May 2009

With all this swine flu going around, it might seem merely opportunistic to add a pig to the title of this post. But then, you probably can’t see the bricklaying on my neighbour’s renovation.
My partner who’s a carpenter, frequently has a gentle whinge about brickies. (Oh, and for those who have my book about my [...]

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When you’ve just spent thousands on your new bathroom, the last thing you want is to rip it all up a year down the track and do it again.
I was chatting to builder and TV presenter Luke Van Dyck earlier this week and he told me it was “standing room only” at his seminar at [...]

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While building a new project home will usually be cheaper than a renovation, the launch of a new affordable housing prototype sheds some light on the design rules for cost-effective building.
You can’t really compare what your friends paid for their new project home with the quoted cost of your renovation. A new home [...]

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Yep, you could accuse me of being like a dog with a bone. While I was tickled to see the comments on ABC’s Unleashed site over the weekend I was disappointed that people couldn’t see it as a way of killing two birds with one stone.
Here’s one argument:

According to the National Greenhouse Accounts the residential [...]

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Earlier in the week I wrote a piece on ABC’s Unleashed about why Kevin Rudd should introduce a Home Renovation Tax Credit. Boy, did that post draw the crabs! I don’t think I made one key point clearly enough.
The suggestion of a Home Renovation Tax Credit is borne out of my frustration with the futility [...]

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