place, it’s a very different feeling. So I love that she was able to be guided by that. And also the conversations that she was having with you. 

We often have lots of conversations inside HOME Method about whether people should buy gifts for builders to say thank you or to do things like that. It’s lovely for you to give that feedback of how it helped, I suppose, the sense of you being appreciated. I mean, at the end of the day, what I say is, “It’s not something a builder expects”, because your job is to deliver the project. Like, that’s what the contract’s about, that’s what the investment is about. However, given that it’s something so personal that you’re doing for somebody and it is such a personal exercise for them, those gifts of appreciation and those acknowledgements, I think, in both directions, often do a lot to really build up that connection and that sense of personal relationship that works so well across the duration of a build as well.

Anthony Hickey
I think that’s right. I think, for us, this is what we do, this is what we’re paid to do. And we really do put blood, sweat and tears into every job. But having these weekly meetings, and it’s a bit sad that we need a pat on the back, but to hear that the clients are appreciative of our efforts, it goes such a far way. And I can look back and see the projects that we’ve had where the clients were appreciative, and thankfully, it’s the majority of them, but it makes such a huge difference. And we’re always going to go as hard as we can to create the projects for the standards that we want, need and expect. 

But I don’t know, without being a terrible salesman, a bit of positivity and a pat on the back every so often definitely, I would say, in our business, tends to save you a little bit of money on certain variations and things. Because it does, it sits in the front of mind that these clients really appreciate what we’re doing, and we want to do the best we can for them. And again, that’s probably not my salesman side, but it’s the truth in the matter.

Amelia Lee
That’s awesome. I love, too, that you mentioned that Tanya was taking the weekly site meetings. We actually have a template inside HOME Method that I share with them, because I’m like, ‘If somebody is not taking minutes of these meetings, you need to, as the homeowner.” So it’s awesome, and I’m so glad that you’re now doing it as part of your project execution, because those meetings do need to be documented, and it’s important. You’ll never remember every conversation that you have across that time frame. So it’s super useful.

I’m wondering if we can dive into money conversations. And, obviously, this is a big part of making a project happen. It can be super awkward for people to feel comfortable to discuss it. Sometimes, I know homeowners feel like if they divulge all the knowledge about their money, then they’ll just get taken advantage of. How did you see for these clients this be rolling out across the project, in terms of setting and managing the budget, being able to stay on track during that design and build, and then also you working with them as they reviewed your proposals, and you were providing that costing feedback and giving them information, and as you said earlier, helping educate them so that they could make value judgments on what was going to be a priority for them in their project… How did all of that roll out in the project?

Anthony Hickey
So again, through the pre-construction we did have, I don’t know if we’ll call it finite, but there was a figure that we were working towards, and there wasn’t really wiggle room. So it was a matter of, how do we make this design work to that price? And it was through multiple iterations, I guess, of our proposals. And again, going through with the clients and letting them know what certain things cost, whether it be finishes of cabinetry, whether it be if we were to take out certain things, whether it be a day bed or external works, or to work towards this figure that we’re working towards. It’s never fun to hear that things are going to cost more than what you were hoping for. But the reality is, it happens a lot. So, it’s where do the clients best see the value being spent? And that’s what we’re able to do through really just discussions and iterations of our proposals. 

As the build progressed, nobody likes the word variations in building. I think builders might if it means they’re making more money. But the reality is, with us going through the PAC process, we were able to assess and inspect the best part of the whole property, and we’re able to then make sure we had priced things accordingly so we had allowed for everything. We were lucky in this project where there wasn’t really a great deal of variation. Certainly something to be said for the clients, there was no real change of heart that they wanted to change things that they had specified, which is incredible and a credit to them for doing their due diligence during the pre-construction.  

There was one that popped up, which was the existing hydronic system. So we, in our scope, were meant to just disconnect and reconnect to the existing pipe work. And as we had disconnected and then pressurised the pipes to see, effectively, just to lock them in and see if the pressure was right, our hydronic guys, or our heating guys, realised that it was leaking. So, once we did a bit more investigation, we realised that the elbows and joiners that they used weren’t pinned properly, and so that would have been leaking for the 10 years they’d had it prior. Yeah, this was unforeseen, well, we didn’t have access to get completely under the house, and we didn’t have any reason to think that the hydronic panels that they had been using for 10 years were put in faulty. So, it was a variation that we had to charge for. Again, I don’t want to put myself down as far as the salesman side of things, but being the relationship that it was, and it was going so swimmingly, the variation cut me deep, because I knew it had to be done, and I knew I had to talk to them in a timely manner so I wasn’t hiding behind anything. Soon as it popped up, I let them know what we had found, that I was then going to get a price for them to see what it would cost to get changed. It was something that had to be changed, but it didn’t mean I was comfortable about the conversation. But the reality is I just had to be open and honest and let them know what the cost implications were. And to be fair, the fact that we were able to pick it up so early in the build meant that it alleviated a huge amount of possible dramas down the track. And they weren’t tickled pink, but at the same time, they were understanding. 

And the other beauty of this by night figure that I thought we had was they were very clever in having a side amount of money for any variations that popped up. So these sleepless nights that I had, feeling horrible for these clients, they had a contingency. It’s incredible.

