Lucy Duckham and her husband, who have three young children, two cats and a dog, thought living elsewhere was out of the question while they completed the renovation of their home.

“Staying at home was part of our budget; it’s very difficult to find a house to rent in Perth for a family like us,” says Lucy, 41.

“We both work full time, so we needed to be close to our kids’ school. Just trying to find a place would be overwhelming.”

But looking back, living in the house during the renovation was something Lucy wished she could avoid.

The heritage architect says she “should have known” what to expect in some ways, but could never have predicted the chaos of living in a dust-filled house with kids for eight months.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures for 2023 show Australians spent more than $12.4 billion on renovations that year.

We spoke to Lucy about her decision to live and what she learned while renovating her 1930s Californian bungalow in Perth.

What renovations were you doing?

Californian bungalows are quite common in Perth. In these houses, the kitchen is small and often located in the middle of the house.

Reno’s main focus was to create a sink (kitchen) and a large living/dining/kitchen area to accommodate a large part of the house that was lower than the rest of the house.

We remodeled both bathrooms and had to redo the front room when cracks developed during renovations of older homes.

So this became most of the house.

How did you manage to live at home when you were done?

For a while I was able to access part of my kitchen, then I couldn’t access it at all.

At first I lost my sink, but I had my dishwasher, oven, and electric stove plugged in through a hole.

It was the smallest kitchen in the world for about four months.

Then I lost it completely. I set up the barbecue on the front porch and set up a dining table outside with a store-bought stove. The microwave was in the living room.

Each bathroom was individually built, so we always had access to one.

What did you find most challenging?

I can live in filth and filth; I’m a camper, I’m used to it. I just wasn’t prepared for the volume of powder.

I went through three gaps and destroyed them. Then I borrowed an industrial one and even that couldn’t handle it.

My youngest child was two at the time and still wearing diapers. Even managing a small child staying at the construction site was difficult, plus there was no space.

Also during this time my father became quite ill in England. So I went home for 10 days, leaving my wife and our three children in complete chaos.

Then when he passed away, I had to go away again for five weeks.

It was definitely a challenging year.

Biggest lesson you learned from the renovation?

I think you need to factor living outside the home into the budget from the very beginning.

Worst case, live there for the first 80 percent, then go somewhere else for the remaining 20 percent. It always drags in the end.

That said, we went to an Airbnb for a few weeks and although it was clean, it was almost as rough.

It was minutes. And there was no storage space.

But from our perspective, I don’t understand how we can afford to move for a longer period of time.

How does it feel to live in the renovated space now?

The actual result we achieved is amazing, we are very happy and we now have a home that is worth well beyond what we spent.

Would I do it again? Yes, I probably would.