Ep. 1 Nic brunsdon
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Episode summary
The Unexpected Journey: Architect Designs Dream Home, Ends Up Buying Existing House
This story follows Nic, an architect who embarks on a nine-year quest to build his dream home. The journey is filled with unexpected twists and turns, highlighting the challenges and realities of building a house in today's market.
Initial Plans and Frustrations
Nic and his wife set out to buy land and build their dream home. They find a perfect block of land and Nic designs a house that perfectly fits their needs and vision. However, after getting initial pricing from builders, they realize the costs are higher than anticipated. This forces them to put their plans on hold and save more money.
Years of Waiting and Changing Circumstances
Life throws Nic and his wife some curveballs. They have children, Nic changes jobs, and the building market keeps rising. Each time they try to revive their building project, they face new obstacles. The rising costs and delays lead to frustration and force them to re-evaluate their initial plans.
The Sliding Door Moment and a New Approach
After years of chasing the dream of a custom-built home, Nic has a conversation with friends that leads to a turning point. He realizes the stress and financial burden of building might not be the best path for his family at this point. Nic and his wife decide to change course and look for an existing house they can renovate.
Finding the Perfect Imperfect Home
With a new perspective, Nic and his wife prioritize finding a house with good bones and potential. They focus on functionality and creating a comfortable, livable space for their family. They find a house that isn't perfect but has the potential to be transformed into their dream home through renovations.
Lessons Learned
Nic reflects on the experience and shares valuable takeaways for listeners considering building their own home. He emphasizes the importance of flexibility and adapting plans as circumstances change. He also highlights the value of creating a space that fosters a sense of life and togetherness over chasing architectural perfection.
Is There Such Thing as a Forever Home?
Nic questions the concept of a "forever home" and suggests that homes are more about the present and the memories created within them. He emphasizes the importance of creating a space that can adapt and grow with a family's needs over time.
Final Thoughts
Nic's story is a reminder that life doesn't always go according to plan. While building a custom home can be a dream for many, it's important to be realistic and flexible. Sometimes, the perfect home is already out there waiting to be discovered and transformed.
resources
Design Brief Workbook - https://www.australianbuildstories.com/brief
Nic Brunsdon Architecture Studio - https://www.brunsdonstudio.com/
transcript
00:00:00 Nic
Sleeping in the same day I had a a beer with a friend of mine who's a planner who has he's working on his own place at the moment and was like ohh you go mate.
00:00:09 Nic
Yeah you can.
00:00:10 Nic
You ****. You gotta do it so you know you have to do it. It's the best thing I was like, OK, cool and then.
00:00:16 Nic
Half an hour later, I went down the road to meet with two other friends, one architect and one developer, and I was telling them about it. And they're like, mate, you're.
00:00:25 Nic
What are you doing? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Don't build your own house. You're gonna chew up all the equity you've accrued in the, you know, in the eight years.
00:00:34 Nic
It's gonna be gone. All that kind of appreciation. You're just gonna you can over capitalise and gonna be completely burned out. We're redlining with the mortgage like we're lending to the absolute limit to kind of get it.
00:00:45 Nic
Done.
00:00:46 Sam
Building involves more than just personal style. It's about budget, functionality, working with your specific site.
00:00:53 Sam
And making sure your home seamlessly integrates into your life. I'm Sam Payne and welcome to Australian build stories. Join me as we chat with real people who've embarked on their own building journey.
00:01:07 Sam
We'll explore their highs, lows and valuable lessons they learned along the way. Australian build stories, building knowledge, one story at a time.
00:01:18 Sam
Nick and I have known one another for around 10 years from back when I had my design firm, and when I later transitioned to coaching architects and interior designers on their business operations, Nick was my first client. In my opinion, Nick's talent for design sets him apart from many.
00:01:32 Sam
Sex. In fact, I believe it's only a matter of time until Australia sees another architectural masterpiece like the Sydney Opera House and Nicks the architect to watch. But in today's conversation, Nick is sharing the personal story, which highlights significant challenges for Nick the architect.
