Renovation costs
What a renovation actually costs in Bayside Melbourne
There is no honest single figure, and any builder who gives you one before reading your drawings is guessing. What we can tell you is what actually moves the number — and it is usually not the kitchen. On the projects we take on, structure, services and what turns up behind an old wall swing a budget far harder than the finishes people spend their evenings choosing.
Why we will not put a price on this page
Not evasiveness. A number published without seeing your house would be wrong for almost everyone who read it, and the people it misled worst would be the ones who trusted it most. Two houses on the same street, with drawings of a similar size, routinely land a long way apart — and the reasons have very little to do with floor area.
What we will do is give you a range we can stand behind once we have read your drawings, with the reasoning attached, so you can see which decisions are moving it. If the number and the plan do not agree, we would rather tell you that in the first conversation than discover it together on site.
Where the money actually goes
In rough order of how much each one tends to move a budget — which is close to the reverse of how much attention each one usually gets.
- Structure
- Removing a wall that is holding something up, cutting in a new opening, or adding a second storey to a house that was not built for one. Structural work is rarely the biggest line on paper and is very often the biggest swing in the total.
- What is behind the walls
- Wiring, plumbing, drainage and stumps in an older home. You cannot price this accurately until it is open, which is why an honest builder gives you an allowance and a range rather than a number.
- The roof and the footings
- The two places where a problem is expensive at any scale. Both are usually discovered rather than planned for.
- Scope
- How much of the house is being touched. A renovation that stops at the back half is a fundamentally different project from one where every room moves — even when the two look similar in a set of drawings.
- Level of finish
- Joinery, stone, tapware, glazing and the detailing around them. This is the part most people think of as "the budget", and it is genuinely significant — but it is a dial you can turn, which is more than can be said for the four above.
- Site access
- How machinery, materials and skips get in and out. A narrow Bayside block with no side access changes how a job is run and therefore what it costs.
- Planning and consultants
- Permits, reports, engineering and surveys. Not glamorous, unavoidable, and worth knowing about before they arrive.
What moves a renovation budget, and when you can know it
The second column is the one worth reading. Some costs can be priced from drawings; others cannot be known until a wall is open. That distinction is why an honest quote carries allowances — and why the cheapest quote is often the one that has left them out.
| What | Impact on budget | Known when | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Structural change | Large | From drawings | Removing what holds the house up, cutting new openings, or adding a storey to a house not built for one. |
| What is behind the walls | Large | Once opened up | Wiring, plumbing, drainage and stumps in an older home. Priced as an allowance until it can be seen. |
| Roof and footings | Large | Once opened up | The two places a problem is expensive at any scale, and usually discovered rather than designed. |
| How much of the house | Large | From drawings | Stopping at the back half is a different project from touching every room, not a smaller version of one. |
| Level of finish | Moderate | From drawings | Joinery, stone, tapware, glazing. The part most people picture as "the cost", and rarely the part that moves it most. |
| Site access | Moderate | From a site visit | How machinery, materials and skips get in. A narrow block with no side access changes how a job is built. |
| Permits and consultants | Small to moderate | From drawings | Reports, engineering, surveys. Unglamorous, unavoidable, and better known early than late. |
Why two quotes for the same house disagree
When three builders price the same drawings and come back hundreds of thousands apart, it is almost never because one of them found a cheaper bricklayer. It is because they are not pricing the same job.
The one that excludes the unknowns
Everything undecided is left out, to be added later as a variation. It wins the comparison and loses the relationship. The number you signed is not the number you pay.
The one with real allowances
Carries a proper provisional sum for what is behind the walls, and says so. Reads as expensive next to the first one, and is usually the closest to the truth.
The one that has not been read properly
Priced quickly off a drawing set nobody interrogated. The problems in it are real, and they surface on site, at the worst possible moment to be solving them.
The useful comparison is not between the totals. It is between what each quote includes, what each one has assumed, and what each one has left for later. A builder who cannot explain their allowances has not done the work that makes an allowance meaningful.
