Budget Breakdown: They Turned a Narrow Sydney Terrace House Into an Inner-City Oasis for $397k

When Chester and Chloe found an inner-city terrace home that fit their budget in Sydney, Australia, they knew they had to snap it up.

"If you were to go back to 2017 and try to buy a terrace for under a million dollars, it just wouldn’t happen," Chester says. "We came across this one and it was $850,000 [$564,000 USD] and we stretched ourselves to afford it. It was a one-bedroom, one-bathroom piece of sh*t, to put it nicely."

It might have been a bomb, but the location was perfect: Camperdown is a trendy suburb about two miles from the CBD where Chester works in finance and Chloe in law.

It was a typical Victorian-era worker’s cottage, with an ’80s terrace extension that did little to improve its dark and dingy vibe. But that was the appeal, Chester explains: "The fact that it was a blank canvas."

The couple initially planned to spend $300,000 Australian dollars (about $193,000 USD) on a modest revamp that would add a second story, and save the major makeover for later. "What we found was that whether we did a minor renovation or a significant one, there would be substantial costs," Chester explains. "If we were to go the whole hog and do it properly, it would only cost a hundred grand or so more than we had planned."

Luckily, Chester and Chloe knew exactly who to call: Chester’s mom, architect Justine Money of Noho Architecture.