00:01:50 Sam
But a triumph for Nick, the dad and husband join me in this conversation with Nick, where we talk about the house he designed for him and his family.
00:01:59 Sam
Today's episode is proudly sponsored by home based design and Build Centre, Australia's largest building and renovation destination.
00:02:06 Nic
We've been looking, so we're being my wife. George and I have been looking for.
00:02:11 Nic
A year, year and a half for a piece of land and the idea was we wanted to buy to buy a piece of land and build ourselves. We love being in the ocean that we're living in a suburb of called Cottesloe here in WA. But we couldn't afford land in Cottesloe or house in Collazo, so we've identified this little pocket of Mosman Park, which is the suburb to the South.
00:02:31 Nic
That was as close to the beach as most of coleslaw is, but was half the price because you had to cross a rail line and a road to get to the beach and we identified our pocket. We'd done the research and we kept looking at looking, looking and then one finally came up and because we knew everything, we just hit them with the offer that we said was fair, we thought was fair and they.
00:02:49 Nic
Agreed straight away and it was done.
00:02:51 Sam
When was that?
00:02:52 Nic
2015 we're also just we're about to get married and we're thinking about having kids. And so the idea was that we're trying to do things quite orderly, like you would probably get married and then maybe have a kid and then think about the house and then it went the other way.
00:03:05
Yep.
00:03:07 Nic
Found the land and did that first and then got married and then had a kid. Yeah. So it was we were looking for a couple of key things, which was the location of it. But then also we wanted to have a long N boundary. So this was it was small, so it was in within our price range. But it was long to the north side.
00:03:24 Nic
And part of the fiso the feasibility that we did on it was that we made, I I kind of made sure that before we put an offer in, we'd like I'd sort of.
00:03:33 Nic
Draw a house and go. Can we actually build the house we want on this and?
00:03:37 Nic
There were, you know, lots of back and forth about not enough storage. Where are we gonna put the clothesline? All that stuff. We'll solve that. They'll come later. But yeah, it was there. They were. The big non negotiables, which is that we need a long, long to north.
00:03:48 Nic
Small enough that we could actually afford it and to build afford to build a house on it and locate it, you know. Well, yeah. So was the design process pretty quick? Yeah. It was one of those ones that that came out. Well, it's the way we still design all our homes, which is long to North, pushed to the southern boundary, create a northern garden. Let northern light.
00:04:06 Nic
Come in skinny plan so you can get cross ventilation through it and open it up and let the breeze blow through. And then it was just hyper rational. It was just a rectangle with full bays in it and into the bays were over 2 levels. So on the ground floor it was.
00:04:21 Sam
A living a dining, a kitchen and a studio, and then below that it was bedroom, bedroom, bathroom, bedroom. Yeah. OK. And then so when you from when you purchased the block to when you completed the design, did you start engaging with the builder when you're in design or did you go through council first?
00:04:35 Nic
I think this was probably the lesson learned is that we went through the design and.
00:04:38 Nic
Had a little bit.
00:04:39 Nic
Of build of input, but basically did the design and went to tender.
00:04:43 Nic
And then that was one of the first of many false starts. False starts as in came in higher than.
00:04:50 Nic
Came in. Yeah. It came in. Yeah, it.
00:04:53 Nic
It's so we we we.
00:04:56 Nic
At that time, I think it was, yeah, the price.
00:04:58 Nic
Came.
00:04:58 Nic
Back what we could get approved for for the.
00:05:00 Nic
Build and then.
00:05:01 Nic
What the build cost was we were.
00:05:04 Nic
Or 100 or 150 K out. And so we have to wait until we could try and close that gap or save that.
00:05:10 Sam
Cash. What was the? What was the general thought? Was it like let's, let's wait and or did you want tweak the plans or did?
00:05:17 Nic
You want to? Well, there wasn't much we could like. It was just a three bedroom or 3 1/2, you know, a studio flexible space.
00:05:23 Nic
In one bathroom.
