How do you design a home renovation and extension?

And ensure that the design stays on track with your vision and future lifestyle goals?

HOME Method members, Ben and his partner, Mike, are renovating and extending their 1920’s Californian Bungalow in Melbourne.

Their home design journey has been an interesting one that’s involved a significant pivot when their first design option exceeded their budget.

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 352, and in it, I’m talking with HOME Method member, Ben. He and his partner, Mike, are designing the renovation and extension of their Melbourne Californian Bungalow.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Ben and Mike came up with their renovation and extension design, and some of the challenges they had along the way. 

They followed a more traditional route of tendering the design, only to discover that the cost to deliver exceeded their budget, which meant they had two choices.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

One: revisit and amend the existing design to see if they can pull it back financially, without compromising the functionality and livability of the home overall. 

Or two: take some steps back – or as we call it in HOME Method, get up to helicopter view, and assess whether there is a different design option altogether that can satisfy the brief, and meet the budget expectations more closely.

Many reach this point in their project, and it is always a challenging decision to make.

If you’ve already sunk money and time into a design outcome that isn’t exactly what you asked for or thought you’d have, should you just keep going?

Or do you risk halting the project, and also contending with potential construction cost increases in the interim whilst you change the design, so you can scale back what you’re doing, and create a design outcome that’s more efficient, more in alignment with your brief, and also benefits from all the learnings you’ve had in the experience so far?

Well: Spoiler Alert! 

You’ll hear in this episode that Ben and Mike chose to renew their design. And you’ll also hear how they started first with a feasibility study of two options, and then were able to proceed much more confidently on that basis. 

And interestingly, VERY speedily as well. So much so, that in the end, they’ve not really ‘lost’ much time at all. 

And as a result of their design pivot, they’ve ended up with a design that:

• aligns far more significantly with their ideal lifestyle
• is able to be delivered within their means
• Isn’t as disruptive to the structure and layout of the existing home
• and they’ve developed a toolset, skillset and mindset that’s elevated their agency in their project as well.

With any custom project, things don’t always go to plan. Projects usually do take longer than anyone expects them to, and the emotional side of creating your future home can be a surprise as well. 

What I definitely know is this: the unique component of your project is not your home, its geographic location, or the specifics of what you want to create. 

It’s you. 

It’s how you approach your project, how you educate yourself, how you apply that education, and how you contend with the personal side of your project regarding relationships, communication, aspirations and expectations.

What I also know is this: in my experience, when you are upskilling and navigating your project with intention, that even when it doesn’t go to plan, there is always a silver lining. 

And whilst it can feel disappointing initially when cost and design don’t meet, I think that when you’re continuing to work intentionally in a supported and guided way, there’s always an opportunity to assess what is really important for you in your project, and the lifestyle it’s going to set up. 

And when you move along your project with this in mind, even through the hiccups and hurdles, it inevitably leads to a much more aligned outcome overall. 

We’ve seen that with a few of our HOME Method conversations on the podcast, and Ben’s discussion about their first home design, and their learnings in creating their second version are also a testament to this.

I’m really looking forward to sharing this conversation with Ben with you as he articulates how this has been on their project, and their learnings along the way.

Now, let’s dive in!

This is the transcript of my conversation with Ben about how to design a home renovation and extension …

Amelia Lee
Well, Ben, I am so looking forward to this conversation that we’re going to be having today, because I know that you’re going to have a wealth of experience and insight and perspective to share with the Undercover Architect community. I’ve got to know your project fairly well, because we’ve had some one to one Zoom consults across the course of your project as well. And, I was reflecting on the experience of knowing you through your project, and seeing the development of your project over that time, and also seeing the development in how you have shifted how you approach your project, and how you’re operating in your project as well. And so, I think it’s going to be a really great opportunity to share from that experience to the Undercover Architect community, an incredible wealth of knowledge that you’ve been able to gain, and also your own, I suppose, insights and experience of how you’ve seen yourself handle your project as well. So, I think it’s going to be a really, really good conversation. 

I’m wondering if, before we dive into talking about your project details, you can just share a little bit about yourself and who this project is actually, for sure.

