Hey all,

I'm doing a bit of research on home extensions (built up or out).

I'd love to hear

- what you built and how much it cost?
- Did your renovations require you to move out?
- How did you choose your builder?
- What did you learn along the way?


Thanks so much!


- Foggy

Hello Foggy,

I thought I would attempt to answer some of your questions.

We have a post-war 1950's home(weatherboard) and we added a lounge, deck and bedrooom and ensuite. However, it wasn't quite that simple. The advice we got was to move stuff around your house to minimise the extension(this is the costly bit). Especially because moving plumbing etc is not so hard when your home is not on a slab. So we removed some walls and shifted the location of our kitchen. Our home now has one large open plan eating area, kitchen and lounge. Our laundry became an ensuite and we moved the laundry into a cupboard in the hallway. Cost, approx $150 000. This included painting all of the outside not just the extension. Building costs went up hugely in the early part of last year(when we were getting quotes). Excluded from this was architect and engineering fees, because my husband had people at his work who did this for us.

We moved out! The floor was replaced in the kitchen, but mostly because it is quicker if you move and when it all started I had a 6 week old baby and a 18 month old.

We choose the builder because he was the most efficent in getting back to us with a written quote, and we felt comfortable with him. Also his business mostly was doing extensions.

What did we learn? Oh boy, soooo much. Watch every step yourself. Always communicate with your builder by both phone and email. If you can, plan everything before they start, that is toilet choice, taps etc.

Our extension took about 4 months all up. The builder was unusual in that he was organised, however, there were a few problems but they were from subcontractors not him.

Hope this helps.

Babyfirst - I only just noticed your response now - sorry for not writing back earlier!

Thanks for your advice - there's some good stuff in your response!!

I was researching extensions as we're trying to buy a home; but many on the market in the areas we wish to live in are 1940s or 1950s 2br homes (and eventually, we'd need 3br at least). Some have never been extended... and of course in this day and age, it's so nice to have your living areas out back, overlooking the garden.


So I'd wondered if I was under- or over- budgeting by considering around $100k to add an extra bedroom and an open living area (to an existing kitchen, which in most cases would need modernising). Judging by your post, I might be cutting it a bit fine buget-wise.


We've sortof changed the plans a little, though. I'm now going to take the advice of a friend who renovated when she was pregnant, and she didn't enjoy it. (Fair enough, too, it's not nice to be unsettled anytime, let alone with you're pregnant or have a newborn). We're now looking instead just to buy something finished.


It's proving hard to find a finished (extended home) that we really like... but we'll keep hunting!

If the house is weatherboard and the extension can be added to the back with minimal disruption to the existing structure and you are happy with a laminate kitchen a budget of $100,000 is probably doable.

We have 1930's DB home, took off 1950's fibro verandah and outside dirt-floor laundry + outside loo.

Added on at back in weatherboard. 6 x 4 m dining with bi-folds to garden, new 3 x 2 m laundry toilet where existing had been so no plumbing changes other than new 'height' and 3 x 2 m office that could be a 4th bedroom if absolutely necesary.

Cost on paper with company - $88K
Actul cost = $just over $100k

Wow, Tsikos and lisafromcamberwell, you did well! We only have a laminate kitchen and a weatherboard home and the price was around $150000. This was by far the cheapest quote too. What year did you renovate? Prices went up a lot last year(as per a friend who is a builder).

I'm watching this thread with interest as we are thinking of renovating too (solid concrete house though... not sure if thats good or bad but it makes internal renos SO much harder (LOL literally!!))

What amount of the total cost was labour and what was materials? Did you ladies source any recycled materials? What did the architect and the engineer actually provide?

Which state are you in Foggy? Could be interesting to compare notes?

Cheers

Thanks for everyone's replies - you lot are great!

I'm going to let others hijack from here, as DH and I have just signed a contract on a house that needs no renovating whatsoever. Actually, bit of a relief, I'm not really up for being pregnant and putting up with builders through the house... moving is bad enough!

Will keep watching, though... so keep sharing reno budgets!

We just finished our extension in December - we moved back in the week before Christmas.

We also have a 1950s weatherboard and we added a second storey (three bedrooms, living area, toilet, ensuite and WIR), we knocked out a number of walls downstairs, new kitchen, ducted heating, evaporative cooling. The final cost was about $160K. This is only because DH put in the kitchen and we have done all the painting ourselves. It was a huge renovation though and due to council problems it all started 2 weeks after DD was born. Due to how much was done we needed to move out as only the study and laundry had nothing done to them and we couldn't live in one room.

We picked the builder as he was the easiest to talk to and had a flexible start time (also had the best written quote detail wise). They also stuck to their quote. The whole thing took 4 months to complete.

Things we learnt - Don't go through council planning yourself if you can avoid it (we could have got the builder to do it which would have been less stressful as they know all the little details council needs. Make sure you have extra money as once you fix up one area you will want to keep going and it is easier to do it at once than make to house messy over again.

Hope that helps a bit. Good luck house hunting

Danielle

Well our idea of cost has totally gone out the door. We have a 70's-80's built house. We mainly wanted to add one large room, which would also have another smaller bedroom, so really 2 rooms (family room and 4th bedroom) but with what we had in mind it was just a big rectangle on the back of the house LOL.
You would enter through from the dinning, which also had the kitchen off it, we would turn our kitchen window area into a servery or something.
Anyone done a simple job like that or know how much i'd be looking at. TIA