Not sure whether to renovate, extend, or knock down and rebuild?

Or if you’re building new… whether to do a custom new build or work with a volume builder?

Well, small does not always mean simple. Learn where these renovations often go wrong, and how to avoid the most common traps.

Before you commit to any direction, there’s a process many homeowners skip entirely: the Feasibility Study.

Learn why rushing to a decision early is one of the most expensive mistakes in a renovation or build, and how to properly assess the options for your project.

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 396, and I want to talk about something that comes up at the very beginning of almost every project I hear about.

It usually sounds like one of these questions.

“Should I add a second storey, or extend out the back?”

Or… “Is it worth renovating what we have, or should we just knock it down and build new?”

Or… “We’ve got a blank block. Do we go with a volume builder, or work with an architect or designer and do a custom project?”

And what all of these questions have in common is this: they come from a place of genuinely not knowing which direction to go. There are multiple options on the table. Each of them could potentially work. They can vary in budget and timelines and team structure and approvals. But you don’t yet have enough information to choose between them with confidence.

And so what a lot of people do – and I completely understand the impulse – is to just pick one. Pick the option that seems most obvious, or most affordable, or the one that someone recommended, and start moving forward. Because forward feels like progress. And staying in that uncomfortable place of not knowing can feel like being stuck.

But here’s what I’ve seen happen, again and again. 

People who make that early decision without doing the groundwork first often find themselves… sometimes months in, sometimes with significant professional fees already spent… discovering that there was a better option they hadn’t fully explored. Or a constraint they didn’t know about. Or a cost they hadn’t factored in. 

And by that point, going back feels devastating. But pushing forward doesn’t feel right either.

In this episode, I want to help you avoid that. I want to share a way of thinking about this phase of your project that can genuinely change your experience of it. And I want to give you a clear, practical process for how to navigate this decision-making period… so that when you do commit to a direction, you can do it with real confidence and strategy.

Let’s first start with a mental model. Because before we get into the practical stuff… the options, the process, all of that… I think the most important shift is in how you’re thinking about this phase of your project.

Most people, when they imagine their project journey, picture something like a fairly straight line. There are a few bumps at the beginning… a bit of uncertainty, a bit of money spent here and there… but once things get going, they’re moving. Construction is where they’re really spending, but that’s expected. The sense is: I just need to make one key decision at the start… who to work with, roughly what to spend… and then things will flow from there.

But what actually happens for a lot of people looks very different. I describe it as the difference between a diamond and a triangle. So, picture in your head, the 4-sided shape of a diamond.

Many people take the diamond approach to their project. This is where you start at one pointy end on the side. You make one choice, thinking you’re moving towards your finished home. Maybe you’ve decided you’re doing a renovation, maybe you’ve signed with a particular builder… and you start moving forward. You spend money. You spend time. Decisions get made. You’re moving along a fairly sequential, straight path determined by that initial decision. 

And then, you get to a specific point, and realise there were other pathways that may have been better suited to you to achieve your finished home. Or there are costs you didn’t factor in when you discover something about your site, or planning rules or some other issue you weren’t aware of.

The thing is though, you’re in the middle of your journey, in the fat part of the diamond, with all these other options available to you. And so, all of a sudden you’re stuck… feeling lost and frustrated, because you’ve invested so much to get to that point… and now you’re trying to figure out whether to go back to the beginning, cut your losses and change direction, or just push through and hope for the best. 

I spoke to a woman named Meagan, who reached out to me after an experience just like this. Her project had been going for years. There had been false starts. The wrong design. Expensive approvals. A proposal that didn’t fit her budget or her lifestyle.

When I asked whether she’d tried to educate herself before she started the project, she said:

“I naively and simplistically thought building was similar to surgery… you chose a professional that has a good reputation and then hand everything over. At the time I started I wasn’t looking to educate myself about the process. I thought I just needed to decide on styles of things. It was only once I was years into it, feeling totally out of my depth, watching money fly through my fingers, and feeling like I wasn’t getting anywhere that I started trying to educate myself about what was going on.”

That is the diamond. And it is so, so common. And it is heartbreaking when you’re in the middle of it.

So here’s what I want instead for you. Because there’s a simpler way – and it’s when you treat your project journey as a triangle, not a diamond.

In the triangle, you start at the fat end. And that wide space represents everything that’s possible at the beginning of your project… all the options, all the unknowns, all the questions. 

And instead of immediately narrowing to one choice and barreling forward, you spend time in that wider space at the beginning of the project – rather than waiting to be well into it to discover it. 

You gather information. You research. You ask questions. You understand your constraints and your options. And as you do that, you naturally and deliberately start narrowing… moving toward the pointy end of the triangle, which is your finished home.

The difference is that when you arrive at your decision, you’ve made it with your eyes open. You’ve got yourself informed and educated about your project, your future home and what, and who, you’ll need to navigate the process confidently. You’re exploring first, so you know you’re choosing the right path for your specific project.

This is not about staying stuck or overthinking. Instead, it’s about moving forward with intention rather than assumption. 

The people who do this work at the beginning are the ones who then move through the rest of their project far more calmly, far more confidently, and with far fewer costly surprises along the way. 

And, when you’re weighing up various different options in your project and trying to determine the best one for you, your budget, your site and your life, then the fat end of the triangle becomes super important. Because to determine the best approach, you’re best served by determining the viability or suitability of the various approaches you’re considering.

The best way to do this is to conduct what’s called a ‘FEASIBILITY STUDY’ at the start of your project.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

RESOURCES

Check out these podcast episodes

• Episode 273 ‘3 Top Challenges When Building with a Volume Builder’ https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-building-with-a-volume-builder-3-challenges/ 
• Episode 274 ‘Tips for building with a Volume Builder’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-tips-building-with-volume-builder/ 
• Episode 196 ‘How to create your design brief’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-how-to-create-your-design-brief/ 
• Answer these 7 questions to work out whether to demolish and rebuild, or renovate >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/renovate-or-detonate/ 
• Episode 318 ‘Beginning a Californian Bungalow Renovation, with Louise + Zane’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-beginning-californian-bungalow-renovation-louise-zane/ 

Learn more about how to get started on your home design, whoever you’re working with >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/happy-home-design

Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my signature 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 

Want to create a sustainable home when building or renovating? Grab the 44 Ways to Create a Sustainable free e-guide here >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/44-ways