Ben
Hi, yeah. My name is Ben. This project is for me and my partner Mike. We live in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, in the middle suburb. We’ve both been in Melbourne for about 13 years, but I still have this American accent that I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of. We’ve been here for a long time. We spent a lot of time living in small apartments or units, or what we felt was just compromising temporary accommodation. And then, several years ago, after we bought our first house, we really were focusing on somewhere that we wanted to live for the long term. 

And this project that we’re currently doing is the second house that we’ve been in here in Melbourne, and it’s a renovation and extension of a 1920s Californian bungalow.

Amelia Lee
We’ve got a few members in the community who are doing California bungalow renovations. I mean, it’s very prolific through Australia.

Ben
Everyone else’s experience has been really helpful.

Amelia Lee
Awesome. And so, can you tell us a little bit about your project, what you’re, I suppose, planning on doing in terms of the renovation, and even if we can touch on possibly how that might have shifted and changed in your thinking as you’ve navigated your project as well. 

Ben
Yeah, it has actually shifted to a degree. When we were considering this project in the first place, we actually did purchase this house with the intention of doing an extension, because it’s a largely unrenovated home that was, I think it was originally two bedrooms. And it was moderately extended, I think, in the 70s, with a small lean to at the back, to where it’s ostensibly three bedrooms, but I’m going to call it two and a half, and one bathroom. So, as we were looking to purchase, we figured some kind of open plan extension at the back would make a lot of sense. And we tried to do a level of due diligence on what could be feasible before we did purchase. Once we purchased and started working with the designer, we also took into consideration the level of work that we wanted to do compared to what the market looked like for renovated California bungalows in Melbourne inner south east. 

We definitely knew we wanted two bathrooms, and instead of a three bedroom, two bathroom home with an open plan extension, we decided to aim for four bedrooms because of that market consideration.

Amelia Lee
So, we’re looking at a house that doesn’t have a lot of clarity in the layout in terms of what a lot of those Californian Bungalows can be like. They can be a bit of a rabbit warren, and can be quite dark and pokey in parts as well. You’ve got a great site, which is north to side, in terms of its orientation. And so, extending out into that backyard, so that you can get far more light into the home, and then creating clarity about how you circulate through the home and adopting some of those strategies that we talk about in HOME Method, about those bolt on extensions that enable you to capitalise and you build efficiencies, and in that pavilion style extension. And you’re planning to put a pool in the back garden as well, aren’t you?

Ben
Yes, budget dependent. But it’s definitely on the goals list, and it’s in the plans.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, awesome. Now, when you think back to the beginning of your project, can you remember what you were, I suppose, nervous about? And what sent you down the pathway of starting to look for extra help and researching some of that education kind of support, and then, I suppose, also jumping into HOME Method as a means of being able to support you?

Ben
Probably the biggest thing on my mind was the level of uncertainty and just unknown about what a big renovation project looked like. Actually, we ended up joining HOME Method when we lived in our last home. And in our last home, which we did some minor renovations on, new kitchen, revised bathroom and some other things. We were able to do each one of those pieces as an individual project, which was helpful and a wonderful learning in terms of what’s required, how many unknown surprises you might encounter in a renovation project, and then all the decisions that you need to make.  

So, knowing then how much of a learning curve that was, to then consider a project where we would be engaging a builder to undertake a lot of work at the same time or in close succession and in sequence, really told me that we needed some outside help. And for work, I’m a built environment professional, I call it. Pretty much with the town planning background. And a lot of that’s about knowing what you don’t know, and being willing to engage expert advice and outside expertise to really get the outcome that you’re looking for. 

So that’s really what led me to try to get educated and engage not just the expert advice, but the community inside HOME Method.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, fantastic. And, I think you’ve been a really conscientious student, you really dived in.

Ben
Sometimes too much.

Amelia Lee
It’s been really great to see your appetite for learning around these things. And I do see that be a consistent thing with some HOME Method members that they have dabbled in a smaller scale of project before, it’s opened Pandora’s box on realising, ‘Oh, actually, this is just a kitchen, or this is just a bathroom, and I’ve still got to make all of these decisions and navigate and negotiate all of these processes. I’m not going to do this blindfolded for a whole house where I’m dealing with structure and services and a lot more spend and a much more chunky and time-consumptive process.’ 

