02Fremantle · 2024
1950s cottage, full renovation
Rewire, replumb, new kitchen and two bathrooms. Original jarrah floors and ceilings kept and restored.
- Floor area
- 146 m²
- On site
- 11 weeks
- Contract
- Fixed price, held
02What we build
Full home renovations
Older Perth homes brought up to standard without stripping the character out of them.
AWhy people ring
The bones are good. Everything else is 1962
Perth has a lot of solid double-brick homes with original jarrah under the carpet, a kitchen that has been patched twice and wiring that predates the RCD. They are worth keeping, and they are genuinely difficult to renovate well.
The risk with a full renovation is not the visible work. It is what is behind the wall: the plumbing that has to come out anyway, the lintel nobody expected, the asbestos eaves. Those are the discoveries that turn a renovation into a running argument about money.
BThe work
How we renovate an older house
We open up and investigate before we price, not after. That means selective demolition at the quoting stage where the owner allows it, a plumber and a sparky through the house early, and an allowance written into the contract for the things an older home reliably hides.
Structural, electrical and plumbing come first and get done properly — new switchboard and RCDs, replumbed to current standard, any structural repair addressed rather than covered. The finishes follow. It is the unglamorous half, and it is why a renovation still feels right in ten years.
On character homes we work to keep what is worth keeping. Original jarrah floors get lifted, stored and relaid rather than replaced. Ceiling roses, picture rails, fretwork and leadlight are protected during demolition, not swept up with it.
- 01Pre-contract investigation
- Selective opening-up, plus plumber and electrician assessments, before the price is fixed.
- 02Structural repair
- Underpinning, lintels, re-stumping and wall repair where the survey calls for it.
- 03Full rewire and replumb
- New switchboard, RCDs and circuits; new water and waste to current standard.
- 04Kitchens and bathrooms
- Cabinetmaker-built joinery, waterproofing certified, tiling and fit-off by our own trades.
- 05Heritage-sensitive work
- Original floors, ceilings, cornices and leadlight protected, restored and reinstated.
- 06Written weekly program
- What is happening this week and next, so you can plan around it if you are living in the house.
How it runs
Five stages, and you know where you are in them.
Every full renovations job runs the same way. The stage you are in, and what you get at the end of it, is written down before you sign anything.
- 01
Site visit and walk-through
We go through the house room by room, note what is worth keeping and flag the likely surprises before you spend anything.
- 02
Investigation and scope
Selective opening-up, trade assessments and a written scope. This is where a renovation is won or lost.
- 03
Fixed price and contract
One number, with a documented allowance for anything genuinely unknowable behind a wall.
- 04
Strip-out and structure
Demolition, structural repair, rewire and replumb. The messy half, done first.
- 05
Fit-out and finish
Joinery, tiling, painting, floors relaid and restored, fixtures fitted off.
- 06
Handover
Defect walk-through, full clean, certificates handed over and the six-month check booked.
CCost
What a full renovation costs
Renovation cost tracks the condition of what is already there far more than the size of the house. A tidy 1950s home that just needs updating is a very different job to one that needs re-stumping and a full rewire.
Whole-house renovations generally start around $180,000. Kitchen-and-bathroom scopes with no structural work sit well below that.
Indicative
From $180k
We price after investigation, not before, so the number you sign is the number you pay.
Proof
One we built, documented in full.
Fremantle, 2024. Suburb, time on site, whether the price held and whether the owners stayed in the house — the four things people actually check.
“We lived in the house through the whole renovation with two kids. They kept it sealed off, cleaned up every single day, and always told us what was happening the following week.”
Questions
What people ask about full renovations.
What happens if you find something behind the wall?
We investigate before we price, and we write an allowance into the contract for the things an older Perth home reliably hides — old plumbing, missing lintels, asbestos eaves. If something genuinely unforeseen turns up we show you, price it, and you sign before we touch it.
Can you keep the original floorboards?
In most cases yes. Jarrah floors get lifted carefully, stored on site, then relaid and sanded at the end. Where boards are past saving we source matching second-hand timber rather than putting new next to old.
Do we need to move out?
For a whole-house renovation, usually yes for at least part of it — there is a period with no working kitchen or bathroom. We will tell you honestly at the site visit which weeks those are so you can plan, rather than promising you can stay and revising it later.
Do you do heritage-listed homes?
Yes, and we work to the conditions rather than around them. If your house is on a municipal inventory or in a heritage precinct we deal with the local government heritage officer as part of the approvals.
Can we do it in stages?
Sometimes, and sometimes it costs more than doing it once. Rewiring and replumbing in stages means opening the same walls twice. We will map both options at the site visit and be straight with you about which one is cheaper overall.
We build across Inner north, Western suburbs, River south, Coastal north, Fremantle and around — see the full list on the service areas page.
The next step
Have us out to look at your full renovations.
Free to have us out, about an hour on site, and you leave with a written summary of what is feasible and a realistic budget band.