Timing was on Heath and Marnie Whiddon's side when it came to the extension of their little house in Corrimal, saving them from a style they had outgrown and about $150,000 in building costs.
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When they finally kicked off renovations in 2020, design trends had shifted and they no longer felt like they had to match the new part of the house to their old miner's cottage on Annie Street.
"If we had started five years earlier, the whole place would have looked like a California bungalow, and we're really glad we waited because we decided that we wanted the back to look totally different to the front," Heath said.
Instead, they went with a sleek black, two-storey extension in a mid-century style designed by Thirroul architect Dane Taylor.
But if they're glad they weren't too hasty, they're even more grateful construction got started when it did.
Their Bulli builder, James Madigan of Innovation Building Group, turned the first sod on their $600,000 build in March 2021, just as lockdowns upended everything.
"During the construction, James was giving us updates and said if we'd ordered a frame now it would have cost so much more because the prices were going up," Heath said.
"We got held up three weeks waiting for the timber floor to come and a couple of other things so we were on the front end of it and I'd hate to think what it's like now."
James is painfully aware of what it's like now.
"If Heath and Marnie built the same design today, it would probably be an additional $150,000, so between 15 and 25 per cent depending on the design and finishes," he said.
"The structural steel and structural timber, that's where your costs are coming from, so any projects that have a lot of timber in them come with a price tag.
"Fuel's also going up monthly, insulation and plasterboard is going up - it's slowed down but still hasn't stopped and we're getting weekly notices.
"It's not easy, you've got to know your numbers to build, that's for sure."
On top of skyrocketing costs, home builders and renovators can expect a project to take twice as long.
"A job llke Heath and Marnie's would have taken between six and nine months originally, and that ended up taking a year," James said.
"Now statistics are showing that projects are taking twice as long as they used to, so a six-month build would be a 12-month build and so forth, just due to having to wait so long for materials, trade partners like contractors, and suppliers are hard to get on site.
"Then the weather's another beast in itself, just delaying everyone, so one job delays your painter and that causes a knock-on effect so you might take an extra four weeks to get a tradie on site that you actually need and it effects everyone else's build.
"With soggy grounds, excavation can be more expensive and slower, materials are heavier, concreters struggle to brace their slabs up, and just general making a mess you have to clean up - there's costs there that the builders have to wear that you just can't factor in."
On Tuesday, we reveal the Whiddons' renovation journey, including all the before and after photos, a breakdown of costs, favourite suppliers and their top tips for renovating.
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