Like everyone we have a budget (well pretty much everyone, I did work on a house in London that had no budget, literally. A Middle Eastern client whose 6 year old son was getting 80,000 pounds worth of wallpaper in his bedroom, and that was 13 years ago now....). And like pretty much everyone, our project has come in over what we'd like to spend. The ways that we are looking at trimming down some of the costs are by analysis of the following:
- Money into Architecture first
- Not overcapitalising on the property (particularly important in the current economy)
- Can things be delayed until later
Not exactly earth shattering, but I'll explain my rational.
Architecture is the permanent stuff - it encompasses the things that will be permanent and unchanging without another major renovation. Things like how many rooms you build, ceiling heights, window design and quality, insulation in walls and ceiling, quality of permanent materials. It is not your kitchen. Kitchens have a life span of around 15 years. Appliances have built in obsolescence of around 5-10 years (depending on which brand you buy). So looking at it like that, putting in a $15,000 stove may not be the best way to spend your money. You can definitely make your kitchen look great without spending loads of money.
Overcapitalising on the property is very important. It is very easy to get carried away. I'm certainly no exception. There are so many things and products that I have seen that I'd love to put into my permanent house. But I won't, because working in commercial Property Development in Melbourne for a few years taught me to be fairly ruthless when making my financial assessments. The only way you are making money in property is if after your purchase price and renovation and holding costs you are able to turn around and sell it at a profit (having taken out normal market rise). Not many people actually achieve this domestically. So it's something to bear in mind when you're making assessments of where to spend your money. While we don't plan on selling our house, you can never be sure of what circumstances and changes life will bring, so you should still consider this in your assessment.
A massive part of the cost of our renovation is in concrete (which has risen substantially in Australia in the past 2 years). A large part of this is for the new office downstairs for my husband. But when looking at the value that adds to the house if we were to sell it, versus the cost of including this in our building program, it is definitely not something to cut out.
Things being delayed later is fairly obvious, and that is why we have a 6 stage building process going on at our place (the extension will mark the half way point.....).
So, one of the things I've been looking at this week is cutting back on the cost of the flooring. We have 150 square meters including the laundry, playroom and kitchen/dining/living inside, and around 80 square metres in the outside dining area and veranda. My initial thought was that I wanted the flooring to flow from inside to outside, emphasising the conservatory type feel that I'm trying to achieve, and I wanted it to be dark to ground the space with the very high ceilings. Some of my inspiration photos are above. Tiling costs around $60/ per square metre for the labour alone. Tiles are on top of that. I went to a couple of tiling showrooms, asking to see tiles that were around $40-60/ square meter mark, and they were not great. At all. They were too shiny, to perfect, too fake looking, especially over such a large area. I'd inevitably gravitate toward the $180/ square meter tiles. Ideally, I'd have run Mintaro Slate both inside and outside, however it's around the $245/ square metre mark, so that was definitely off the agenda. I came to the realisation that I'd prefer not to have a poor quality tile on the floor, which I'd still be paying a lot of money for.
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So, after a fair bit of thought, I've decided on using linoleum inside, and Mintaro Slate outside. Before you all click away in disgust, I'll explain why. Linoleum is definitely not Vinyl. People my age seem to know nothing about it, but it's one of the best products out there - it's environmentally friendly, being made of compressed limestone, wood resins and linseed oil with pigments on a jute backing. It's the same process as when it was invented 150 years ago, and is still made in Scotland, where it was originally invented. It is incredibly durable (will last around 50 years or more), softer underfoot than a stone or concrete surface, and when laid can appear completely seamless (they have invisible welds between the sheets). It comes in so many different colours and patterns and textures (even crocodile textured!). It also costs around $60/ square meter fully installed. I would prefer to have this on my floors any day over polished concrete (which uses a very toxic epoxy coating to seal it).
Floors are usually a permanent feature in a house, but my thought was that this wouldn't actually be a feature. With large area rugs under the dining and seating areas, very high almost 4 meter ceilings, the antique French limestone fireplace, and beautiful and large steel framed windows, the floor would be very much in the background. So I've had the Forbo Rep visit me this week bringing me samples, and I've chosen a very dark grey with a slightly textured surface that will match in with the slate thresholds at the french doors and outside. It will be a continuous, unbroken and simple floor surface that will receed into the background of the rooms, and we will save around $25,000 by doing this.
I'm actually quite excited about my new linoleum floors. I've also convinced my Dad to use them for the upcoming conservatory he will be building at his place. We'll do a large scale soft grey and white checkerboard effect there, which will suit the heritage house well.
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| via look at all the things you can do with it! Just not necessarily in my home.... |
Actually, while googling images for this post, I've come across a number of different Architect's blogs, where they sing the praises of linoleum in domestic projects. It's just that it's been marketed only Commercially over the past 50 or so years, its reputation sullied by the advent of Vinyl flooring, which has absolutely nothing to do with linoleum. In addition, the Forbo website is not very user friendly, so it's clearly not been pushed at the domestic market, which is a great shame.
So, necessity is the mother of all invention. While budget discussions can be difficult, they do make you go back over your plans and examine your reasons for everything. This can mean that you not only save money, but you make improvements as well. There is a silver lining in everything if you look for it.