Starting Again

Starting again rarely means starting from nothing. Even when a home is changing dramatically, there is usually something already there that influences what comes next — the site, the street, an old material worth keeping, a familiar way of moving through the house, or simply something about the place that still feels right.

We’ve been noticing that a lot lately across two very different projects. At Hamer House, the existing home will eventually make way for something completely new. At Boree Lane, part of the original house remains while the rest is being reworked around it. One is a knockdown rebuild and the other is a renovation and extension, but both raise the same question in different ways: what is worth carrying forward?

At Hamer, the answer is less about the existing house itself and more about the place it sits in. The street, the orientation, the established feel of the neighbourhood and the kind of person we imagine eventually living there have all become part of the thinking around what comes next. The house will change completely, but the site still has a story of its own.

Boree Lane is a different version of starting again. There, the original home is still very much part of the project. Some areas have been stripped back, others are being retained, and new spaces are being added around what already exists. As the framing has gone up and the new shape of the home has started to appear, it’s become easier to see how the old and new parts will eventually sit together.

That is often the interesting part of a renovation. The first instinct is usually to focus on what is no longer working — the kitchen is too small, the living areas feel disconnected, there isn’t enough light or the layout no longer suits the way the family lives. Those frustrations are often what begin the conversation. But once you start looking more closely, there are usually parts of the home that are still doing their job well.

Sometimes it is something obvious, like original floorboards, a beautiful window or established trees outside. Other times it is much less tangible: a room that gets the best morning light, the way the house sits on the block, a particular outlook, or a space that has always felt comfortable even if the rest of the home needs to change around it.

Starting again does not have to mean erasing everything that came before. In fact, some of the most considered projects come from understanding what is already worth keeping and then being confident enough to change the rest.

A renovation does not need to pretend the original house never existed, just as a new home does not need to ignore the place it is being built on. The old and the new can inform each other.

For anyone thinking about renovating, it can be useful to look at the existing home with fresh eyes before deciding what needs to go. Not simply asking what you want to change, but also what already works, what you would miss if it disappeared, and what is worth building from.

Those questions do not always lead to the most obvious decisions, but they can create a much stronger starting point.

Because sometimes starting again is not about leaving everything behind. It is about understanding what deserves to come with you.