00:05:25 Nic
And it was 180 square metres all up, so it was pretty, pretty tight plan. There wasn't much to squeeze out of it and I didn't want to compromise too much on, like, the materiality and the finish the way it came out because I thought if I'm doing that on my own house, then I can't dance, you know, authentically in front of clients and tell them to do the right thing when I'm not doing it myself.
00:05:41
Yeah.
00:05:41 Nic
So that felt important to stay true to and.
00:05:45 Nic
So that was then just working through a process with the builders and working through our own financial situation to try and land something that you know meant.
00:05:50 Sam
That we could get that outcome. Yeah. So where did that, where did that get to?
00:05:55 Nic
It got got to a lot of waiting. So at that point we had just had our first child and we were living with my wife's mum trying to save money to save deposit and.
00:06:07 Nic
The price kept moving away as fast as we were saving money, and so we kind of never closed that gap and we just sort of decided that, you know, we were adults and we couldn't at the age of I think I was 35 or something at the time, I couldn't be living with my mother in law with a A1 year old kid. So.
00:06:22 Nic
We we took a rental and just cause for sanity and turning on Big Boy Pants just felt like a thing had to do and what we had to do and yeah, so we we took a rental and that then might, you know, push the dream further away. Yeah. But it was, you know. Yeah, but it was what we what we.
00:06:37 Sam
Had to do at the time. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So what year are we in sort of now.
00:06:41 Nic
About 2017 now, OK.
00:06:43 Sam
Yeah, in a couple of years. Yeah. You've done the initial design, had some pricing. It's too much. So yeah, put on the back burner till we can catch up.
00:06:46 Nic
Yeah.
00:06:49 Nic
Yep. Then we had a second round of pricing in about 2018 and that was still.
00:06:54
Yep.
00:06:56
Cool.
00:06:57 Nic
We're still close, but this time it was really tight on the servicing and we still didn't have the deposit because it was the deposit is just so hard to come up with and we're we didn't have, we didn't have the Bank of Mum and Dad already wanted to help. So we've been trying to do this whole thing, been trying to do it on our own and you know I'm.
00:07:13 Nic
I'm, you know, running practise on my own and my wife's an artist, so you know, it's not sort of.
00:07:17 Nic
So.
00:07:18 Nic
We are comfortable and things are going well back in those days. It was quite fledgling and starting out for both of us.
00:07:24 Sam
So did you have any conversations in that time on what if this doesn't work and do we need to?
00:07:29 Nic
Look at other plans. No, I'm pretty stubborn and stupid like that. I try to.
00:07:34 Nic
Not force things, but I kind of always believed it would happen. And when it would happen, it would happen at the right time, the right way. But just to keep sort of pushing forward, pushing forward. So where the problem was then to go and try and solve that problem, just kept pushing.
00:07:47 Sam
And then So what was the next thing that?
00:07:49 Nic
Happened after that. The next thing that happened was then our second kid was on the way and we were at about 2019.
00:07:59 Nic
And practise was pretty wobbly. We are. Yeah. With the second kid on the way. I needed a stable income and I went and there was an opportunity to work with the state Gov.
00:08:10 Nic
In here and when I took that job and I was there for a year and then went back to practise, but the problem was that because in that time we're then trying to get it going again. But Geordie had just had we had the second kid, so we didn't have her income that we couldn't do the servicing we were.
00:08:30 Nic
Starting to save some.
00:08:31 Nic
Money.
00:08:32 Nic
And we're getting closer. But you know, this servicing ability was down, but our deposit was up and at the same time, prices are kind of getting a bit getting away from us a little bit as well.
00:08:40
Yeah.
00:08:40 Sam
OK.
00:08:41 Nic
And then what happens there? When I left the the job with the government back into private practise, The thing is that once you're, even though my practise is a company and pays me as an employee wage, they still classify me as a sole practitioner.
00:08:57 Nic
And that therefore meant I need 2 years of pay slips for them to actually then do it. So we're then now having to wait another two years.
00:09:03 Sam
Yeah.
