The North Shore is not one kind of building. A 2001 tower at Chatswood, a 1970s block at Artarmon and a 1995 full-brick block at North Sydney are three different renovations, and the building decides most of each one.
Most kitchen and bathroom renovators in Sydney build for houses. We have spent thirty years working only in apartments, which is where the difference shows up.
What is different about renovating on the North Shore
This is apartment country by the numbers. At the 2021 Census, flats and apartments were 75.7 percent of occupied private dwellings in the North Sydney council area, 56.7 percent in Lane Cove, 52.0 percent in Mosman and 47.1 percent in Willoughby, which covers Chatswood and Artarmon. The NSW figure is 21.7 percent. Up the line in Ku-ring-gai, which covers Roseville and Lindfield, it drops to 27.1 percent.
Four decades of apartment stock in one region
The stock arrived in waves, and each wave renovates differently. One of our Artarmon kitchens sat in a 1970s tower, in the pocket of mid and high-rise flats west of the station that mostly went up in the sixties and seventies. Another Artarmon job was a 1980s unit. North Sydney was a 1995 full-brick block, still on its original fit-out after thirty years. Chatswood was a tower built in 2001. The age of the block tells you what is behind the walls and how the materials get in, which is why we ask about it before we quote.
In a tower, the renovation is a logistics job
Everything moves through one lift and past a concierge desk: every sheet of stone, every cabinet and every barrow of rubble. Lift bookings come in fixed windows, work hours are usually weekdays only, and underground parking with a height limit rules out a truck sitting at the door, so materials arrive in batches matched to the day on site. Planned at quoting stage, none of that costs you anything. Found in week one, it costs weeks.
The older brick blocks hide their problems behind the walls
An older full-brick block puts its services inside masonry and a concrete slab, so moving a wet area means core drilling and re-waterproofing above somebody else's ceiling rather than lifting a floorboard. In the low-rise walk-ups there is no lift to book, which is the easy part. Original wiring and original plumbing turn up on strip-out either way, so we carry a 15 to 20 percent contingency on that stock and say so before you sign.
Bigger schemes mean a longer approval
Lot count changes the approval more than the work does. A 12-lot walk-up in Naremburn can pass a by-law at a meeting the owners call themselves. A 200-lot Chatswood or North Sydney tower runs a professional manager, a notice period and an annual general meeting that was scheduled long before you decided to renovate, and major works need a special resolution taken at one. We ask which of those you are in at the first visit, because it sets the earliest honest start date.
Heritage conservation areas, and what they stop
North Sydney council lists 22 conservation areas, and interwar flat buildings are a named characteristic of several: Cremorne, Cremorne Point, Kurraba Point, Kirribilli, Careening Cove and Wollstonecraft. Willoughby lists thirteen, and its Artarmon area singles out the two-storey 1930s flat buildings near the station.
Being in one sounds like it rules out a new kitchen or bathroom. North Sydney's development control plan puts maintenance or upgrade of kitchens and bathrooms in its minor routine maintenance category, which does not need development consent, provided you are not removing walls, widening openings or taking out a chimney breast. Willoughby council says upgrading kitchens, bathrooms and services are commonly approved changes. The exterior, and any structural change, is where consent starts. Strata approval is a separate question either way, and we check the mapping for your address before we quote.
This is the part we carry. We prepare the strata application and the by-law, deal with the strata manager, book the lifts, work inside the building's hours, and hand over the waterproofing certificate at the end. Across 30 years we have done it in more than 1,000 Sydney apartments. Fine Touch Group holds NSW Builder Licence 151772C.
