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:
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.
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.
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.
Hello, if I had thought as a single female that renovating my house would have been so stressful I would never had attempted it. I am bitterly disappointed by the lack of honesty and good work ethic; certainly by some of the tradies I have worked with. I am a counsellor of 40yrs experience, I work with marginalised people, I do hundreds of hours of unpaid work ( nights, weekends etc) I do this for the community and for my love of people. I never promise and not deliver. I am honest and trustworthy.
I have had the worst experiences renovating, tradies that don’t turn up, tradies that rip you off, tradies that want to talk to the man of the house ( there isn’t one) tradies that treat you like you are an idiot because you are a woman, and the tradies that do an inferior job but want you to pay the earth. I have lost all faith in trades, in honesty and in community spirit.