Measure twice, cut once.

My grandfather, Bill Seward, always told me to measure twice and cut once.  I have discovered when you apply this principle to developing plans it's more like measure fifty times, pace things things out at least thirty-two times, draw it on the ground with chalk and try to envisage what furniture would fit where twenty times and then have about seventeen anxiety attacks that perhaps the economy is stuffed and you shouldn't be renovating at all.

So that's what James and I have been doing recently and is the reason you may have noticed my blog has been quite of late.  However, we think with a few tweaks the latest iteration of our plans will give us what we need. Plus the economy needs building industry needs stimulating so we might as well be the trendsetters.

You may recall in my last instalment I had to tell our building designer that whilst his plans were great they weren't going to work for us. About a fortnight ago we received new plans, straight away we were much happier - the whole thing seemed to provide us with the space and the requirements we wanted and was along the lines of what we always thought would happen to this house - basically a box on the back.

Click on the picture to see the plans clearly.

Peter Latemore said to have a good think about it all and get back to him.  You might be interested to know the approach James and I took to considering the layout and functionality of each room. It may seem over the top but remember I am anal and James is a business analyst...you put these things together and you get this...a spreadsheet which lists each room and the things we needed to think about for each room eg light, security, storage, entry/exit, heating/cooling etc.  You can see the spreadsheet here and the list of things that that we came up with here.

Once we felt that we had measured, paced, discussed and debated enough we made a time to meet with Peter and ran through what we thought needed to change.  The main things are that the pantry will swap places with the laundry, the drying area will move to the side of the house and the screen that divides the deck into two areas will be removed.  One of the windows in the kitchen will be removed to make space for a hutch for the kettle etc.  There are few other things - I guess we will get another plan soon that I can show you.

So now we are approaching the stage of the working drawings being produced and council approval.  We also need to start confirming the cost  - that will be the topic of my next post and I guess what has been worrying us most of all - BUDGET!!

Who, what, where & why?

Welcome to my "We could, We should, We wood renovate" blog.

I'm Clarissa and together with my husband James and our two small brown haired, brown eyed boys William & Robert we live in a nearly 100 year old Queenslander style home in inner city Brisbane.

We've lived here since I was six months pregnant with William, who is now 7, and it's been a perfect house for a growing family - single level, nice flat backyard and easy access to my second home, the dirty old laundry.

But now three boys in a tiny kitchen all wanting me to do something different at the same time has become more than I can handle.  It's time to stop the talking and transform this house into something that will suit us for the next stage of life - bigger kitchen, a new ensuite, two new bedrooms and this time an indoor laundry!

The intention of this blog is to chronicle the experience of using external contractors to design and complete our renovation.

We are not planning to do any renovation work ourselves (although I might have to pick up a paintbrush towards the end if our money runs out!).  I have read many blogs documenting some incredible home handyman skills.  These are interesting; but they don't answer so many of the questions I have (and even questions I don't realise I should be asking) regarding renovating and the process of engaging building professionals.

For example:

• How do you go around getting a draftsman / designer?
• What should you find out about a builder before you engage them?
• What are the "real" & "extra" costs?  eg I didn't realise that builders quotes don't include things like carpets etc which impact budget planning
• Will living in my house whilst renovating impact budgets/timelines?
• IS IT REALLY AS STRESSFUL AS EVERYONE TELLS ME??!!!

So join us on our journey.  Feel free to offer your opinions and give advice!  

Why not start out by telling me the best piece of renovation advice you have given, received or heard?

I should also mention that in my work I do have some links to the building industry.  I work part-time as Communications Manager for Timber Queensland.  TQ represents everyone from the growers of timber to end users eg architects and growers.  I'm fortunate that I will have access to people that might help answer some of my questions during the renovation.  However, it's important to note that this blog is my personal opinion piece and does not represent that of Timber Queensland.