Using the Blended BuildHer model, Caity and her husband Daniel set about building and extending their home in Surrey Hills, Victoria. The original home was a gorgeous Edwardian that needed a lot of work,and the renovation was brought forward when the bathroom floor rotted out and was no longer useable.
Jumping into their build, Caitlin contacted Levan Design to draft the plans. They already had the existing 5 rooms in the original home and knew what they liked and wanted, adding to this a limited budget to work within. Caitlin then worked with a builder to get the best outcome, and what we mean by that is they engaged Loxton Built to undertake the building work to lock-up originally and supplied quotes alongside their preferred trades. They actually took this arrangement further to complete the build as it was working so well – Caitlin found that she really needed a qualified builder on site to check compliance and quality of the trades, forward planning things like back blocking and running the project when they were at work.
One of the things Caitlin managed really well was not sweating the small stuff and rolling with the punches. I cannot imagine it was easy living without a kitchen or working bathrooms for so long, but never once did she complain – and as her sister I would have thought she would complain to me first!
Building through COVID caused some material delays and trade shortages, but working as a team they were able to completethe buildin just 6-7 months, which is really great going!
Given that budget was such a driving factor of the build, Caitlin found she used the Little Black Book and suppliers as much as she could.
“Alongside getting Levan Design and Loxton Built referred from BuildHer, we have also used a huge number of the suppliers that work closely with BuildHer Collective and it hasled to a reasonably easy build with:
• Signorino Stone for the benchtops
• Haven Kitchens for the cabinetry in the kitchen
• Vic Mix for the polished concrete mix
• Lights, Lights, Lights and Beacon Lighting for the lights
• James Hardie for the Axon cladding on the rear of the home and Linea around the pool
• Plungie for the built-in pool
• Academy Tiles and Tile Cloud for the tiles
• ABI Interiors and Yabby for the tapware
• Aztec for the windows
• CJ Kitchen and Joinery for some bespoke joinery like the curved rangehood; and
• DIY Blinds for the curtains, blinds and shutters throughout.
• James Hardie for the Hardie™ Fine Texture Cladding to the extension and Linea™ Weatherboard around the pool.
And that is before I take the furniture into account!”
Caitlin is Rebeka’s sister and in absolutely poor timing decided to build precisely when she was off on an extended overseas trip with her family – meaning she really just pulled it all together using the group with very little extra help! Luckily, she had a great relationship with her builder and as aresult of this collaboration the build not only went smoothly, but was an outstanding success
The one area Caitlin was all over was the flooring – from selecting the specialty polished concrete mix from Vic Mix to the timber in the hallway and the carpet in the bedrooms –Caity runs Jagers Carpets (their family business) so if you are in Melbourne, make sure you head in for a stock special foryour build!
