Questions we are asked most

Yes. Your concept design is built as a 3D model with a virtual walkthrough, so you can move through the rooms, see where the light falls and get a feel for the scale long before anyone breaks ground. It is the difference between hoping a plan works and knowing it does, and it is where most of the changes get made — which is exactly where you want them.

Usually, and we will review them with you first. Plans that have been drawn are not always plans that can be built, and it is considerably cheaper to find that out now than after the slab is down. Sometimes we suggest changes that make better use of the block or the orientation. Sometimes the plans are sound and we get on with it.

By not asking you for all of them at once. The project is broken into stages, and each stage asks only for the decisions that stage needs. You are not choosing tapware while the engineering is still being resolved. When it is time to select finishes, you do it with guidance, one room at a time.

Often, and we will be straight with you about what it costs and what it does to the programme. Some changes are simple. Others mean undoing work that has already been done, and those get expensive quickly. This is precisely why the design stage takes the time it does: the cheapest time to change your mind is before anyone starts building.

It is your home and the decisions are yours. We will tell you honestly when we think something will not work, or will cost more than it is worth, because that is part of what you are engaging us for. But we are not in the business of talking clients out of what they want.

It comes down to the existing structure, what you want from the finished home and what the council will allow. Renovating makes sense when the bones are good and you love where you are. A knockdown rebuild makes sense when the existing home fights everything you want to do with it. We will walk the property with you and give you our honest read before you spend anything on plans.

Demolishing the house you own and building a new one on the same block. You keep the street, the neighbours and the address, and you stop trying to make a house that does not suit you work harder than it can. Whether it makes more sense than renovating depends on the bones of what you have, and we will give you our honest read on that before you spend anything.

Sometimes, and it is worth asking early because it shapes the design. A pool usually needs around a metre and a half of clearance from the build for machinery and access, and it has to be fenced and covered while work is going on. Established trees may be protected by council regardless of what you want, and that needs an arborist's report. We look at all of it on the first site visit, because what stays and what goes changes where the house can sit.

It changes what the council will allow and what the build costs, so it is one of the first things we check. The 10.7 certificate on your property sets out the controls that apply, and we read it before any design work starts. Heritage and conservation controls are common across the Upper and Lower North Shore, and they rule out some things and shape others. Better to know on day one than after the drawings are done.

The number you sign is a fixed price, and it is arrived at after the geotech reports, the engineering, the architectural plans and the finishes are settled rather than before. If a variation does come up, it goes through a documented process with the cost in writing and your approval before any work happens, and you get regular budget reviews through the build so nothing arrives as a surprise at the end.

You hear about it from us. Some things are outside anyone's control, weather and supply among them, and where that happens we tell you what it means for the programme and what we are doing about it. Having one point of contact means you are not chasing three different people for the same answer.

Not on its own. What matters is whether the time is spent well. A trade standing on site waiting for an answer is not craftsmanship. Our builds take the time they take because the extra minutes go into doing things properly the first time, rather than into waiting for decisions that could have been made months earlier.

Most clients rent nearby, and it is worth budgeting for it from the start rather than treating it as an afterthought. Because the design and the approvals are finished before demolition begins, you know roughly how long you are out before you move out, which makes that a great deal easier to plan.

One point of contact, from the first phone call to the twelve-month maintenance visit. We coordinate the architects, designers, engineers, certifiers and trades ourselves, which is rather the point: you should not have to manage the people building your home. You are welcome on site whenever you would like to see how it is going.

It is a good time to talk to us. The block decides more about your home than most people expect: the slope, the orientation, the setbacks and the drainage all shape what is possible and what it costs. We are happy to help you look at land with the finished home already in mind, which avoids the expensive business of forcing a plan onto a block that will not take it.

The Hills District, the Upper North Shore, the Lower North Shore and the Eastern Suburbs.

It is common in anything built before the late eighties, and it changes the demolition cost rather than the plan. The existing house gets assessed before we price anything, so if it is there you know about it early and it is accounted for, not discovered halfway through.