This week we caught up with home owner, Emma, who is raising and building in under her beautiful Coorparoo home. We asked Emma five questions about her renovation project which has already started construction.

Why did you decide to extend/renovate your house?

We always planned to renovate our house, even from the first day of purchase, as we have three small boys and we need a bit of extra room for the family to grow.

Ours is an old style triple gabled Queenslander, and we are lifting it and building a level underneath, and also making a few changes upstairs – adding a walk-in robe and en suite to the master bedroom, putting in a new kitchen with butler’s pantry and adding a deck.

We are also building a pool and a shed in the back yard.

What will be the best features of your renovated house?

Having the extra space for our family, and the ability to have friends and family to stay and not feel squashed!

In terms of features, we have chosen some lovely blue and white tiles as a feature wall for each bathroom, and we are also pretty excited about getting a pool!

How will you manage your budget?

We did a few years of concentrated saving before embarking on our renovation, to ensure the budget wasn’t too tight going through the transition and beyond.

We are also quite pedantic with our family budget so everything is accounted for, and this gives us peace of mind that things won’t get out of hand financially.

What is the best thing about living in Coorparoo?

We love the sense of community in Coorparoo, and the excellent schools and facilities.

Martha Street is a 10 minute walk away with some great restaurants and shops, and we have some lovely parks in the area too.

It is close to the city, but still retains all the good things about being a residential suburb.

Do you have some advice for someone about to start a renovation project?

• Minimise all the things you might stress about up front as much as you can. We have elected to move into a rental property for the duration of our renovation, and with young children it has turned out to be a good decision.
• Ensure you feel as comfortable as you can about your budget and financial situation before you start the renovation. We delayed starting our renovation for a year initially, and then a further year to ensure we felt financially ready for such a big project.
• Keep an open mind and be prepared to ‘go with the flow’. It is likely there will be small tweaks that happen with your renovation along the way.
• Our builder has suggested several small amendments that will mean our property will work better for us, and we have been grateful for that.

Overall we are enjoying the process, and it is very exciting to see our home transforming before our eyes.

Also, make sure you use Cornell Engineers for all your engineering needs, as they are a pleasure to deal with – prompt, friendly and professional!

Thank You Emma

Thank you for your time Emma. We can’t wait to see and hear how your house raise and build in under project progresses.

We love a good home renovation project – but even more so, we love to meet the people behind a good home renovation project.

Today we caught up with Lerissa and asked her five questions as she embarks on a home renovation project in Keperra, Brisbane.

Why did you decide to extend/renovate?

We bought our home in 2002 just prior to Brisbane’s housing boom. We love our tiny mortgage, but we have found ourselves at a cross-road now that our children are almost teenagers – do we move to a bigger home that better meets our needs [and deal with the bigger mortgage] or do we renovate to make better use of the space we have?