We're the homeowners behind a completed build-under on a 1920s Queenslander in Coorparoo, Brisbane. Everything here is grounded in that one project: its costs, timelines, approvals, surprises and lessons.
The project that started this
Our property is a relocated Queenslander on a newly subdivided block in Coorparoo. The house was sourced from another site and resettled onto a brand-new foundation, with all utility connections - water, sewer, stormwater, electrical and NBN - newly installed. Build-under works added 112.5 m² of enclosed habitable ground-floor living space beneath the original timber structure, alongside a newly built carport, carport loft and rear patio and the fully restored rear balcony.
Across the project we worked with engineers, town planners, builders, certifiers, council and several utility providers. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the renovation itself, plus tens of thousands more on planning, approvals and infrastructure issues we had not budgeted for.
When we started, we found a lot of generic renovation content online, but very little that addressed the specific realities of Brisbane Queenslanders. The numbers most blogs quoted were rarely accurate for our situation. The timelines were optimistic. The advice on approvals was either too high-level to be useful or specific to a different state. The infrastructure and utility issues we ran into were almost never mentioned at all. That gap is what Queenslander Built exists to fill.
Why this site exists
If you're considering a Queenslander raise, build-under or relocation, the financial commitment is significant and the decisions you make early shape outcomes for years. But practical, project-grounded information is hard to find:
- Cost guides are usually too generic to use for real budgeting
- Approval requirements are scattered across different agencies and websites
- Timelines are often presented as best-case rather than realistic
- The interactions between trades, council, certifiers and utilities are barely covered anywhere
We built this site to share what we learned: the actual numbers, the real timelines, the approvals that mattered and the things nobody warned us about. The goal is decision support - enough practical information for you to make better choices on your own project.
What you'll find here
Everything on the site comes out of the one project and falls into a few categories.
- Cost breakdowns based on our own project and documented line items
- Process and approval guides specific to Brisbane and Queensland regulations
- Case studies documenting what we did, what we would do differently and why
- Tools and templates we used to track budgets, decisions, risks and variations on our own project
- Lessons learned from the surprises: utility classification questions, infrastructure decisions and approval edge cases
What you won't find here
There are a few things this site deliberately leaves out.
- Generic renovation content rewritten from other sites
- Marketing content for builders, real estate agents or financial products we don't use ourselves
- Pretend expertise in areas outside our experience
We're not licensed builders, structural engineers, certifiers, town planners or financial advisors. We're homeowners who lived through a complex project and documented it carefully. Where you need professional advice for your own situation, get it from a licensed professional with knowledge of your specific circumstances.
Who's behind Queenslander Built
Queenslander Built is run by Sky Lavelle. Sky's professional background is in project delivery, governance and recovery of complex programs. Those disciplines shape how this site approaches Queenslander renovations: documenting decisions, tracking risks, controlling cost and learning from the variance between plan and reality.
That background doesn't make us building professionals. It does mean we approached our own project with structured documentation, which is what most of the tools and templates on the site are based on.
What “owner-builder” actually meant on this project
Sky held the owner-builder licence and ran the project end to end. That meant coordinating every trade, every supplier and every inspection and it also meant doing a meaningful share of the work with his own hands. The $331,510 is what was paid in invoices. It is not what the project would have cost if every hour of owner-builder labour had been paid to a trade.
Work done directly on the build included sourcing and salvaging the windows and doors from Brisbane demolition yards, demolition of old areas of the house, sanding and polishing the upstairs timber floors, painting the interior upstairs and down, painting the back deck, laying the patio tiles, all landscaping and gardening and the constant timber and trade-supply runs.
Anyone reading this site as “look how cheap a build-under can be” should factor in the labour that is not visible in the figure. Owner-builder savings are real, but they are earned, not granted.
A note on accuracy
Every figure on this site reflects what we actually paid, were quoted or saw documented during our 2018-2020 project. Your project will be different. Verify current numbers and requirements before committing. For how to use the figures see About the figures on this site. For the full liability framing see the Disclaimer.
Get in touch
If you have a question about something we've covered, a story from your own project or feedback on a tool or template, we'd like to hear from you. Reach out via the contact page.
