A kitchen and side extension in Wimbledon, brought in under budget.

The brief

The owners were two working professionals with no previous experience of building work and no real idea where to start. They decided the best investment they could make was appointing a project manager, before committing to anything else.

I took over once planning permission had already been granted, and worked closely with their architect from there — holding the programme, solving the day-to-day problems that come up on any live site, and making sure materials were ordered and on site ahead of when each trade needed them, so the job was never standing still waiting for something that should already have arrived.

Where the risk sits on a job like this

Rear and side extensions on Victorian terraces go wrong in a small number of predictable ways, and all of them are cheap to handle early and expensive to handle late. Party wall agreements with the neighbours either side need serving in good time or they stop the job dead. Foundations frequently meet something nobody drew — an old drain run, made ground, a neighbour’s footing — and the response has to be costed and agreed rather than improvised.

None of that is exotic. It is simply the part of the project that rewards someone watching it closely before it becomes a problem, rather than pricing it afterwards.

Budget and finishes

The contract value was £180,000. Holding the budget down was one of the main reasons I was there, and the project was delivered for under £150,000 — kept there by watching costs closely throughout rather than trying to claw them back at the end, when the options are far more limited.

I was also closely involved in the design-led decisions — helping choose the kitchen and other finishes with the owners — and in coordinating the additional subcontractors brought in for extra work outside the main contract, so those extras were priced and scheduled properly rather than bolted on as an afterthought.

What the management actually changed

The clearest published number on this job is the gap between the £180,000 contract and delivery under £150,000. That was held by watching costs as the work went, not by renegotiating after the fact.

Beyond the headline, the useful changes were the unglamorous ones already described above: party wall timing and foundation surprises treated as early risks rather than late invoices; steels ordered ahead of the week they were needed so the site was not paying to stand still; first-fix kitchen and services signed off before plasterboard closed them in; and extras outside the main contract priced and scheduled rather than bolted on.

The owners came in with planning already granted and no previous building experience. Appointing a client-side manager before committing further was, on their own account, what made the finished home achievable — see their note at the end of this page.