House Plans Services in Hornsby, New South Wales

“We engaged Mel and Lisa of Zugai Strudwick Architects to design a home for us based on the original beach shack built by my partners father over 60 years ago. 'Topsy' was the name given to our home in the 50's and the two adjoining properties were 'Tipsy' and 'Turvy'. Needless to say there was and is a great amount of history associated with our home and the community in which we live. Zugai Strudwick Architects spent a week with is in our old shack to get a sense of our lifestyle and the way we utilized the home both in the Winter and Summer Months. Mel and Lisa showed a great amount of respect for the history and my partner John's emotional attachment to the original shack. Their plans for us were absolutely perfect. Whilst we were preparing our home for the "renovation" it became evident that the home would have to be completely rebuilt. Our seaside location had taken its toll on our little shack. Now we are all bright shiny and new, warm in Winter and cool in Summer. Its not too precious but we are not falling through the floorboards either! I guess the best compliment to both Mel and Lisa (and of course John and myself) came over the recent holiday period when and old friend who had not seen the house completed knocked at the front door. She walked in and promptly burst into tears. It is very difficult to retain the 'soul' of an old shack like ours is what our friend said. With the guidance of Mel and Lisa we have managed to maintain the soul of our home and more. We are now enjoying our first Summer here in the new, improved shack and its working brilliantly. Can't recommend these ladies highly enough and look forward to them returning sometime soon to enjoy some long awaited sunshine! Thanks ZSA, Leigh and John”

“My wife and I decided to split our major renovation project into two phases. Having learned of Turrell through local advertising after the 1st phase had been done, we included them in our short list for the 2nd phase (alongside the first phase builder and one other). The quality of the initial consultation and subsequent discussions leading to receipt of the quote were top notch and we were very surprised to find the detailed quote very competitive so we went with them. That set the scene for an exceptionally good experience with the team. Work was done quickly and to an excellent standard. We elected to stay in the house while the work was done and the team managed the logistics of that very well, maintaining a spotless site. We tend to regard cost overruns as a 'given' with building projects - which seemed to cause some amusement to Josh and the team who assured us that the detailed consultation is meant to minimise that risk. While we were initially dubious, the regular interim reports kept showing that we were +/- bang on price, including PCs and sure enough, when the final invoice arrived, the work had come in marginally under budget. We are delighted with the end product and had an excellent experience throughout our dealings with Neil and all of his team. Totally recommend them for renovation work.”

“We engaged Margaret Skilbeck to design a first floor addition and renovations to existing areas in our home in 2011. Margaret interpreted our build goals and provide us with a design. She was willing to listen to our feedback and ideas and incorporated them into revisions whilst retaining good overall design. She provided us with a realistic guide to build cost. Margaret then produced construction drawings and specification of a high standard. Margaret receives a 5 star rating from us because: 1. Her great design means the first floor extension looks like it was always part of the house: functional result + enhanced home value = happy client. 2. Complete and accurate drawings and specification meant that our builder was able to build the home as designed without the need for costly variations due to errors or omissions in the spec: cost control = happy client. 3. Good construction knowledge - we had a tricky interface between the new addition roof and the existing roof. Margaret's solution for the roof design got a big tick of approval from our builder of many years experience. The equation for all builds is a combination of time, quality and cost. Margaret helped us maximize our result in all three areas. We would use Margaret again without hesitation.”