From Concept to Handover: How Atelier Manages a Project

A renovation is not a transaction. It is a relationship sustained over months — sometimes more than a year — through phases of conversation, design, demolition, construction, and finally, handover. How that relationship is managed determines, more than any single decision, whether the project ends well. What follows is how we manage it: stage by stage, from the first phone call to the final walkthrough.

Stage 1 — The first conversation

Every project begins with a phone call. We talk for half an hour. We learn what you want to do, where, on what timeline, and with what budget. We tell you whether we are the right builder for the project. If we are not — and there are projects we are not — we say so, and recommend someone who is. We have no interest in beginning a project that should not be ours.

Stage 2 — The site visit

If we are continuing, we visit the property. This is an hour or two, on site, with you. We look at conditions, take measurements, and discuss the brief in the context of what's actually there. We do not produce a quote on this visit. We do, however, tell you whether the project is realistic for the budget you have in mind, and what would change that conversation.

Stage 3 — Design collaboration

We work with designers chosen for each project — sometimes a designer the client has already engaged, sometimes one we recommend. The design develops over weeks, with us involved from the early stages so that buildability, cost, and lead times shape the design rather than constrain it after the fact. Drawings are reviewed at each stage, and decisions that affect the budget are made on paper rather than on site.

Stage 4 — Quote and contract

When the design is sufficiently resolved, we prepare a written, fixed-price proposal. It is itemised, with explicit inclusions and exclusions, a contingency line, and a payment schedule tied to construction milestones. The proposal is the basis for the contract, which is signed before any further work occurs. The price on the contract is the price we hold to.

Stage 5 — The construction programme

Before site commencement, we share a written programme: a week-by-week schedule of trades, milestones, deliveries, and inspections. The client receives an updated version of this every fortnight throughout construction. There are no surprises about what is happening, when, or why. If the programme moves — and on renovations, it occasionally does — the move is communicated immediately, with the reason and the implication.

Stage 6 — Construction

Rodney is on site every week, often several times a week. The principal trades are the same across our projects, so the team knows the standard. The site is kept clean. Variations are written, costed, and signed before any change to the work. The client has a single point of contact at all times; we do not pass questions through layers.

Stage 7 — Defects and handover

A week before practical completion, we begin the snagging walkthrough. We list every item that requires attention — a paint touch-up, a soft-close that needs adjusting, a tile that sits a fraction proud — and we resolve it before handover. The handover walk is not a moment for the client to find faults; it is a confirmation that the work is finished. We do not consider a project complete until the client agrees, on a careful walkthrough, that nothing remains to be done.

Stage 8 — Warranty

After handover, the project is covered by the statutory builder's warranty under the Domestic Building Contracts Act: structural matters for six years, non-structural for two. We do not treat these as ceiling figures. If something we built fails inside that period — or beyond it, if it is something we should have built better — we attend to it. The relationship continues.

Why we work this way

Most of what we do during a project is not the work itself. The work is what trades do. What we do is hold the project together: the design, the trades, the schedule, the budget, the standard, and the client's confidence in all of them. When that holding is done well, the result is a renovation that ends as cleanly as it began.

If you are considering a renovation in Melbourne and would like to begin a conversation about how we would manage your project, we would be glad to hear from you.