Your Neighbour's Home Renovation Feels Like A Never-Ending Saga

You know that house down the street that’s been undergoing renovations for five years?

You and your neighbours are judging the owners. Don’t deny it. “The house isn’t even that big,” you say. “They could have rebuilt it four times over in the time it’s taken them to do whatever the hell it is they’re doing in there.”

In your sarcasm, you have stumbled upon the truth.

It actually would have been faster and cheaper if they’d just knocked the whole thing down and started from scratch. But they didn’t do that because when they started, all they wanted was a new bathroom.

Let’s take a trip in the Way-Back Machine to the moment when the five-year renovations began. The bathroom is old and dingy and needs a major refresh. Budgets are set, quotes are received, timelines are created.

At this point, one of three things happens.

In our first scenario, construction begins, budgets are exceeded, deadlines are left in the dust. But, eventually, the new bathroom is completed. What a thing of beauty it is! There is joy in the household. Well, not the entire household. Someone has decided that the rest of the house now looks dingy and old compared with the bathroom. Maybe, one spouse suggests, a quick remodel of the living room would be in order so that the superiority of the bathroom does not remain so glaringly evident. Again, budgets are set and exceeded, deadlines made and left in the dust. Finally, a spiffy new living room emerges from the clutter, immediately revealing the dining room to be outdated, unfashionable and, let’s face it, sort of depressing.

Eventually, five or more years later, everything in the house is replaced, including the veranda, the roof, the septic system and one of the spouses.

In our second five-year renovation scenario, we learn early in the bathroom renovation that things are going to be a whole lot more complicated than anyone planned. On day two, the contractors discover that the home’s wiring is so old that there is no point in connecting the spiffy new electrical outlets to it because the first time someone uses a hair dryer while the electric oven is on, it will overload the feeble electrical system and possibly burn down the house.

The electrical wiring, the contractors announce, must be upgraded, house-wide, or else they can’t be held responsible for what happens. This is a job that can be done without tearing out every single wall in the house, but one of the spouses decides that since the walls are all horsehair plaster, they should be replaced as well “while they’re at it.”

The contractors start tearing down walls and guess what those walls aren’t—horsehair plaster. Nope, they are made using once-ubiquitous, currently banned asbestos. This discovery legally requires immediate remediation by a certified asbestos removal team and involves wrapping the house in a giant plastic bag and setting up a self-contained air filtration system that…. oh, screw it. All you really need to know here is that this bathroom renovation has turned the house into a Superfund site that will cost approximately 250 times the cost of the bathroom remodel to clean up. Only then can the electrical system be replaced, or the walls rebuilt, or the bathroom completed.

Scenario two isn’t always asbestos. Sometimes it’s massive termite damage that essentially requires the entire house to be rebuilt. Sometimes it’s foundation subsidence that requires a very complicated repair in which piers are driven into the ground around the house so the foundation can be connected to stop it from sinking like the Titanic. It’s scary. And expensive. Sometimes it’s worse. You get the picture.

In any case, fast-forward five years. The owners, now impoverished, finally get their finished bathroom. They plug in the hairdryer while the oven is running. It blows the circuit breaker.

Scenario three involves the simple bathroom remodel and nothing more. That’s all the owners want. That’s all they can afford. They set a budget and build in a 30% budget allowance and a 50% timeline overrun. They interview multiple contractors until they find The One. The One requires a 50% deposit up front. Although the owners are doing everything right so far, they forget two crucial things—always check references and never pay a contractor 50% upfront.

The contractor gets done ripping out the appliances, fixtures and walls in the old bathroom and then vanishes with the deposit. For the first month, he pretends he’s sick. For the second through sixth month, he assures them he’s coming tomorrow. For months six through current month, he’s just gone. Meanwhile, the owners are trying to work around the giant hole in the middle of their house where the bathroom used to be. Finally, at month eight, they start looking for another contractor to complete the work but their budget, now just 50% of its original size, causes at least two of the contractors to bust out laughing. The owners are exceedingly dejected. The home remains a work site until they are able to scrape together the remaining funds, which takes them four more years.

