John and Bonnie

As it’s around a now a year since you initially visited our Stanlake Rise site in Lower Templestowe to formally initiate Spacemaker commencement of work on our home extension on 25th October it’s perhaps timely that I write now to express our delight with the extension.

After years of planning and much effort all round the extension is what we hoped for. It has a very good ‘feel’, looks very good, integrates well with our original home, was completed on budget apart from some agreed additional works, and during the design, planning and construction stages it has been a satisfying pleasure working with your staff and contractors.

The Spacemaker building philosophy and work process, high standards, quality work, regulatory compliance, and listening closely to clients while also offering good advice were clearly evident throughout the design, planning and construction phases. Your staff were literally great to work with. Collectively they skilfully, promptly and creatively addressed the small challenges that inevitably arise in extension projects, and consequently there was some healthy ‘give and take’ on both sides.  In return we were pleasingly complimented by Spacemaker staff, including from Accounting, for level of cooperation and engagement, introduction to Spacemaker of some additional excellent contractors, and some exportable innovative thinking such as controlled distributed solar lighting.   In return all Spacemaker staff and contractors we experienced were very good.  Without naming all (there were very many) we would like to especially acknowledge the following.

At the outset Fiona Carusi was exceptional during the design and initial planning phase, in listening, responding fully and promptly, offering helpful suggestions, and resolving potential design issues. All this was done proficiently, efficiently, and with a friendly sense of focused attention and enthusiasm. Fiona also made us comfortable and reassured about what was to follow.

As Project Manager during the construction and preparatory stage Rob Iurefi was highly methodical and displayed great experience, expertise, calmness (despite multiple simultaneous projects), inventiveness, consistency and customer responsiveness. He importantly displayed great confidence that everything was under control, and was personally also a pleasure to work with. We admire his great capacity to multi-task, especially with geographically disparate projects and are very pleased we were fortunate to have him as our Project Manager.

Luke and Bryce are outstanding builders. Apart from technical competence and experience they get straight on with their work, are hardworking and make a great team. They know exactly what to do or how to resolve or arrange solutions to inevitable occasional challenges. They simply don’t muck around!  Additionally, and consistent with Spacemaker philosophy they were highly customer-responsive, and a pleasure to work with.  At completion of their work on this project not only did we miss no longer having them around, even one of our next door neighbours said the same thing!

Having previously experienced various electrical contractors, Mark and sons of Daimar electrical services stand out. Their combination of work ethic, many years of combined experience and customer responsiveness, plus forward-thinking make them exceptional. Apart from knowing exactly what to do and how best do it their very helpful suggestions and good advice contributed much to the functionality of our extension. They also very skilfully overcame some relatively minor ’trade-integration’ challenges with good will and efficiency, and were a delight to work with.

Joe D’Agostino (J.D. Rock Solid) is an outstanding and very hard-working renderer who takes enormous justifiable pride in doing the best job possible. In order to achieve best results he went to great pains to work widely around adverse weather condition and timing of the day and week for rendering, and insisted on the most effective working conditions (such as shading).

With much experience Kon (Renowned Tiling) with his assistant worked to an exceptionally high standard and went to great pains to achieve best result, in the process painstakingly selecting, cutting and matching adjoining tiles, particularly for the shower base, even thoughtfully guiding our selection of appropriate grouting colour to match.

An important task on every work site is progressively keeping the site clean and tidy as building offcuts rapidly accumulate, once again reflecting the customer-friendly Spacemaker philosophy. Neighbours also observed and appreciated this.  Peter quietly, efficiently and comprehensively removed left-over and waste building materials, in the process looking all around the site for any remaining material requiring removal.  A possibly thankless job that was done to the highest standard, also reflecting his rich background experience.

We are grateful to a friend for recommending Spacemaker. From the design phase right through to final construction the systematic process in between was well project managed. Work proceeded reassuringly and soundly to the high standard we hoped for. Importantly this was all done in a very responsive, friendly and helpful spirit focused on meeting our needs. The extension is what we hoped for, feels and look great and is well integrated. It was built to budget apart from some agreed additions. Some Inevitable minor extension issues were promptly and resolved. Thanks to Spacemaker and your excellent contractors.