One thing I’m not very good at is picturing what our renovation ideas will look like in real life. Drawings, plans and concepts hurt my brain – I work much better when I can see something in front of me.
So as we’re starting to think a bit more about our renovation, TG did a very clever thing to help me visualise the potential in our house. I call it TG’s DIY display homes.
What he did was run an online search of properties for sale in the suburbs where we know there are single-fronted houses like ours – places all over town including Northcote, Richmond and Port Melbourne.
Among the parameters he punched into the search were houses with two or three bedrooms, and with a price range around what we think (hope!) our house will be worth after the renovation.
This turned up a range of properties, including one in the inner east which was an immaculately renovated version of our house, on exactly the same size block.
As I’ve said before, I have very few qualms about snooping around people’s home during open for inspections, so we went along in person to have a stickybeak. And I’m so glad we did!
The house was stunning, and it really helped me to understand the potential in our home. In particular, it allowed me to appreciate the advantages of going up another storey.
Our previous view was that going up another level would leave us with too much house for our single-fronted block. But seeing this double-storey version of our house made us realise that was not the case at all.
Even though I had the biggest case of house envy after I left the inspection, it was such a good exercise in showing us what is possible to achieve with a reno, and also in inspiring us to get moving on plans.
me just playing house 