It happened to me!
Even as a Quantity Surveyor , the figures and bottom line can be helpful / confronting / depressing.
To cut to the chase, I am talking about wanting to build a new home, refurbish your existing one or add on to it but the costs seem to high.
It happened to me with my own home a little while ago!
I didn't like the final figure much, however a couple of interesting things happened because I costed out each item and had an accurate picture of what parts of the build cost .
Unexpected developments
Firstly , because I had made a Schedule of Quantities and the costs associated with each phase of the build, I was able to identify and prioritise certain materials or even parts of the build to leave out in order to stay within my desired spend.
Secondly, this forced us to shelve our original plans and wish-list. At first this was a disappointment, but then , still wanting to make the changes to our Living area, for functionality reasons mainly, we came up with another approach which achieved the same aim for a literal fraction of the cost.
Repurposed Kwila planking from our demolished deck
Building Blueprint
Planning our costs up front and looking at the total sum was confronting but if allowed us to analyse our building wish list properly and lead to an unforeseen way of achieving our goals for the refurbishment with blowing the budget.
