b'feature houseE veryone knows that renovations can easily blow out financially.interiors hadnt been touched, it seemed, since the 1950s. Many of You think you have the numbers right, you think you haveits original features had been stripped out, with just the doors, albeit allowed for contingencies but then the roof needs replacing, or youcovered in plywood, and door hardware remaining. find the wiring has been eaten by mice.What attracted the Fords was the houses generous square footprint, Homeowner and architect Fleur Ford knows the pitfalls better thanits location on the city fringe and the ability to add basement garaging most and is used to warning clients not to bite off more than they canwithout too much excavation. They pushed ahead with the garaging chew. A full-time mum at present, she has worked in the hospitalityand have renovated the front of the house which contains the living and retail arenas. areas, now light airy spaces resplendent in gorgeous Resene colour. So when she and husband Roger got resource consent for the major renovation of their old villa in the same week that the worldButevenhere,sometemporarymeasureshavebeentaken,for economicmeltdownhappenedbackin2009,theyverywiselyexample a kitset kitchen with laminate benchtops has been installed modified their timeline.instead of the full-on designer number that will eventually be created. They couldnt shelve their plans completely as the house they hadSays Roger: Weve seen people put everything they ever wished for bought in preparation for their expanding family was dark, poky,into a house then have to sell it because they cant afford it anymore. shabby, poorly maintained and split into three flats. There was aWhich is counter-productive to the whole exercise. Theres no point grove of privet trees in the backyard along with a wrecked car and thedoing all that work then not being able to enjoy it.21'