So it’s great that you got to dip your toe in the water of that experience, and then realise that you needed a bit more help and support with this. So, when you were thinking, at the beginning of your project, about the design and what you were going to prioritise, and how it was going to work for you and for Mike and your lifestyle overall, what were you ultimately wanting to create? You touched on that fourth bedroom as the resale piece. And I’m curious, I suppose, what was really driving some of the decisions about not only the rooms that you wanted to include, but how you saw those being arranged to really suit your lifestyle and your long term goals in the home.

Ben
That’s a really good question. Really, with the guidance of the course and the HOME Method, and even the podcast, we did focus firstly on what we wanted to achieve and how we wanted to feel. And despite the fact, a lot of mechanics and market considerations inevitably come in, having the objectives and the feeling and the function as that primary guidance certainly helped us clarify what we wanted. And a lot of that was about having that pleasant experience and respite and restful, pleasant, enjoyable place to exist, and something that we felt not just reflected the way that we wanted to live, but reflected us ourselves. Like, I don’t think Mike and I necessarily have terribly either unique or special circumstances compared to other households, but it was being able to actually make some of the choices ourselves about what was included, which I didn’t really appreciate before we did that first renovation. 

But there was also something about being able to achieve that pleasant home experience feeling. Like, a sense of accomplishment in terms of the careers that we’ve built, the work that we’ve done, the efforts that we’ve put into a whole bunch of different things, and having that in a way reflected in a really pleasant at home experience, ended up being a key factor. And then also gaining appreciation of the spaces inside and outside that we want to experience, both separately and together. Our previous house, it was a wonderful bush block, I’d say, in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, and beautiful, and so many trees and birds. But it was this 50s home that didn’t really take into account the fall of the land that well. 

And it was actually difficult to … The block was over 800 square meters, but it was actually really hard to use it and to be outside and to have a bit more the the indoor outdoor connection. The ability to pleasantly enjoy the outdoors without making a special effort was really important to us. And having separate spaces in the house and together spaces in the house, those are both really important. And you talk to different people in relationships, and sometimes the second bathroom is the marriage saver. I’d say that sometimes the second lounge room is the marriage saver. So we had all those considerations really going on at the same time.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, it’s really fascinating. I find that, over the years of working as an architect, and then speaking to other architects and designers as well, I think there’s this general public perception that all houses are pretty similar. They’re all that three to four bedrooms, all a couple of bathrooms. Like, if we just look at cutting through the main average of what a house actually is like. And then, one or two living spaces. And, I think, with that assumption that all houses look the same, there then can become a natural assumption that all people live in all houses all the same. And then it’s only once … I think the general public, if they spent time thinking about how their friends live and use their spaces, and they probably realise that that’s not necessarily a true statement. I know as architects and designers, we obviously get to sit at the coalface of clients and homeowners. And inside the Undercover Architect community, it’s a huge range of homeowners using their homes in different ways. And so, I always love meeting couples and understanding how do they specifically need to use that combination of rooms to create something that actually sets up their ability to live together long term, to be able to have the lifestyle that they want, to be able to have balance and peace and harmony. 

There’s a lot overseas of research around the fact that one in two marriages ending in divorce, and at the same time, if you do stay together, you’re together for decades. We’re all living a lot longer, and and there’s so much to be said for thinking about the specifics of how you use the various rooms in your home and what you include to create relationship harmony, to create space, and to create the ability to have, I think, identity and personal expression in spaces without it compromising somebody else’s abilities to do that as well. And if you’ve got a partner who is disorganised and doesn’t like putting things away, but you’re somebody who really likes everything being uncluttered, even just how do you factor that into the house so that you’re not constantly niggling at each other about all of those kinds of things?  

And I love how the two of you, in my conversations with you, have created a lot of clarity around …You both know how you need the spaces to be. And even through the reworking of the design across this process, you’ve stayed true to really assessing, ‘Okay, is this going to work for us’, whilst balancing, of course, the economic side of things of how this is going to work from a financial point of view, being our largest asset.  

Have you found that, in terms of your conversations with your own designer, and expressing how you need to use the space, has that been easy enough to communicate? Like, how has worked for you in discussion of the brief and getting those spaces done well in the home?

