When Steve and Mel McIntyre of Dellwood Constructions took on Project Songbird, they faced a familiar Gold Coast problem: a much-loved family home that hadn’t kept pace with how its owners actually lived. Rather than extend, the Dellwood team looked inward – reworking the existing floorplan of this Burleigh Waters renovation to unlock space, improve flow and free up budget for the finishes that matter most day to day.
The result was a Master Builders award-winning transformation and a case study in what’s possible when design and build work as one conversation. Below, Steve shares the thinking behind the project, the lessons learned along the way, and why Futurebuild has played a real role in shaping the homes Dellwood builds.
What was the vision for Project Songbird, and how do you manage client expectations against budget on a project like this?
Our clients loved living in their street but their house hadn’t kept up with how the family had grown and how they wanted to live in it. They love entertaining but the floorplan hadn’t been designed in the most efficient way. The kitchen had space that was doing nothing. External doors and windows on every wall through the kitchen and living area meant you couldn’t place furniture properly and the indoor/outdoor connection wasn’t there.
They could have moved but they chose to invest in the house instead, and the brief was to future-proof it so it worked for how they actually live rather than how someone 25 years ago assumed they would. The budget decision that shaped the whole job came early. We looked hard at extending and decided against it. An extension would have meant council approval fees and a long process, and for the money we’d have only gained a small increase in floor space.
Instead, we reworked the existing floorplan – extended the kitchen cabinetry wall, changed a structural wall to open up the kitchen/living areas and unlocked space that was already inside the house and being wasted. That freed up a significant part of the budget to go into finishes and the lifestyle pieces they actually touch every day: the joinery, stone, tapware, custom seating and flooring.
That’s how we manage budget generally. It’s not always about finding cheaper products but by making sure the money goes where the client will feel it. We’re a design and build company, so the design gets costed while it’s still being drawn. Nobody gets handed a beautiful set of plans and then told it’s thousands of dollars out of reach.
Is there a detail or finish in Project Songbird you’re especially proud of – something that might not come through in the photos?
The skylight in the master bathroom. We put a large skylight in above the shower, and what it does through the day is really striking.
The light comes down onto the emerald feature tiles and the brushed bronze tapware, and natural light is what makes both of those work. The tiles shift through the day and the bronze warms up. Early morning is a completely different room to late afternoon. A photograph only ever gives you one moment of that, usually the moment the photographer had the best light, so you’re seeing the room at one time of day rather than the room as it actually is to live in.
Was there a particular challenge on this project that you’re proud of how the team solved?
The real challenge was making the existing footprint do everything a growing family needed without extending. That’s a harder problem than it sounds. It’s easy to add square metres and solve it with money. It’s much harder to look at a house that already exists and find the space inside it.
That took a lot of sitting down together. Us, our subcontractors and the clients, working through what could actually move and what couldn’t. The big one was shortening a structural wall to open up the kitchen/lounge. In a 25-year-old house you can plan that on paper, but you’re dealing with what’s actually there rather than what’s on the drawing, so we worked it through with the engineers properly before anyone picked up a tool. Get that wrong and it’s not a variation, it’s a serious problem.
For builders who haven’t been to a show like Futurebuild before, what would you say is the biggest benefit?
Mel has attended Futurebuild on behalf of Dellwood Constructions for the last two years, 2025 and 2026. Two of the suppliers she met through Futurebuild have been used in Project Songbird so there’s a straight line from a couple of conversations on a show floor to a finished home that won a Master Builders award.
The biggest benefit is that you get to put your hands on things. You can read a spec sheet all day, but standing in front of a product, opening it, feeling the weight of it, talking to the person who actually makes or sells it. Also, meeting the people behind the products. When something goes sideways at four o’clock on a Friday, having a name and a face makes a real difference to how fast it gets sorted.
Also, it gets you out of the day-to-day. When you’re running jobs you spend your whole week reacting. A show is one of the few times you’re looking forward instead, at what’s coming and at what clients will be asking for in two years. I’d rather be the builder bringing the idea to the client than the one being handed a photo and asked if I can do it.
Looking back, is there anything you’d do differently on Project Songbird?
We didn’t expect to have to replace as much of the electrical as we did. Once you open up a 25-year-old house you find what you find, and there was a lot more wiring needing doing than we had expected.
That part you can’t avoid but what I’d do differently is what we did with it. The walls were open and the house was being rewired anyway, and that’s the cheapest time you will ever put smart technology into a home. Lighting, blinds, climate, security, the lot. Do it later and you’re back inside walls you’ve just finished and paid for.
The brief was to future-proof the house. We did that with the floorplan. I’d push harder on the technology side now.
What advice would you give to a young builder just starting out?
- Learn the numbers. You can be the best tradesman on the coast and still go broke, and plenty have. Know what a job actually costs you before you quote it, and know where it’s sitting every single week, not at the end. If you don’t enjoy that side, bring in someone who does.
- The second thing is that communication is most of the job. Clients will judge you on whether you turned up when you said you would, whether they knew what was happening, and whether they felt looked after. Get that right and the work speaks for itself. Get it wrong and it won’t matter how good the build is.
- Learn to solve the client’s problem rather than just build what’s on the drawing.
- Look after your subbies. The good ones have a choice about who they work for, and on a hard week they’ll turn up for the builder who pays on time and treats them decently.
- And learn to say no. When you’re starting out you take everything, and I understand why but the wrong job costs you more than the right one earns.
Where do you see yourself and Dellwood in five years – what types of projects are you hoping to take on?
We’ve made a deliberate decision to focus on renovations on the Southern Gold Coast. While we may move into new builds at some point, we genuinely love working with families to restore or renew their current homes. More Songbirds, essentially. Working with families who love where they live and have no intention of leaving, who want the house to catch up with them.
Whole-home transformations where we’re involved from the first sketch through to handover, so the design and the build are one conversation instead of two. There’s a lot of housing stock on the Gold Coast sitting in beautiful positions with floorplans that don’t suit how anyone lives now.
Five years out, I’d like Dellwood to be the builder that architects and designers on the Gold Coast recommend without having to think about it. But the real measure is a client three years after handover still telling people about us.
Client feedback:
“We couldn’t be happier with the work Steve, Mel and the Dellwood team delivered on our renovation project. From start to finish, they went above and beyond, nothing was ever too hard, and the attention to detail exceeded all expectations. The whole process was seamless, and their communication, organisation and responsiveness made a complex project feel easy.” – Brad, Project Songbird client
https://www.mbqld.com.au/events/housing-and-construction-awards/winners/gold-coast
- Home Renovation Project from $350,000 up to $500,000 – Dellwood Constructions for Project Songbird (Burleigh Waters)
- Xact Accounting Rising Star Award – Steven McIntyre from Dellwood Constructions
Steve was awarded the Xact Accounting Rising Star Award, which recognises emerging builders who are making an impact through quality workmanship, strong client relationships, and commitment to their team and business. In Master Builders’ own words, the judging panel were “astounded by the project delivery, planning and execution in the work of Steven Mcintyre from Dellwood Constructions”.