The next time you see that house down the street that has been under renovation for the past five years, don’t scorn the owners, as is your way. Instead, bring them a casserole and sit quietly while they tell you the story of their five-year hell project. Bring some tissues. They’ll probably cry.

A breathtaking view and a lush quarter-acre block are high up the wish list with any lifestyle property, but this contemporary Buderim residence takes things to another level.

Designed and built by owners Stu and Nat Faid, the Sunshine Coast home reflects their vision and incredible attention to detail.

As an architect and designer, Nat believes a prime position deserves an incredible project.

“The heart of the house is undoubtedly the living area and expansive deck. At over 100sq m and elevated more than 6m above the ground, you literally feel like you’re floating. We love how the views stretch from the Glass House Mountains along the coastline to Mooloolaba. Across the ocean, you can even see the sandbanks on Moreton Island,” she says.

While the views and the 1024sq m land parcel make their mark, it’s the suspended 12m heated shipping container swimming pool that’s making waves locally.

“When people arrive, the first thing they do is look up,” Nat adds.

After purchasing the property in 2021, the pair knew the existing house wouldn’t live up to their family of four, but they fell in love with the location and outlook so decided to adapt.

Initially, the pool’s unique design was simply a reaction to an everyday Queensland problem, but ultimately became a feature.

“The pool was at first a product of practicality. We wanted to be able to watch the kids in the pool from the house, but to do that required elevating the pool more than six meters off the ground,” Stu says.

“When we looked at the engineering required, it conflicted with our minimal-touch ethos in preserving the land and the visual aesthetic of the finished design. What followed was a lot of searching for a solution, and as luck would have it, the answer was almost on our doorstep.”

Shipping Container Pools seemed like a no-brainer answer to the pool problem. Having moved internationally multiple times, the couple saw an opportunity to weave their personal story into the fabric of their new home.

“The opportunity to incorporate a nod to that chapter of our life into the build was too good to miss,” he says.

“It also unashamedly reinforces the origins of the pool construction, which ties into the rest of the design in the house. Throughout the home, we have embraced where the old meets the new, we have not tried to blend, cover or hide the origins of the home, we have chosen instead to make sure the evolution of the house is clear to see.”

The Faids’ global family journey is evident throughout the home, from the grand Middle Eastern entry doors sourced from Dubai where the couple once lived, to the remarkable views from the Glass House Mountains to Mooloolaba.

Created to enjoy every season, the house has a space for all eventualities with an open plan living area spilling out to the full-width deck and pool, a sleek kitchen with an Ilve integrated fridge and freezer, Bosch ovens, an induction cooktop, built-in coffee machine and microwave, two dishwashers, filtered water and a butler’s pantry.

Four spacious bedrooms each have built-ins, the main features a large ensuite with twin vanities and two more bedrooms share a“Jack and Jill” style bathroom. There is also a third full bathroom.

The Buderim home is 12.5kms from Mooloolaba and the Mooloolaba River National Park with the Sunshine Coast Airport 13.5kms to the north, however Stu adds that there is rarely a reason to leave.

“It would be fair to say that apart from popping down the hill to go to the beach, we often go days without ever leaving the village. It’s really is a wonderful spot.”

Packed with mod cons, the Buderim home also features six-zone ducted air-conditioning, engineered oak floors and a double-sided Stuv wood-burning fireplace, a mudroom, heated floors and sensor lights in the bathrooms. There is also a private elevator, solar power and battery, as well as landscaped gardens and a large lock up garage and shed.

The property at 10 Orient Court, Buderim is listed with Zoe Byrne and Greg Ward from Ray White Buderim and will go to auction on September 22 at 9am at Mercedes-Benz Sunshine Coast, 65 Maroochy Blvd, Maroochydore.

Your Neighbour’s Home Renovation Feels Like A Never-Ending Saga

It started with the bathroom and ended with everything but the kitchen sink.

This sky-high home on the Sunshine Coast with iconic shipping container pool is a testament to modern design and engineering.