Design Renovate featured in Luxury Lifestyle magazine

It was kismet, really. When Sam Keats was first roped into renovating a family residence in 2009, he saw beyond disastrous suppliers and unreliable trades and spotted an obvious gap that needed filling: a challenge he wholly embraced to create Living Environs.

If the name rings a bell, it is for good reason. Keats and his team are responsible for some of the most transformative back yard renovation projects across the metropolitan area. He has been recognised in BRW’s Fast 100 and in the annual Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the Year awards. Living Environs has also benefited from a compound annual growth rate of more than 100% per annum since its inception.

Naturally, Keats hopes his proven track record will mean his new venture will hit the ground running. “We have a developed a team committed to relentlessly delivering an outstanding customer experience,” he said. “Every lesson has been captured and modelled into improving the way we do things; we have an insatiable pursuit for doing things better.”

Dubbed Design Renovate and launched this month, Keats’ second specialist renovation company has also spawned from a determination to confront the industry norms just his first. “Regrettably, everyone knows someone who has had that disaster renovation experience,“ he said. “Some builders operate on the ‘near enough is good enough’ philosophy and the result is often a frustrated client with an unprofessional experience or a sun standard result.”

“We recognised the model was broken.”

The self-professed go-getter believed there was simply a better way and dived head first into plans to offer the market a no-nonsense indoor renovation experience to mirror that already enjoyed by his Living Environs clientele.

“Design Renovate will renovate an entire home indoors and out,” Keats said. “It will be a one-stop design and construction company specialising in renovations, extensions, additions and exteriors.”

His team includes designers and architects who have delivered projects across many different housing styles from traditional to turn of the century to contemporary designs featuring on-trend innovations.

Keats is quick to acknowledge the residential renovations market in Perth may already be over saturated but he is determined to set himself apart, all starting with the customer.

“This might sound unusual but I really want to set a new standard in the experience people receive,” he said. “I like to be able to look back over time and hear our peers say, ‘they were the guys that who really changed things for the better’.”

Already in the early stages, Keats’ business acumen has attracted the right kind of attention. The Design Renovate team is currently working on a large scale renovation in Claremont that is due to start later this year.