WE LEARNED...

BE A LACKEY ON SITE as much as you can – tidying, sorting, moving things and making it as easy as possible for trades. If you can fetch your materials for them, then you’re not wasting the time of skilled professionals on labour tasks. If you aren’t able to help out in this way, hire a non-skilled person to do the fetching and carrying. It will work out cheaper than using an experienced trade’s time.

ONCE THE ARCHITECTURAL plans are finalised, spend a week or so walking through the layout mentally. The house has to flow from zone to zone. You can then revisit the drawings with your designer to put together the exact arrangement you want.

SOMETIMES A TRADE will think a certain task has to be done differently to the way you had initially thought. If and when this crops up, make sure you question it and get evidence – their method of doing things might not be quite right for your project.