Who wrote this
Written from the experience of building the projects on this site, and reviewed by James Kiely, who runs The Kiely Group and personally oversees every build. It is a builder’s view of where money goes on a renovation in Bayside, not a price guide — and where we have given an opinion rather than a fact, we have said so.
Pre-construction planning
The expensive decisions are made on paper
Most problems on a building site were created months earlier, on paper. We get involved early — while the drawings are still moving — so the decisions that cost the most are made with a builder in the room.
A design can be beautiful and still be expensive to build, for reasons that are invisible in a drawing and obvious to someone who has built the thing before. Found while the drawings are still moving, those reasons cost a redraw. Found on site, they cost a variation, a delay, and the conversation nobody wants to have.
How our pre-construction planning worksWhat we would want to see
Before we give you a range we can stand behind, rather than a number that will move:
- The drawings, at whatever stage they are at — including rough ones
- The house itself, and what is likely to be behind the walls
- What you are hoping to spend, honestly stated
- Where you are up to: ideas, concept, documentation, or ready to build
James personally reviews every enquiry and will be in touch by phone or email.
If price is the deciding factor, we are not your builder
We take on a small number of renovations each year, and we are not the cheapest way to get one built. If the goal is the lowest number on a page, there are builders who will give you one, and you should talk to them.
What we are good for is a house you intend to live in for a long time, where the plan is ambitious enough that getting it wrong would be expensive, and where you would rather be told an uncomfortable thing early than a comfortable thing that changes later.
Recent work
The Hampton whole-home renovation
A whole-home renovation where the scope, the budget and the programme were settled before anyone picked up a tool.
Kitchen, laundry, three bathrooms and a new pool house — with before-and-after photography of every room.
See the projectQuestions we get asked
- What does a home renovation cost in Bayside?
- There is no useful single number, and anyone who gives you one before reading your drawings is guessing. Two houses on the same street, with drawings of a similar size, routinely land a long way apart — condition and the scope of the plan move the figure far more than floor area does. The honest answer is that we would rather look at it and give you a range we can stand behind, with the reasoning attached.
- Why do builders quote such different prices for the same job?
- Usually because they are not quoting the same job. One price may exclude the things nobody has decided yet — the ones that get added later as variations. Another may carry a proper allowance for what is behind the walls. The cheapest quote is very often the one with the most left out of it, which is why comparing the totals tells you less than comparing what each one includes.
- What part of a renovation costs the most?
- Rarely the part people expect. Kitchens and bathrooms attract the attention, but structural change, bringing services up to standard, and anything that touches the roof or the footings are what move a budget significantly. On an older home the unglamorous work is usually the expensive work.
- How accurate is an early estimate?
- It depends entirely on how much has been decided. Early in a project a range is honest and a fixed figure is not. As the documentation firms up the range narrows, and that narrowing is the point of doing the planning properly before construction starts.
- Why is my architect’s design more expensive to build than expected?
- This is the most common and most costly surprise in the whole process, and it is why we get involved before drawings are finalised. A design can be beautiful and still be expensive to build for reasons that are invisible on paper. A builder reading the drawings early is the cheapest way to find those reasons, while changing them still costs nothing but a redraw.
- Do you charge for pre-construction planning?
- Yes — it is real work, done properly, and it is priced as its own stage rather than buried in a build cost. What it buys you is a decision made with real numbers: whether what you are planning and what you want to spend can meet, before you have committed to either.
- Can you work to a fixed budget?
- We can work to a budget, and we will tell you early and honestly if the scope and the number do not agree. What we will not do is agree to a figure we do not believe, then recover it through variations once the job has started.
Tell us what you are planning
Send us the drawings, however rough, and we will tell you honestly what it is likely to take.
Enquire
Let’s talk about your home.
The more you can tell us, the more useful our first conversation will be. James personally reads every enquiry.
We take on a limited number of projects each year, so the more detail you can give us, the faster we can tell you whether we are the right fit.
- Phone
- (03) 9787 4880
- Where we build
- Bayside Melbourne — Brighton, Hampton, Sandringham & surrounds