It starts with an idea. Your idea. You’re looking to renovate or extend your house or build something new. Perhaps this is a steppingstone, a renovation to sell, a new development or your forever home. Then you call us. Or direct message us. Or email us. You’ve most likely been referred to us by one of our current or previous clients, or one of our collaborators. You may have seen our work on Instagram or Facebook – which in turn links you to our website. Then we set up a meeting with you. This could be face to face – preferred – or as we have learnt, even online. It always helps us to see the existing building and site, so often we’ll meet you there.

Are you a professional person or persons, growing family, or about to retire? What do you need to accommodate? How many bedrooms? Do you love cooking or entertaining? Do you work from home? How much time and money are you looking to invest? Does that include furniture, appliances, curtains and landscaping? Do you have any preferences when it comes to the interior? Colours? Textures? Style? Do you want something timeless and easy to live in? Or do you want something trendy and Instagram-worthy? (We usually discourage this.) What’s your time frame? Are you staging the project or are we working to complete everything in one hit? (This is more efficient.) Are you environmentally focussed?

We’ll go away and process what we’ve discussed and seen. Review any sketches, notes or scrap books. We will look at where the site is and identify any rules or constraints that could affect what we can achieve on your site. Planning overlays? Existing trees? Bushfire protections? Where are underground pipes located? Do they run straight through the lovely pool you’re proposing? We’ll come back to you with a return brief (capturing everything we’ve spoken about and anything ‘unusual’ we’ve found) as well as a fee proposal covering our services for the stages of getting you into your new or renovated home. You may engage us for the works – or maybe a stage at a time? It’s up to you.

Here is where we organise the site survey, required to give us detailed information of your site and your immediate neighbours. If required, we complete our own internal measure of the existing house and any structures on your site. We complete our own analysis of the site and its surroundings, to help develop our design response, and understand potential precedents for council application later. We prepare existing plans based on all of these things. We may also need to engage an arborist to understand any trees on your site - and on your neighbours’ properties - that need to be kept or protected as part of the design. In many ways, this is the most important stage. It is the launch point of the opportunities available to us.

Here we take our understanding of the site – including the existing house if there is one – and start the design collaboration with our own ideas and experience. Over a period of about four weeks we look at planning of spaces, building form and materials, and how they respond to your site and brief. We then communicate our ideas through plan presentation and visuals. This presentation of ideas is best done face to face and often accompanied by a glass of something. The first presentation starts the design conversation and begins to flush out in more detail your brief versus the site constraints. The initial design outcome may not always be what you expect, and that’s OK. We’ll ask you to go away and consider what we’ve presented and come back to us with any feedback before we move forward. If you have ideas that you’re keen to explore we always encourage you to speak up. This is your house, not ours.

if required, we may need to submit your design to council for approval. Throughout Schematic Design process we’ve been taking into account any local policies or controls that may potentially affect any application and designing your new home with the hope to achieve planning approval. We may meet with council for a pre application meeting – in the hope to understand early any concerns they may have with the design. We may encourage you to meet with your neighbours to discuss what you’re planning. This gives you an opportunity to demonstrate the considered approach your designer has taken to meet not only your brief but to ensure minimal impact to them. This will also give your neighbours an understanding of your intentions, before Council notifies them formally and could assist in a smoother process i.e. no objections. We’ve learnt over time that town planning can be a dance. Sometimes sensible compromise is needed to encourage a smooth town planning process. However, compromise can lead to some of the best design outcomes! We ensure a ‘work with’ attitude that to this point has seen many successful planning outcomes that balance client expectations with policies and controls.

Here we take the approved design and begin to refine it further. There are two parts to Design Development. These are architecture and interiors. Architecturally we begin to resolve the design with the consultant team. We’ll work with engineers, energy raters, building surveyors and landscape designers as required. We’ll consider heating and cooling – solar power and hot water, rainwater tanks, doors and windows. Every element of construction is considered. Interior design wise we take a detailed brief that covers planning of every room. We develop the design to include appliances, lighting, tapware, toilets, joinery hardware, wallpaper, power outlets, paint colours, carpet… the list goes on! We’ll visit showrooms with you (if you’d like). We’ll start organising a physical board of material samples so you can touch and feel everything we’re proposing for your new home. We can help you select and source furniture, art, accessories, tableware, linen. Everything from a cake fork to a couch! We incorporate the interior design into the architecture - and vice versa - to ensure a seamless outcome. Over two to three months we’ll start to ‘document’ your home including heights and measurements, schedules of materials and appliances, getting the design ready for pricing by a builder or builders. Generally, we recommend approaching multiple builders, or you may have a preferred builder. We can assist with reviewing the builder’s pricing and noting any deviations or omissions that may need to be worked through. While we acknowledge the benefits the of competitive pricing, you may also consider engaging a builder early and having them there to help price the build from day one to keep everything close to budget. Pricing can take upwards of four weeks.

This stage sees us finalise design documentation. The documentation package is submitted to a registered building surveyor of your choosing and assessed against any approvals for consistency as well as relevant codes and standards. The building surveyor will provide us with a checklist that must be responded to before any building approval can be issued. Once we receive that approval, you are ready to start construction.

Building your new home! Well, *we’re* not technically building your new home, but we are attending site to ensure the works are progressing in accordance with what we’ve designed. We’ll respond to any questions the builder may have. If you are renovating, we will work through potential issues discovered behind the walls of your existing home. We may meet with you and the builder weekly, or fortnightly. It’s up to you. Towards the end of construction, we’ll note any defects and ensure you and the builder are aware of any areas that may need attention prior to your home being handed (back) over to you. Our time at this stage is often hourly rates and should be approved by you prior to commencement.

Pop the champagne! You’ve made it! We’ve made it! Flowers! Hugs! (well, maybe) Six, 12, 18 months – four years later… Handover day can be full of mixed emotions. The weeks leading up to the day have probably been filled with reviewing the final details or running through any last-minute issues. Packing and organising removalists. Waiting for pieces of furniture to arrive (or heaven forbid not arrive). The process for us has essentially come to an end. It’s a sad day for us given the journey we’ve been on with you! By this point we’ve probably asked if we can photograph your gorgeous new home – and share it with the world. (Well, potential new clients and a select few publications anyway.) We would look to spend a day in and around your new home with a professional photographer, respectfully capturing everything that has been achieved between you, us, the builder and any other collaborators. You would receive a copy of the final photos to reminisce just how clean it once was. Kidding! (Only not.)