The renovation story
This Naremburn project is a substantial upgrade to a Lower North Shore home: a first-floor addition adding three new bedrooms and one bathroom (including a master suite with its own private balcony), combined with targeted interior upgrades to the existing ground floor. The scope is premium, the finishes are heritage-grade, and the architectural detail is where this project will really stand out.
Upstairs, the new master suite opens onto a balcony and is flanked by two additional bedrooms and a shared bathroom. Eight VELUX skylights are specified throughout the upper floor to address the aspect of the house and flood the new rooms with natural light through the day. The skylights are a conscious response to the block’s orientation, which is a common challenge on Lower North Shore sites where solar access is constrained by neighbouring properties.
Downstairs, the work is more targeted than a full interior renovation. We are opening up the existing entry to create a formal lounge, installing a new internal staircase to connect the two levels, adding a gas fireplace in the new formal lounge, laying European natural oak flooring throughout, and introducing natural stone finishes and heritage wainscoting and cornice detailing to bring the ground floor up to match the new upper level. The existing walls, kitchen, and layout of the rest of the ground floor remain in place.
The finish level is the story here. Natural stone surfaces, heritage wainscoting, decorative cornice detailing, and a custom standing-seam metal roof with a waterfall edge profile (a standing-seam detail that gives the new upper volume a crisp, premium silhouette) all combine to lift this from a renovation into a proper heritage-sensitive upgrade of the home. The Development Application (DA) has been approved by Willoughby City Council, which means every structural and design decision has been signed off before the first tool came out.
This is a cost-plus contract with a transparent margin structure. We explained the difference between fixed-price and cost-plus contracts in detail in our guide to building contract types; the short version is that cost-plus gives the homeowner complete visibility of every trade invoice and material purchase during construction, with our margin applied transparently on top. For a premium, heritage-sensitive renovation of this complexity, cost-plus is the right structure because it lets us refine material selections during the build without forcing variations through a rigid fixed-price contract.
Safety and compliance on a build of this scale are not afterthoughts. This project is covered by the Home Building Compensation Fund (HBCF) because it exceeds the $20,000 threshold under the NSW Home Building Act 1989, and LikeSilk is a licensed NSW builder (Licence 274849C, which you can verify via NSW Fair Trading). The build is run under Housing Industry Association (HIA) residential standards and insured throughout.
This page will update weekly as the project moves through each stage. Follow along as we move from demolition, through the new first-floor structure and lockup, into services rough-in, waterproofing, and finally fit-out and handover. If you are planning a similar project, our guide on how to compare renovation quotes is a good starting point for making sense of the numbers you will be looking at, and our post on why early builder involvement matters explains how bringing a builder into the design phase changes what gets built and what it costs.