00:09:06 Nic
And then in those two years COVID happened. So we had two years, we had COVID and then that what took us through to what's that 2022-2023?
00:09:17 Nic
And we did processing again and in terms of numbers from the start, the the plans originally back in 20/15/2016 were about.
00:09:26 Nic
It's gonna cost us 600,000 to build it 600 to 6:50.
00:09:31 Nic
Between 19 it went up to about 809 hundred.
00:09:33 Sam
Yeah, that's 600 sounding pretty good.
00:09:35 Nic
Yeah. So.
00:09:35 Sam
Now isn't it?
00:09:35 Nic
Good.
00:09:36 Nic
But but again, we couldn't.
00:09:37 Nic
Pay for it back then and then.
00:09:37
Yeah.
00:09:39 Nic
And they're near about when. And then 2021. Yeah. It was about 1.11.2. And then finally, it was 1.51 point 6 and same plans the whole way through. We we made a change. So originally we were doing a big basement. We were doing a double height, ground floor and then tucking all the bedrooms under in the semi.
00:10:00 Nic
Placement with the Southern court.
00:10:02 Nic
And we deleted the basement and pulled the bedrooms above to try and save some money. But just the escalation in that two or three years between the pricing meant that the cost savings just meant that we.
00:10:11 Nic
Still hit the same.
00:10:11 Nic
Price just eroded into it. Yeah. Yeah. So by the end, with the revised plans, it was still we're we're still really happy with what it.
00:10:18 Nic
Was going to.
00:10:18 Nic
Be we're still at, like 1.5.
00:10:21 Nic
1.6.
00:10:22
Wow.
00:10:23 Sam
And then in terms of that, that price because it's just such a big range that it went from you know, 6 not even just doubling to 1 by 5. Was it the same builders or like with the builders saying?
00:10:30 Nic
Yeah.
00:10:30 Nic
Point.
00:10:31 Nic
Yeah.
00:10:34 Nic
Like giving similar builders, yeah.
00:10:36 Nic
Yeah. Yeah. So we had. Yeah, by the end, we had two builders who we use quite often who both. Yeah, both hit basically 1.51.6. So it's not. It's not that the builders pricing was wrong. It's just that's what's happened to the market in that time. Yeah. Yeah. And so it sounds like for most of the nine year journey for at least eight years, you're pretty convinced it was going to be going ahead.
00:10:57 Sam
And it wasn't until.
00:10:59 Nic
Last November, yeah, that there was one of those 5 seconds sliding door moments where there's a change of plans. You talk about that a little bit, absolutely in the same day, I had a a beer with a friend of mine who's a planner who has is working on his own place at the moment and was like, oh, you.
00:11:16 Nic
Go mate. Yeah.
00:11:17 Nic
You got you. **** you gotta do it so you know.
00:11:19 Nic
You have to do it. It's the best thing I was like, OK, cool.
00:11:21 Nic
And then.
00:11:23 Nic
Half an hour later, I went down the road to meet with two other friends, one architect and one developer, and I was telling them about it. And they're like, mate, you're idiot. What are you doing? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Don't build your own house. You're going to chew up all the equity you've accrued in in the 8 years it's going to be gone. All that kind of appreciation. You're just going to.
00:11:43 Nic
You know overcapitalized and you're going to be completely burned out. We're redlining with the mortgage. Like we're lending to the absolute limit to get it done, and then we're going to have to, like, trying to come up with cash, sort of a bit out of thin air to complete it. And it would.
00:11:57 Nic
End.
00:11:57 Nic
Up with the dream home, but I just wouldn't sleep at night so.
00:12:01 Nic
It was after that chat with them and them also giving me a bit of a path forward. It literally happened overnight so that that after that conversation I went home, I got on real estate.
00:12:10 Nic
Dot.
00:12:10 Nic
Com I found something that met the new criteria of what we're looking for. Saw it on the Saturday, took Jordy through on the Sunday where we made an offer on the Monday.
00:12:21 Nic
It was accepted on the Friday.
00:12:23 Sam
And done. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's great. Yeah, new criteria.
