While traditional Queenslander homes have plenty of charm, in recent days they’ve proven not to be big enough for our modern lifestyles, and this has led to people building in underneath for more space. If you have a Queenslander, you may need to raise it to legal height before adding those desired extra rooms, so here are our tips before you embark on this massive project.
Decide on your ideal height
Whether you just want to raise your house to meet the minimum living requirements, or your renovation will include luxurious high ceilings, it’s important to think about this extensively before you start the project. Once construction starts, it’s going to be difficult to make any changes to your plans, so get the important stuff down pat!
Be prepared for the delay
Raising a house is a long process, and can involve re-stumping, laying a new foundation, and full building work to construct your new rooms. Depending on the extent of the work, you may even need to re-wire and re-plumb upstairs, as well as add new electrics and plumbing downstairs. Due to the large amount of work required, raising your home can take months, so be prepared to live somewhere else for a while and be patient.
Don’t forget about the details
If you’re raising your Queenslander home, you can’t forget about the iconic moulding and details! Extending or adding a staircase, new windows and doors downstairs as well as any restructuring of the external walls are all going to impact on those intricate existing details. Have you checked that you can source the right mouldings for your new rooms? Is there a Queenslander feature you want to replicate downstairs? When it comes to these iconic homes, it’s all in the details, so make sure you know what you’ll be keeping from the original design!
Consider renovating upstairs
If you find yourself in a tricky situation where you can’t find the exact paint colour or door knobs for your new downstairs area, it might be worthwhile considering renovating upstairs as well. There’s nothing worse than a house that doesn’t match, and with some Queenslanders sporting original moulding and paint colours from the 1900s, it might be easier to give the whole house a refresh. There are plenty of hardware stores and contractors who can source vintage-inspired moulding, door knobs and even power plugs so you can keep that old-world charm in your new extension.
