NORTHBOURNE Architecture + Design - Architects Melbourne, Award Winning Architect, House Design

We engaged Sally from Northbourne to help us explore options to transform our 1890s terrace house into a modern home that better suited our changing family needs. Sally was warm, curious and really effective at getting to the heart of our needs and desires. She developed elegant and pragmatic design options for us, one of which was a lifestyle game changer we fell in love with. At all times objectives were mutually agreed, clearly communicated and delivered on time. Sally was very generous with her knowledge and experience and made us feel part of the design process.

We were faced with a dilemma of wanting/needing to renovate the internal footprint of our house (including restumping) but having zero idea of how to go about it. Sally from Northbourne met with us, listened to what we were hoping to achieve, and presented us with options of how Northbourne could help us. In the end we hired Northbourne to draw up plans for our end goal for our internal renovations (as we planned to do the renovations in stages) and to assist us with what we needed to do to get out house to the end of the structural stage of the renovations. Drew and Sally assisted with the hiring of a geotech engineer and a structural engineer, the extremely hard search for builders over the many lockdowns in Melbourne, the adjusting of plans and the obtaining of the permit. As people who had NO idea where to start, what to do or where to go, Sally and Drew have been amazing at listening to us, guiding us, working within our budget (which was vague at best - but obviously didn't want to spend lots of money), checking in on us, and sharing the hard parts and the successes. When crazy options were presented to us from contractors, Drew was very quick to assist us with options that were more budget friendly and realistic. Embarking on any of this over the covid lockdowns was difficult, but having the amazing plan of what our house is going to look like eventually has been a fabulous thing to look forward to. We feel so lucky to have found Northbourne to assist us make our home work for our family for the long term.