00:12:28 Nic
New criteria was we basically.
00:12:30 Nic
Just I wanted just to find.
00:12:32 Nic
A piece of land that had a house that basically came along for free and on a land that we piece of land that we could chop up but show the opportunity and the possibility of, but then hold the House on a House that was pushed forward on the block with great established trees house with good bones that without too much work could actually be made to be.
00:12:52 Nic
Livable and beautiful. So yeah, we found this big piece of land just up the road on an on a laneway. So a gazetted lane as well. So we didn't need to do a battle axe or draw a throw, a kind of a a car access down the side. So it's literally just drawing a line down the middle of the block.
00:13:09 Nic
And then we could sell the backlog, take the proceeds from that, throw it on top of the mortgage for the whole thing and just basically have a really minimal mortgage and house and flexibility of what we need to do in the future. So this is a forever home, this is a.
00:13:21 Nic
It's a step, but it's a way to help us have options and decide.
00:13:24 Sam
What we want to do when I consider what the difference would have been for you if you went down the path of having built the House, I mean, I understand there have been huge financial pressure, but in terms of what it would have been for your brand.
00:13:36 Nic
And a few Instagram things, a separate section on the website? Yeah, probably not a whole lot of else. No, it would have made a lot of difference eight years ago and minimal difference today. Yeah, that's the thing. I think I'm picked, which is that I'm an architect and creative and there's the compulsion to kind of design and do things to create and.
00:13:56 Nic
Show people what I can do and, you know, put a bit.
00:13:58 Nic
Of a flag in the ground but.
00:14:00 Nic
As the years progressed, I feel that a lot less because I've built my practise out. I do get to do that every day now. I have these amazing opportunities and I don't need to put another great house out into the world for any reason. It would have been amazing to live in it as a family and we will get that opportunity at some point. But for now my girls are 6 and 4.
00:14:21 Nic
It's time is short and they just wanna a roof to live under a house that we're all in together. And so to go through an 18 to 24 month build process.
00:14:30 Nic
While we're still renting.
00:14:32
Like.
00:14:32 Nic
They don't. They just don't care. They just want to be in a house where all there together and it's just probably easier just to give them that. And then so with the House that you purchased, it sounds like you can do a little renovation to it. Yeah, sort of. Would that be quite sort of architectural or?
00:14:45 Sam
Will it be just something?
00:14:46 Nic
I mean, really, we tried to find Granny's house like the ugliest house possible that had zero value so that we can realise and create that value. Where?
00:14:54 Nic
People would have seen it only as land value like this house is it was built in 1955 and it has not been touched since then, so it's got like wooden flappy saloon doors and **** pile carpet and terrible tiles and a kitchen that's falling to pieces and all of that. But it's still like great bones. It's like brick and jarrah floors. It's it's really solid and well put together. So we just want to do a very.
00:15:16 Nic
Cosmetic bring the floors back. Clean it up. Put a nice kitchen in. Not move too much around yet, like we might. Maybe if we stay there, we might do a more substantial addition to it, but really it's just alterations and just basic.
00:15:29 Nic
Make it nice, yeah.
00:15:30 Sam
And then to people who are thinking about embarking on their own build and have those sort of forever home aspirations, what lessons have you picked up that you think are valuable for people to to?
00:15:41 Nic
Consider. Well, I'm. I don't think I'm the right person to answer that cause.
00:15:44 Nic
I didn't.
00:15:44 Nic
Do it. I guess the lesson for me was.
00:15:47 Nic
I think I don't know what my advice would be for forever home. Maybe there's no such thing as a forever home. Maybe there's just the present home and it's just from our homes. Yeah, exactly, you know, and.
00:15:57 Nic
I think there's also that idea of future flexibility. There's nothing worse than one person living in a giant house and feeling the ownership or responsibility for those things. Or, you know, like 5 people trying to live in a 2 bedroom house is at the point where I'm trying to create peace and calmness in my life. And I think I've lived the last 20 years of my career, like at pretty high throttle pace. And it's I love my career.
