Welcome to our world

We don't have one architect, we have two. One for the concept; another (who is local) to do the drawings and mother our application through the consent process. We also had a surveyor, arborist, kitchen designer and structural engineer. We met with a quantity surveyor/project manager and decided we couldn't afford him. And I have been shamelessly plundering the expertise of my interior design friend, Peter Dunnachie. All of these experts have helped enormously. And here's the thing: how on earth do you do you manage a renovation without them? How do you negotiate council regulations, structural changes and the building work itself without a comprehensive set of plans? All up, we estimate we forked out well over $20,000 in fees before Euan the builder and his team walked onto the property. And the only new structure we're adding – apart from a structural beam to compensate for knocking out a load-bearing wall and putting in a new floor-to-ceiling window – is the deck. The rest is pretty much cosmetic: new kitchen, bathrooms and moving the odd wall half a metre to the left or right to make better use of the space. By all accounts our building work is relatively minor.

But, we decided to do it properly. We wanted the ticks on our LIM, and we wanted to ensure the house we've come to love survives for another 50 years. What I'm learning, however, is enough to fill a manual. Let's call it 'How to survive a renovation'. I promise to share it as we progress.