Ben
I think it was. I’m glad you mentioned a lot of that, because reflecting on where we were at the beginning, it was actually somewhat challenging to either conceive or verbalise some of those preferences that we had, the fact that we did want two separate sleeping spaces as well as living spaces. And that was important, and being able to talk about that and own it, and just making sure that we were focusing on that this house was for us and not for the way other people might perceive it for some reason. And helping build that confidence and clarity definitely helped. 

But then at the same time, almost ironically, dealing with designers and experts, even though I was so aware that I was in search of outside experts and that professional expertise, still then feeling somewhat intimidated that I either didn’t know how things worked or would suggest something that didn’t make sense, or that I would worry or overthink something too much, and that’s all going to work out, it’s all going to be fine. 

And Mike is very much “It’s all going to work out, and it’s going to be fine.” And I’m almost like, “Well, I want to hear it now, and how is this actually going to work? Take me through it.” So, it was about navigating personally and professionally with a design professional, but then also learning how to work with your other half through that process in that triangular way.

Amelia Lee
Yeah. And it’s funny, isn’t it? Because there’s so many components that come into it that you actually don’t realise once you’re into it, how many competing interests there are, how many agendas you need to juggle, how you then need to, I suppose, have a voice through all of that, and how then you have a relationship through all of that, and how you then create trusting relationships with the professionals that you’re working with. Like, it’s a lot to contend with, and I know that when we’ve had our one to ones, we’ve had jokes about who gets the walk in robe and who gets the en suite. We were teasing Mike the other day about how big his robe was, could he give up some of that to get the plan to work a little bit better? And that kind of stuff. 

And I think, like, these conversations, I think, happen in these intimate relationships between the way that we’ve been able to talk about your project, and then the relationship that you’ve created with your designer and the builders that you’ve been talking with. But it doesn’t necessarily happen at a larger scale throughout society that these are the kinds of things that we’re discussing in terms of how we’re going to actually physically use this house personally. So, I really love that you’ve worked that out for yourself. And also, seeing how you and Mike do operate together, I think it’s actually been a really fantastic compliment of skills. Because ultimately, it’s feeding into the project. And I said to you before we jumped on, that I’ve watched your ability to be more decisive in your project really develop, and that’s been fantastic to see, particularly given that you’re still in the design phase. It’s going to pay massive dividends during construction that your ability to lean into making committed decisions to things has really enhanced. 

And I think that’s come in partnership with you owning more and more what you actually want from this home and from this project, and then having the confidence to be able to verbalise that and have agency for that in the communication that you’ve had with your team. So, can we talk a little bit, because you’ve had a little bit of an interesting process in terms of how you’ve navigated. It’s not that unusual, we’ve had lots of other members go through it. I know that there are people in general public who will navigate their project in terms of looking at redesigns and things like that. They’ll do it for years, whereas you’ve just done it the once over. 

Can you talk through, I suppose, just bring us up to speed on you’re in the design stage, but it’s in a second version of your design. So can you talk us about how you’ve got to where you’re at, and, I suppose, then explaining where you’re at in your project?

Ben
Yeah, the first design that we worked on with these designers came together over, I’d say, quite a long period of time. It was probably a year and a half. It is really helpful not telling yourself it’s going to be three years at the outset, you just tell yourself it’s going to be 12 months, and then if it gets longer, it’s fine. So, it’s all about not getting overwhelmed. But we put this design together through a lot of discussions with the designer, and sometimes it really was push and pull. There were aspects of the design in the first instance that we didn’t feel were right, and were, I think, mostly successful at that time in seeking some changes. 

And then at the end of last year, really ended up with a design that, I guess, it felt more than good enough. That was very good and on balance, was the right thing to go forward with. Not only because yes, it met a lot of our objectives, but also there was, whether it was confirmation bias or what have you, that we had gone through a lot of these steps, and we had made these decisions, and in a way, you have to keep going. And there’s a limited amount of almost look back that you can get. We didn’t use the PAC Process, especially with that first design. We didn’t really engage yet builders’ advice at all, I’d say, for that first design. 