00:16:17 Nic
Of doing great work, but my priority is still being a great father and being around and being present and creating a healthy future for my family is is also now as important and so.
00:16:29 Nic
I don't want one to impact the.
00:16:30 Sam
Other any other reflections that you had? I mean it's a huge period of time. What would be the main stories that really stand out to you is quite pivotal.
00:16:38 Nic
The interesting thing is that the design I did basically before we bought the block of land is still fundamentally the design we're going.
00:16:45 Nic
To.
00:16:45 Nic
Build so that is interesting that that didn't change over eight years.
00:16:50 Nic
That.
00:16:51 Nic
The fundamentals and the principles that we are kind of put into that still hold true and still are pretty much how we.
00:17:00 Nic
How we approach a lot of our single residential projects in the practise that was interesting. I thought, like I remember being in my 20s and designing dream homes and every three weeks, you know, you'd be trying something different, but it feels like that kind of that approach is now baked in and is right and works and you know.
00:17:15 Sam
Hmm. Yeah. Nice.
00:17:17 Nic
And has all the kind of the really pragmatic fundamentals of, you know, good environmental design and good rational planning within moments of joy and delight and all that kind of stuff too, which is I think, you know, so important to to living in life.
00:17:30 Nic
But yeah, other than that, we now always just have a builder almost from day one with us. And I think that's that's a really good learning or yeah, you know something that we have learned through the process of practise over many, many projects to get build builders on board almost yeah from the start. Yeah. And just.
00:17:45 Nic
Constantly checking in, working with them as part of the team for budget advice, construction advice, all that sort of stuff. I've also been into some forever homes where I like, walk around and it feels.
00:17:58 Nic
It feels like there's no room for the unexpected or there's no room for growth or change. It feels like almost this static locked jewellery box. It's like this perfect thing and it's almost house.
00:18:13 Nic
The house takes precedence over the life that's happening in it. It's like by acquiring, this is our. This is our thing. We've worked for the home and the home becomes the object rather than the thing that happens within the House. So it doesn't feel like lived in or doesn't feel. It feels that the the balance is skewed, that the reason we create homes to live in is because we want to.
00:18:34 Nic
Great, beautiful moments and memories with our family and friends, but sometimes it feels like.
00:18:40 Nic
The home is created as the object or the reason, and that everything is deferential to that, and so the memories of the home, not of the moments in the.
00:18:48 Nic
Home.
00:18:48 Sam
Yeah. What do you think it is that it does that it tips?
00:18:51 Sam
It.
00:18:51 Nic
Over that edge, just think it's like an energy. It's where everything is done and everything's thought of. There's nothing that's gone wrong and it feels like.
00:19:00 Nic
Yeah, I'm not sure it. Yeah. There's a few moments where I felt that, and I just feel, yeah, I want.
00:19:03
Yeah.
00:19:07 Nic
I wonder what would be like growing up as a kid in a house.
00:19:10 Nic
Like.
00:19:10 Nic
That where it almost feels like.
00:19:13 Nic
The house is like another family member, OK?
00:19:15 Sam
You know, or you're perfect.
00:19:16 Nic
Yeah, you know that you're, you know, always.
00:19:19 Nic
Having to be aware of.
00:19:21 Nic
The house, you know, like the importance of the House, or this specialness of the.
00:19:25 Nic
House like you know.
00:19:25 Sam
Yeah.
00:19:27 Sam
Yeah, loses that ability just to kind of.
00:19:30 Sam
Bring the mess in and live life in the space because you're too concerned about yeah, denting timber and I think back to some of my favourite.
00:19:39 Nic
Spaces and places I've been in are like.
00:19:42 Nic
Our beach house that I grew up in in Mount Martha in in London, Boynton Peninsula and that was a timber, two Storey building, a basically a builders project home. But it was actually really beautiful. But it wasn't like, you know, negative details and you're like highly refined, but it was just like a well planned beautiful house with great light coming in. And then just the light.
