Dax Stanley tours the Ripon Lee apartment renovation with Matt from Willow Works. His team created a 3D design in five days, fitted a European washer-dryer combo, and overhauled the bathroom by stripping tile layers and restoring brickwork. The owner approved the finished result on time and on budget.
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Hey guys, Dax here from Hero Property. We're at our Ripon Lee renovation and I've got the amazing builder here, Matt from Willow Works, and I just want to ask him a few questions. How you going, Matt?
Hey guys, how are you? I'm really good, thanks, Dax.
Excellent. Good. So Matt. I engaged Matt to look at this. It was a run down apartment and he came pretty much spot on, checked it all out with his team. And you quoted it up in what, a couple of days?
Yeah, normally with most of our projects, we normally come out on site, do an assessment, measure things up, and we'll normally get our quote back to our clients with a 3D design in five days.
That's it. The 3D design was perfect because what we found when we did the 3D design, what the landlord wanted was a European washer and dryer. And we were looking at this bath, the kitchen, to see how we could fit that in. And with the 3D drawing it was very easy, easy to figure out. We could fit it in pretty much there. And you can see we put in also a washing machine that didn't have, didn't have the dishwasher in there either. And Matt was really able to, you know, manipulate that and fit it in here to give it maximum room. So that was fantastic, Matt. Thank you.
Yeah, no worries.
Yeah.
Look, it's really important in these smaller apartments to utilize the space as best as possible. There's a lot of different things you can do to still give it that really nice high end feel. One of the things we often do is so in these older apartments you generally got solid brick with rendered walls. We normally do a tiled splashback or we can do glass. And doing these internal tile window reveals just adds that nice high end finish. In this particular project as well. Obviously with all our projects, the main thing is having a budget. As with any project, you know, the budget's the main thing. In here we've gone with a white two pack finish on the, on the joinery and we've gone with a. Gone with an engineered stone top. In this particular place, we've reused the existing cooktop and we've got a brand new rain shed range hood. So that's all come up really nicely. We'll show you through to the bathroom.
Yeah, it's fantastic. The owner just came in and did the final inspection on that and she was wrapped. She used to live here about eight years ago and, and she was like, oh, if only I'd done this that long ago. Now the bathroom was really pokey when we first looked at it, the door was on the wrong side and you'll see it in a minute. And we've just opened it up and Matt's just done the amazing stuff with the tiles and things like that. So, Matt, do you want to go through the bathroom? Your idea and how you came up with this.
So what. This was originally. So this was still. It was a shower over a bath. Shower over a bath. Minimal tiling, just tiling to 1200, just around the wet areas, just with floor tiling as well. They were an older. On the. With the floor tiling actually. On top of that, there were actually three layers of tiles that all had to come up, which was good fun. And then what we did, we took everything back to the bare brickwork. Then our plumbers came in, roughed it in. There were some existing water leaks in there as well, which we got rid of. We pressure tested all the pipe work. What we've actually done in here as well, we've put in a rain head shower screen just to add that nice extra touch. Then wrapped in all the new pipework. Then we've got all these brick walls that were back to bare brick. We've had those rendered with 20 mil acrylic render. And we've also done it to the tile density window reveals here as well. So, look, it's very important. Once again, in these smaller spaces, there is still a lot you can do. Although with tight spaces, you are quite restricted in terms of service relocations where your main toilet and sewer connections are. However, it's still important to know there is still a lot you can do. And we'll show you as well some before and after photos of what this did look like and what it's come up to now.
Yeah, it's fantastic. And the bath was shorter too, wasn't it? There was a bit of a bulkhead there, so moved the taps across. It's a really great update from what it was. And the owner was just wrapped, especially that glass here. That just protects everything. And also that shower head just lifts up the whole place. And the big tiles really make a difference, to make it look larger. So, Matt, fantastic job. Really love it. The owner's loving it. You've come on time, on budget and really top quality service.
