Taking a look at their renovated seaside home, it’s truthful to say that The Design Recordsdata editor Lucy Feagins and her husband, furnishings designer and cupboard maker Gordon Johnson, are a little bit of a dream workforce.

The couple purchased the Seventies fibro shack on the Mornington Peninsula final yr, with plans to make some ‘easy updates’, together with including a brand new kitchen and toilet.

Gordy was set to take round three months off work to work (and stay) on-site, whereas Lucy deliberate to handle the mission from Melbourne, driving down to hitch Gordy and ‘camp out’ on the half-finished home on weekends. The ‘fundamental reno’ was presupposed to be completed and dusted, simply in time for Christmas 2022.

Like most renovations, it didn’t go precisely to plan. It was a little bit of a ‘Pandora’s field’ as soon as Gordy began pulling the property aside, and their authentic imaginative and prescient for a easy renovation shortly developed into a lot greater, nine-month-long transformation.

Hearken to the total episode on TDF Talks to listen to Lucy and Gordy speak by way of the method, and discover a few of the greatest bits of recommendation from their interview beneath!

How they approached the mission 

Gordy’s hands-on expertise meant he naturally took on the sensible aspect of the construct, and Lucy dealt with all of the admin, together with managing the finances, paying individuals, paperwork, sourcing fixtures, finishes, and holding the mission on observe.

‘We simply began with large lists of all the things that wanted doing. I’d write that down in a protracted spreadsheet after which we mapped it out over a timeline, and blocked out what duties could be accomplished every week’ explains Lucy.

‘We kind labored collectively on [the design]… Then as soon as I bought the approval, it was full steam head’, Gordy provides.

Their recommendation for estimating your finances

The couple broke down the finances by itemizing the prices of supplies per metre, and figuring out what number of days every commerce or job would take, to provide them a tough finances determine.

They initially deliberate to spend round $80,000 on the kitchen and toilet renovation (which ‘wasn’t too far off’ the precise prices for these parts) however that was earlier than the mission developed right into a ‘whole refurb’. It will definitely got here in at nearer to $180,000 — and that determine doesn’t embrace Gordy’s time (round 8 months full-time!).

Demolish with warning

‘The job itself grew, which is what actually blew the finances,’ Lucy says. In hindsight, the pair mentioned they need to have identified higher! As quickly as Gordy started demolishing, it turned clear that the renovation could be greater than initially anticipated. Each window that was eliminated meant the encompassing partitions additionally had to get replaced, and as soon as Gordy had reconfigured the kitchen, that left large holes within the floorboards.

‘As soon as issues are gone, it’s very easy to get carried away. Simply be measured and have a listing of what you’re really pulling out, as a result of that’s the place you possibly can actually lengthen the renovations,’ Lucy notes.

‘We just about changed all of the home windows, took all of the exterior cladding off, the inner cladding off, all of the floorboards up, eliminated the outdated kitchen, then put in a brand new kitchen, constructed a complete new rest room, a brick fireplace, [built a] drop-down mattress, a queen mattress, eating desk, and the listing goes on,’ Gordy says.

DIY what you possibly can to economize

One of many greatest prices of the mission was the tiling within the rest room. For this process, they used knowledgeable tiler, as a result of it was an in depth, fiddly job. ‘It’s the most costly room in the home’, Lucy says. After spending a lot tiling the lavatory, Gordy ended up doing the (easier) splashback tiling within the kitchen himself.

Equally, that they had labored with panorama designer Jo Ferguson for the gardens, and initially deliberate to contract a landscaper to construct the backyard, as this was outdoors Gordy’s skillset. ‘The quotes have been insane,’ Lucy says. ‘I believe we have been over $100,000 for simply the backyard, which is simply a lot greater than we anticipated it to be.’ As a substitute, they paid somebody to come back on for per week with a digger to stage the backyard and redistribute soil and coatings, and Gordy labored alongside him. After that, Gordy roped in a few associates to assist construct a deck, timber path and fencing, and ultimately, the entrance backyard got here t0gether in round 4 weeks, at a value of round $20,000.

Discover pleasure within the course of

Lucy and Gordy’s exhausting work, shared ardour for design, and private time they invested within the house is a part of what makes it so particular. Gordy says whereas working collectively as a pair ‘had its moments’, some of the rewarding elements of the mission was collaborating carefully on a shared imaginative and prescient.

‘If we had all the cash on this planet and will simply get a designer and a builder to construct this for us and transfer in, I don’t assume that may be as rewarding as doing it ourselves, and having one million conversations about it,’ Lucy provides. ‘Loads of the enjoyment actually is concerning the course of, not simply the end result’.

Hearken to the total episode with Lucy and Gordy beneath, or discover TDF Talks on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!