00:20:02 Nic
And sound and smells and noises of like family and life and all that sort of rattling around and just warmth and joy and memory.
00:20:10 Nic
And then my wife's family home, which again was kind of a mock.
00:20:14 Nic
Heritage extension but.
00:20:16 Nic
Her mum is so good at making things feel like, well, like, you know, pots hanging above the kitchen and like kitchen bench. That was like all the biggest conversations happened at, you know, like welcoming, sunny, open door kind of vibe and that's.
00:20:22
Yep.
00:20:32 Nic
It's got as much to do with, you know, it's.
00:20:34 Nic
It's kind of it's.
00:20:36 Nic
It's the architecture, but kind of in service of living.
00:20:41 Sam
Do you think that's where? As the architect or when you're doing the design, you have to know when to stop and allow people to put those touches in and.
00:20:51 Nic
100%.
00:20:52 Nic
I think we always say that what we do should be the backdrop to and what happens. We don't want you looking at, you know, like looking around and looking at all the details and stuff. It should be.
00:21:02 Nic
You know your furniture, your art, you know your family, your life, your that should be the stuff that kind of is the the thing that adds the flourish to the space.
00:21:04
Yeah.
00:21:10 Nic
Yeah, all the.
00:21:11 Nic
Little accoutrements. That's like the the little oddities. That's what actually makes things fun, you know, like, perfect perfection.
00:21:19 Nic
Is inhuman, right? Yeah, but imperfection is human. Yeah. So that's what we was trying to say before. Yeah, that's why. But this place.
00:21:25 Sam
In Mosman.
00:21:26 Nic
Park. It's very imperfect.
00:21:30 Sam
And then in terms of if people are.
00:21:34 Sam
Wanting to go down the journey and.
00:21:37 Sam
It's obviously such a huge, huge process and a lot of people don't know that it's gonna be so big until they do get started. Where would you suggest people start in terms of do they initially talk to an architect, talk to a builder like what conversation should, but they be having to get clear on budget and brief and.
00:21:56 Nic
I think there's lots of good resources out there for budget and and brief a lot of architects are happy just to have a chat. Don't feel, don't feel scared just to pick up the phone and just call someone and just talk it through. There's normally no commitment for, you know, a while at least, and we always try and make sure that everyone leaves a conversation with us with the next step. So even if we can't help someone, we'll make sure that we, you know.
00:22:17 Nic
Provide a list of people that can, or at least we go through a lot of briefing processes and costing processes with.
00:22:24 Nic
People that we never proceed with just so that we can actually give them good information and help them on their journey.
00:22:29 Nic
So we do a fairly thorough briefing session with the discovery session. That is normally an hour, you know going through.
00:22:38 Nic
Yeah, the normal things like budget and timeline and who do you want to work with and do you have a brother who's a builder or who's a who's in the sphere that we want to lean on and.
00:22:46 Nic
How many bedrooms? And you know all that kind of stuff. But then really more emotive and how you wanna feel in the space. What does success look like? You know? Are there spaces from your history that are really important that we want to try and recreate in here?
00:22:58 Nic
What do you look? What do you look forward to most when you get home? You know all these kind of things.
00:23:03 Nic
A bit more esoteric and loose and kind of lofty, which is really actually what architecture is like. Architecture isn't the materials, it isn't the walls and the floor, it's the feeling inside those spaces. So.
00:23:14
Yeah.
00:23:15 Nic
You know, tell us the spaces you want, but then tell us how we want to actually imbue those spaces with feeling and joy and delight and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, we do that, and then we throw rates on it and go well, it seems like you're telling us this sort of house size. These are the, you know, all the rats and mice of.
00:23:32 Nic
Permits and consultants and or and basically try and give people good information, so then they can go away and actually go. Can I go ahead with? This is how much an architect's gonna cost is how much.
00:23:41 Nic
We've got a budget of whatever it is, but actually our budget is.
00:23:44 Nic
X + Y, can we still proceed?
00:23:47 Sam
Yeah. And then in terms of some of those resources that you said exist, is there any that you know of that are good that you could point people to?
