As I’ve been planning for the renovations to our house I went out looking for a book about renovating here in Australia. There are a lot of books out there, but most of them are mostly relevant to the US market, rather than Australia.
Finally at a local book store I found not one, but two books specific to building and renovating in Australia! The first book was very specific to Townsville and new house building. The Townsville part was great because it dealt with a lot of the unique challenges that we have living in the topics, but because it dealt so much with new house building, instead of renovating, it didn’t work for me.
The second book, the one that I ended up buying, was called “Planning Your Perfect Home Renovation – by Alex May. The book was $26.95, but I had a gift voucher for $20.00, so it only cost me $6.95 out of pocket.
The book has great information about budgeting, planning, dealing with builders and tradespeople (which I need a lot of work on, basically I need to develop a backbone…), three different case studies and some useful money-saving and design tips. They cover the little jobs, like re-grouting the tiles, all the way up to basically gutting and rebuilding the home.
It’s a good book, and from what I have read and experienced so far in my own renovation journey, it’s a book that I would highly recommend to someone doing house renovations here in Australia.
— Update —
After I got on the Internet today I found a link to the web-site about the book. The Link is below:
3 responses so far ↓
homeimprovementninja // Feb 2, 2006 at 3:41 pm
It’s probably a good idea to get a book that is relevant to your particular house (if it’s an older house). It doesn’t make a difference to most people, but some people won’t like you putting new fixtures in a victorian house or mixing styles (mission, craftsman, georgian etc.). But if it’s, say, a craftsman house, then a book on just that period will give you a lot of ideas and teach you a lot about what normally goes in there before it’s destroyed by a flipper.
My house is devoid of style, so I just work on making it look nine.
Joe Evans // Aug 8, 2009 at 10:30 am
Have a look at the following website…
http://www.oldhouses.com.au
Ian Evans is my father and also an author who has been writing books on how to renovate australian houses for about 20 years. You will find lots of great tips, tradesmen, material and methods that are very helpful.
Two very helpful titles will be the Old House Catalogue as well as the Colour Schemes for old Australian houses.
Bill Hutchison // Aug 15, 2009 at 3:36 am
Hi Joe, thanks for the comment.
There are some great books about restoring old Australian Homes on your Dad’s site, although the site might be in need of a bit of an update…
You can check out the books directly about restoring Australian Homes here.
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