St Ives · Ku-ring-gai
Home renovations in St Ives.
41.8% of St Ives homes are owned outright and only 16.6% are rented — the most settled ownership profile in the district. People here renovate to keep living in the house, which changes almost every decision.
NSW contractor licence 397801C · Ku-ring-gai Council area · Showroom at 104 George St, Hornsby
Living through it
Staying in the house while it happens.
Most St Ives clients do not want to move out. On a house this size they usually do not have to.
01
Work out what you cannot lose
A kitchen, a bathroom and somewhere to sit. Everything else in a large house can be sacrificed for a few months.
02
Wing by wing
With 53.6% of homes at four or more bedrooms, most St Ives houses divide cleanly into a live-in half and a work-in half.
03
Second bathroom first
Renovate the spare bathroom before the main one so there is always a finished wet area in service.
04
Kitchen last, and fast
The kitchen changeover is the disruptive fortnight. Compress it by having joinery and appliances on site before demolition.
05
Handover, room by room
Completed zones handed back progressively, so you regain the house as we go rather than all at the end.
Why do it
Renovating a house you are not leaving.
Only one in six St Ives dwellings is rented. That ownership profile shows up in the briefs we get: almost nobody here is renovating to sell, and nearly everybody is asking how the house will work in ten years.
The house has to last another 20 years
That changes what you specify. Durable surfaces, serviceable fittings and structure that will not need revisiting.
Build in the accessibility now
A level entry, a ground-floor bathroom and wider doorways cost little during a renovation and a fortune afterwards.
Comfort is the real return
Insulation, glazing and zoned heating on a large house are felt every single day. Resale is secondary to that here.
Space for the family to come back
Adult children, visiting grandchildren, sometimes a parent. A second living zone earns its keep in this suburb.
St Ives by the numbers
6,289
occupied private dwellings — the largest suburb we service
41.8%
owned outright
16.6%
rented — the lowest in Ku-ring-gai
53.6%
of homes have four or more bedrooms
Approvals
Bushfire and trees, more than heritage.
Internal work that leaves structure alone is generally exempt development, and additions here frequently qualify for a complying development certificate rather than a development application. What shapes a St Ives design instead is bushfire-prone land mapping and tree protection.
Postwar stock opens the fast lane
Much of St Ives was built after the war, so heritage bites less and complying development is more often available than further down the line.
Bushfire mapping matters instead
Parts of St Ives adjoin bushland. Bushfire-prone land brings construction standards that change materials and cost.
Trees are still the constraint
Ku-ring-gai's canopy controls apply here too. Extension footprints get set out around root zones.
Villas need the committee
481 St Ives dwellings are townhouses or villas. Strata-titled ones need owners corporation consent as well.
Strata — one in three St Ives dwellings
Villas, townhouses and apartments.
Add the apartments to the townhouses and villas and roughly a third of St Ives is strata-titled. For a suburb known for large family houses, that is a much bigger share than most people assume.
Villas live like houses, approve like units
481 St Ives dwellings are townhouses or villas. Own courtyard, own driveway, and still an owners corporation.
1,644 apartments as well
Full unit renovations — kitchen, bathroom, flooring and joinery — submitted to the committee as one scope.
Downsizing within the suburb
A common St Ives move. Renovating the villa before you move in is faster, cheaper and far less disruptive.
Accessibility inside a lot
Level shower entry, wider doorways and rail blocking are all achievable in strata. They just need consent first.
Budget
Pricing a whole-house scope.
Median weekly household income here is $2,888 and the median mortgage repayment $3,467 a month. Most St Ives whole-home budgets are substantial, and the value comes from scoping them once rather than in instalments.
One programme, not five projects
Kitchen, three bathrooms, floors and paint quoted as one scope. Doing them in sequence over years costs materially more.
Bushfire compliance is a line item
Where the mapping applies, window, decking and cladding specifications change. Better priced honestly than discovered.
Contingency on an older house
A named allowance rather than an optimistic quote. Anything unused is not charged.
The ceiling is high here
On St Ives house values, over-capitalising is a less pressing risk than in the shire. Approval and buildability bind first.
Credentials
Licensed for work at this scale.
NSW contractor licence
397801C
Renova Holdings Pty Ltd
Director and builder
99764S
Alireza Kamalzadeh
HBCF eligibility
To 15 Oct 2028
Approved to $750,000 per dwelling
Accessible work
NDIS and aged care
We build from OT recommendations
Tenure, bedroom and income figures from the ABS 2021 Census QuickStats for St Ives, NSW (SAL13654). Bushfire prone land mapping is maintained by councils under the NSW Rural Fire Service framework — confirm your property with Ku-ring-gai Council. Verify licences on the NSW Government public register.
St Ives questions
Staying, and staying comfortable.
Can we live in the house through a whole-home renovation?
On most St Ives houses, yes. With four or more bedrooms and usually more than one bathroom, we can seal off a working zone and hand rooms back progressively. The fortnight around the kitchen changeover is the hard part, and floor sanding if the whole ground floor is being done at once.
Is my property on bushfire prone land?
Parts of St Ives adjoin bushland and are mapped as bushfire prone. It matters because construction on that land is built to a bushfire attack level, which changes window, decking, cladding and screening specifications and adds cost. It is worth confirming with Ku-ring-gai Council before design, and we do that as a matter of course.
Should we build in accessibility even though we do not need it yet?
If you intend to stay in the house long term, yes. Wall blocking for future rails, a level shower entry, a ground-floor bathroom and slightly wider doorways cost very little while walls are open and are expensive to retrofit into a finished house. None of it has to look clinical.
We are downsizing into a St Ives villa. Do strata rules apply?
If it is strata-titled, yes — having your own courtyard and driveway makes no difference. Written owners corporation approval is normally needed before work begins. Our advice is to renovate before you move in: an empty property lets trades overlap and you avoid living through it entirely.
How long does a whole-house St Ives renovation take?
On a four-bedroom house covering kitchen, bathrooms, flooring and painting, typically twelve to twenty weeks on site. Structural work, an extension, or a bushfire-rated specification extends that. Approvals sit in front of it. We provide a written programme with the zones and dates, not a range.
How long do you plan to stay?
It is the question that shapes the whole scope. Tell us the answer and we'll design to it.
