Fourteen years
of fixing other builders' shortcuts
We're a Fremantle renovation crew that grew the slow way: one flat at a time, one referral at a time, and a rule that nobody hides a mistake behind a cabinet. This page is who we are, where we came from, and what we've built.
Started in a ute.
Kept the attitude.
- 2012 — a ute and a laserMarcus leaves a big Perth builder after one too many "she'll be right" moments. First jobs are bathroom renos in South Freo walk-ups, priced honestly and finished on time.
- 2015 — the crew formsDavo the sparkie and Pete the tiler come aboard permanently. The Friday photo report habit starts here, invented for a client who moved to Melbourne mid-build.
- 2018 — full gut renos onlyWe stop taking handyman work and specialise in apartment renovations: strata approvals, wet areas, rewires. The schedule template we still use gets written on a site wall in pencil.
- 2021 — design comes in-houseWe hire our first drafter because clients kept arriving with Pinterest boards and no idea what walls were load-bearing. Design-plus-build becomes the default, not the upsell.
- 2024 — 200th handoverA 1968 Cottesloe flat becomes job number 200. The defect list at handover was empty, which pleased us more than the round number did.
- NowSeven flats under renovation most weeks, all inside 25 km of the Fremantle workshop. Growth stays deliberately slow — the day we can't walk every site ourselves is the day we stop taking work.
Three rules that
haven't changed since 2012
R.1 Measure twice, quote once
A quote built on a guess becomes a variation invoice later. We spend the 40 minutes on site so the fixed price is actually fixed.
R.2 Photograph the hidden work
Waterproofing, wiring, blocking behind walls — if it gets covered up, it gets photographed and filed in your job folder first. Future you will thank present us.
R.3 The schedule is a promise
Anyone can say "about three months". We put dated milestones in the contract and report against them every Friday. Drift gets explained, not hidden.
More about our methods sits in the blog — including the jobs that taught us these rules the hard way.
The people who'll
actually be in your flat
Eighteen trades on payroll, four leads you'll deal with directly. No labour-hire roulette — everyone below has been here five years minimum.
Jobs we'd happily
inspect under a lamp
A slice of recent handovers. Full walkthroughs with budgets and schedules land in the blog as we write them up.
Fremantle CBD rewire
1898 workers' cottage flat: full rewire, plaster repairs, lime-wash restoration. Strata heritage conditions met first go.
South Freo wall removal
Engineer's beam into a top-floor unit — crane over the rear lane, council permit, and one very nervous body corporate. Done in 11 days.
Singapore handover
Full reno for an owner who saw the flat twice: once to hand us keys, once to move back in. Every stage signed off over video.
Licensed, insured,
and easy to check
Every number below is one your strata can verify in minutes. We hand the same pack to committees before they ask — it's half of why our approvals land fast.
WA registration BC104382, held by the company — not borrowed from a subcontractor.
CurrentInsurance on every active site; certificates issued to strata with every submission pack.
ActiveElectrical and plumbing under their own registrations — compliance certificates at every handover.
CertifiedApex Builders Expert Pty Ltd, ABN 63 142 857 209. Same entity on quotes, contracts and invoices — see the legal page.
VerifiedLike how we work?
Let's look at your flat.
A free measure takes 40 minutes and leaves you with a plan and a real price — keep them even if you hire someone else.