And although there were some check-ins with builders for ballpark figures, as they tell you in the HOME Method, those can’t really be relied upon, and that was right. Even taking into account the cost increases through, 2020, 2021, into 2022, the quotes came back from the builders, in some cases, 40% above what we thought our upper limit was that we had already doubled. So, I’m not sure what that multiple was compared to the original budget, but it was just beyond not just what we were comfortable spending, but just what was reasonable. Over capitalising, it just didn’t make any sense whatsoever. There was one builder who came a lot closer. And then we started thinking about, ‘Okay, what do we do with this design? How do we tweak this?’ Even taking into account the it’s behind the walls that, as they say, drives most of the cost. And started really thinking about what we could do. Through that conversation, the changes, or what you could say compromises, the things that we were missing out on, it was actually a very interesting collection. 

We realised really two things. There are several things we could take out of the design that we were happy to take out because we weren’t really that committed to. And to be honest, like, we’re in our brief. And that was a good feeling, on the one hand, but it’s like, why were they in there in the first place? But then the second thing was, all right, if we’re going to make more modifications or remove certain things, when does this start losing some of the specialness and things that we wanted to achieve with the house. And in addition to all the things that we could change and remove at the same time, this is, I think, what was really critical, the small niggling, either like doubts or things we thought weren’t perfect or were in the back of our minds that were compromises in that design, they were still there. So we’re reducing all the good things, taking out what was necessary, and still left with some of the question marks, we’ll say. 

So then, at the risk of extending this project even further, started thinking about top down, ‘What if we did start thinking bottom up again, what might that look like?’ And again, you have to weigh up, like, is this going to be further analysis paralysis? What does this mean, and can we engage in that what if exercise in a contained, scoped way that would A, allow us to keep our mental health and B, actually result in a productive outcome that we could evaluate both objectively and subjectively? And the really helpful advice, I think it was from you, yes, inside the HOME Method was conduct some kind of feasibility study and put together two potential options and test them, both in terms of finances and all the other decision criteria that we had apply. 

Like, does this meet our brief? Is this the way that we want to live? How will this practically work? And we also tested, besides testing one to one in the backyard, we also mined the real estate listings within 10 kilometers of our house of where are the renovated California bungalows that people are trying to sell and just went to so many of them. And also tried to find some display or, especially these inner suburban knock down rebuild display homes, particularly, to get a good understanding of how some of the open plan spaces work. And we took those analyses together, where we then decided, and we actually went back to our designer, we asked them to draw up these potential two things – the reduced original design and the bottom up, we’ll call it a new design because it is a new design. And ultimately decided that, yes, we will likely be able to fall within our budget, but really more importantly, we are going to be a lot happier with the redesign, and it much better meets our brief and we will be happier. So we decided to go that direction.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, and I know that when that was happening, there can be an element of feeling like you’ve wasted a lot of time to get to that point where you’re at. And what I loved observing was, what a lot of homeowners can do is they can punish themselves a lot. They can hang on to the all of that sunk effort and cost and time that sits in that design. They can almost cling onto it by their fingernails and think, ‘No, we just have to keep our head down and keep going.’ It was such kudos to both of you that you took the pathway that you did to really get back up to helicopter view, to do that analysis, and then to commit to the new design, which you knew was actually going to satisfy your goals so much more closely. And then how quickly you’ve been able to just progress through as a result, it’s been amazing to see. 

I always feel, and I see it time and time again, no effort is wasted. It always teaches you something, and sometimes it just takes a little bit longer to learn the thing that you need to learn in order to get to the outcome that you need to get to. I’ve loved watching how quickly you’ve been able to just make this happen. So really, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t feel like you’ve lost much time at all really, have you?

Ben
I don’t think so. And I think it’s really good. I appreciate the observation that we’ve been able to move through things and own decision making. A little bit paradoxically at the same time, I think one of the reasons we’ve been able to move through these is the advice that, again, from you, that not over owning technical aspects of the project and having the the professionals that you’re dealing with, whether it’s the builder, the designer, and other potential consultants you might have, expect them to do the work and do the job that you engage them to do. And if you think something needs to be done differently or more in a different way, just respectfully and professionally engage them on that. And having that mentality, I think, also helped practically in the project, but also that mental health, the mental strength going through something as lengthy as this.

Amelia Lee
Fantastic.

RESOURCES

How to Consider Resale when Designing Your Home >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-considering-resale-value-when-designing-your-home/

Season 13 Episode 7 ‘Ended up with a home design you DON’T love? How to get unstuck and take action’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-get-unstuck-designing-building-renovating/ 

Access the support and guidance you need (like Ben) 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