00:23:55 Nic
I can't think of.
00:23:57 Nic
Any online, I'm sure. How about I give you that this research, you can go. Sure. Do some homework and put it in a link or something.
00:23:58 Sam
Yeah.
00:24:05 Sam
So I did go and have a look what was out there and I didn't find anything great, so I decided to create something myself. I spent a lot of time thinking about what are those key conversations you need to have to make sure that your projects successful. And I've developed a pretty comprehensive guide at.
00:24:23 Sam
Got a raft of different sections covering things like timeline, your budget, how to develop a budget, and understanding what needs to go into that, what some of your reasons for building are. It's got a section on orientation and understanding how your home is gonna interact with your.
00:24:37 Sam
Right. It's got a whole lot more head over to australianbuildstories.com, there's a resources section and you can download your design brief workbook from there back to the show.
00:24:48 Sam
And if people want to find out more about you, where do they go on our website? Nickbrunson.com or Instagram at Nick Brunston? Yeah, you do residential.
00:24:57 Nic
As a practise, we've pivoted to we don't see ourselves as an active practise. We now sort of see ourselves.
00:25:01 Nic
As a design practise.
00:25:03 Nic
That sometimes produces architecture. We're kind of much more into.
00:25:07 Nic
What we produce built form, but we now kind of have a bit of a a test for if we're doing single residential is that does it have an impact outside of its lot boundaries? Yeah. So we're not doing houses that just influence the house and the people in the house only anymore. Is there a bigger story to tell in terms of sustainability?
00:25:27 Nic
Or in terms of multigenerational living or innovative materials and these kinds of things, so.
00:25:34 Nic
We do houses, but they've got to have some sort of influence or impact that is greater than just the house on the street.
00:25:40 Sam
Yeah. And I imagine that the the clients then have to be advocating for that in the first instance.
00:25:44 Nic
Well, the clients are always up for it. Well, the the people.
00:25:46 Sam
That we work with there are for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you reflect on the entire experience, how has it shaped you personally and professionally?
00:25:55 Nic
I think there's just the first bit, which is just the passage of time, and that you're never the same person.
00:26:01 Nic
At the start of the thing, as you are from day-to-day moment to moment and that's.
00:26:05 Nic
It's almost like this dream of the house has been the constant, but we've changed against that. Yeah. And I think recognising that we've changed against that was probably the key learning, you know that.
00:26:17 Nic
We are not the same amount of people. There's four of us. When we were two, when we started, we have different hopes and desires for our family and our present.
00:26:30 Nic
Today than we did nine years ago, eight years.
00:26:33
OK.
00:26:34 Nic
And I think just being.
00:26:37 Nic
Self aware enough was kind of the big learning cause I wasn't for a long time. I was just like blindly trying to push through. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty valuable. That's true. Well, thank you very much, Nick. Thanks, man. It's been a pleasure. Thanks. Great.
00:26:51 Sam
Thanks for listening to today's episode of Australian build stories.
00:26:55 Sam
Reflecting on the conversation with Nick, for me there's a couple of really key takeaways. One of them is when the markets moving for the average person, you're not going to be able to out save the market and two.
00:27:07 Sam
Having the ability to step back and make sure what you're working towards still makes sense for you. This is critical and this is about understanding your project narrative. So in this instance the narrative changed because the early narrative was about Nick, the architect, getting a project that could help his business grow. But then over time.
00:27:28 Sam
It became this is for our family and what made sense for.
00:27:33 Sam
Or.
00:27:34 Sam
Us at one point doesn't make sense anymore, and proceeding just wasn't the right move, so this can be really challenging, especially when it's something that you've been working towards for years and you've spent a lot of money in. But sometimes it's the right move and you're the only one who's going to be able to make that call. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode and gotten something available from it.
00:27:55 Sam
If you like this episode, please rate the show on wherever you listen to your podcast. That's gonna help other people find the show, and if you have any questions or want to submit your build story, head to australianbuildstories.com. Thanks.
