There's a particular worry I hear at the first meeting when someone owns a Victorian terrace, an Edwardian, or a solid old period home: "I love the front of this house. I just can't live in the back of it."
That tension — beautiful street face, awkward and dark behind it — is one of the most satisfying problems in residential architecture to solve. And it's solvable far more often than people fear. Here's how I think about renovating a period home in Melbourne, and what to work through before you commit.
Keep the face, change the life behind it
The instinct to protect the character of a period home is the right one. But "keeping the character" rarely means freezing the whole house in time. The approach that works again and again is to retain and restore the heritage façade and front rooms, then add a modern extension behind or above it — open, light-filled living that connects to the garden and suits how a family actually lives now.
Done well, you get the best of both: the home still belongs on its street, and the new part is honestly of its own time. Good heritage work doesn't pretend to be old. It sits comfortably next to the old, letting each part be what it is.
What's worth keeping — and what isn't
Not every original feature earns its place, and not every "renovation" of the past decade is worth saving. Part of the early design conversation is deciding, honestly, what carries the character — the façade, the front rooms, the ceiling roses, the hallway proportions — and what can be reworked without loss. Older homes also hide their share of surprises behind the plaster, which is exactly why the planning stage matters more here than in a new build.
The permit question (and why it's not as scary as it sounds)
This is where people tie themselves in knots, so let me make it plainer than it usually gets explained:
A building permit is required for essentially any extension or significant renovation. That's about structural safety and the building code — standard, expected, not a hurdle to fear.
A planning permit is a separate thing. Many straightforward extensions don't need one. But if your home is in a heritage overlay — common across Melbourne's period suburbs — you almost certainly will, because council wants to see that new work respects the home's significance.
If you're in a heritage overlay, the property has a Statement of Significance that spells out what matters about it. That sounds bureaucratic, but it's genuinely useful: it tells us early what's protected and what we have room to move on. Designing with those controls from day one — rather than discovering them after you've fallen in love with a plan — is what keeps a project calm.
Renovate, extend, or move?
Sometimes the most valuable thing I do at the start is help someone realise the renovation they're picturing isn't the right call — that the budget, the block, or the bones point to a different path. That's not a wasted conversation. It's the cheapest, most important decision in the whole project.
Before you spend serious money on design, it's worth getting a clear, unsentimental picture of what each path actually costs — renovation versus moving — including the costs people forget: stamp duty, agent fees, temporary rent, the lot. (I built a free Renovate or Relocate calculator for exactly this.)
How a considered process actually runs
My work starts with listening, not drawing. A short Feasibility Study — a few focused sessions and a realistic cost estimate — tells you whether your idea stacks up before you're deep into documentation. From there, permits and plansgive your builder what they need to price and build accurately. And if you'd rather not manage the build yourself, I can oversee the builder so the home that gets built is the home we designed.
None of this needs to be overwhelming. A period home renovation is a big decision, but it's a sequence of smaller, clear decisions — taken in the right order, with someone who's done it before sitting next to you.
If you're staring at a lovely old façade wondering what's possible behind it, that's the conversation I most enjoy having.