Amelia Lee
Yeah. It’s amazing. I don’t know how to describe them, but there’s literally these bells going off in my head of “Check, check, check, they’ve done this, they’ve done this, they’ve done this. I taught them this. I told them this.” So awesome to see it in action. And, I mean, we talk about contingencies are necessary definitely in a renovation project. The benefit of the PAC process is that the contingency doesn’t need to necessarily be a massive amount of money. If you’re entering a project from a tendered price and you haven’t had a builder involved during pre-construction, I find that your contingency in a renovation needs to be like 20% to 25%. Whereas if you are doing the PAC process and doing that due diligence on the existing house, that contingency can come right down. And then it’s your prerogative as a client as to whether you disclose to the builder that you have that money set aside or you decide not to.

And a lot of people then go, “Well, why would I keep that money aside? Why would I not max out what I can spend on the project?” And my response always is, “Is it really that bad that you have cash left over at the end to either buy some really nice furniture, to do window furnishings really well, or to take yourself on a holiday, do some really good landscaping, all of that kind of stuff?” There can be this, I feel, this urge and this urgency to spend the maximum amount of money possible on the project and making it happen, and not leaving anything in reserve. And yet, the reserves often are what protect your sanity through the project and also enable you to do some of those things that you might have had to scrape out at the end as well. So, I love that that’s how that worked out for you. I can imagine, knowing you as I do, yes, you would have lost a lot of sleep over having to have that conversation with them.

Anthony Hickey
It’s because I care, but it’s something I’m working on.

Amelia Lee
You do, you care very deeply.

I mean, it’s the thing. We’re all people. We’re professionals, but we’re also people. And so we bring our own attachment to money mindset and concerns about wanting to ensure that people feel taken care of and all of those kinds of things. So I can completely understand your reaction.

Anthony Hickey
We’re lucky enough to work in quite a small area. So, again, going back to Yarraville, but a lot of our work is within a couple of kilometers. Having kids in school, we know it’s like a bit of a village here. And everyone that we build for, we always want to do a good job. But we want to create relationships as well, and good relationships, because I’ll walk down the street and see three or four people that I’ve built houses for as I’m walking the kids. So I don’t want to be looking down on the footpath hoping that someone that I’ve built for is not turning around the corner. And so, yeah, there’s a lot of care there.

Amelia Lee
Most definitely. I love too, that they didn’t have those changes of mine during construction. We teach inside HOME Method and in Undercover Architect generally, that bringing forward that decision-making prior to that final contract sum is super important and a really valuable thing to do to set up success in construction. So, I love that they were able to do that as well, and that that paid dividends for you in the project as well. 

I’m curious how they were as clients, in terms of understanding the overall process, whether they were, I suppose, more patient, or weren’t necessarily shocked or surprised by how things were unfolding. You mentioned that there was a little bit of delays with the approvals and with the documentation. Did you find that they made less assumptions? Or how was that working? And knowing the kind of builder that you are, I know you would have been doing a really great job of illustrating the process to them as well. So, how did you see that play out?

Anthony Hickey
Again, going back to our scheduling, to be able to have it in the form of a Gantt chart that we share with our clients, and if anything did change, we would let them know at our site meetings, as well as actually documented in the Gantt chart, so they can see where the updates are. 

And early on, it was exciting for us, because again, this is only through, without pumping up Live Life Build, it was only through being a part of Live Life Build for a period of time that I started to put in place certain things, and one of them was having this schedule. So, it was only for the past 12 months prior that I’d been doing it, and that then gave them a real great understanding of where we were in relation to what we’re hoping to do, which alleviated a lot of queries. It was actually excitement every week. We came, we’re excited to see how far we had gone and achieved. And so, that was the key thing for them, to be able to physically see something that got changed, not necessarily in real time, but week by week. And other than the fact that we were working towards this golden thing of Christmas time, which I was definitely pretty disheartened when we didn’t make, other than that, the patience side of things were very incredible. We had a couple of client items to supply, and they were eager to get on top of that. And I knew what the lead time on certain things were there. So we also didn’t want them to be on site too soon, and we didn’t want the clients to have to have them in their property they were living in, waiting for us to need them. So we touched base on all that stuff. 

They were very relaxed and incredibly wonderful people to work for and work with, I guess. There was no time that they really felt like they’re putting any pressure on me to get anything done, because it was already outlined what we were doing, and they were just there for the ride, I guess, to a certain degree.

Amelia Lee
That’s the thing. I think that’s what’s beautiful when you have regular site meetings, you have a Gantt chart of a program schedule so that you understand how the project is going to unfold. And as a client, you’ve got that expectation and that education and knowledge that the builder has shared with you, and you’ve also done all of that pre-construction work and preparation. Site meetings become this beautiful show and tell of, “This is what we’ve done. Hey, look at what it looks like.” 

And so it’s not this stressful thing that I know a lot of people can experience where they go on site and they feel like they have to be on their guard, seeing if everything’s being done the way that they thought it should be, try and catching any problems, then also making decisions, because the builder says, “Hey, we need the roof color in three days.” That kind of stuff. And so construction becomes super stressful, and you’re constantly on this reactive hamster wheel of trying to just stay that little bit ahead. Whereas the way that you’ve been able to work with these clients is just so much more smooth as an overall construction process.

RESOURCES:

You can find Anthony Hickey from Two Tone Construction here:

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