Trevor Rufus and his long term dedicated team have been designing buildings in Central Queensland for 46 years. Rufus Design Group now designs homes, and selected renovations only.
Three builders quote your house. The numbers come back tens of thousands apart, and nobody can tell you exactly why.
That is not the builders being difficult. It is what happens when each of them is pricing their own reading of the same drawings and filling the gaps with their own assumptions. Those gaps get settled later, on site, as variations. By then you are the one paying for them.
So the real budget decision on your home is not made when you choose a builder. It is made months earlier, in how thoroughly the design was documented.
That is the part Rufus Design Group takes off your hands.
Your plans are dimensioned and detailed to a level a builder can price without guessing. Tenders are called on your behalf with materials PC-summed, so every quote is allowing for the same tiles, the same cabinetry and the same fixtures, and you are finally comparing like for like. And the design starts with a proper brief, so what gets built is the house you described rather than a designer’s version of it.
Fewer variations. Comparable numbers. A home that matches what you asked for.
Trevor Rufus has been designing in Central Queensland since 1980, and the practice now designs homes. Most of the work still arrives by referral from builders, the people who read these plans on site every day and know the difference between documentation that works and documentation that creates problems. In this industry that is the endorsement worth having.
You do not need to know exactly what you want before you call. Working that out is the first part of the job.
Our TEAM
Trevor is why the documentation is what it is. He came to building design from an engineering background, holds a certificate in civil engineering (design office technician), and is fastidious about plans that dimension correctly and leave nothing open to interpretation. He cares as much about how a house gets built as how it looks, which is why builders find his drawings straightforward to price and to work from.
Trevor started in building design in 1980 and still runs the quality systems of the practice. He also serves as a judge for the annual building design awards.
James leads the design work, and he has designed many of the homes the practice has won awards for.
His background in construction and management shows in the work. A design that looks good on a page but fights the site helps nobody. James’s homes are designed to be built, and paired with Trevor’s technical rigour the combination produces homes that are well balanced and aesthetically pleasing, highly functional and economical to construct.
James joined Rufus Design Group in 2006.
Lois is usually the first person you will speak to, and the one who keeps things moving once your project is underway. She looks after accounts, scheduling and coordination, so when you want to know where your job is at, you ask Lois.
She has been with Rufus Design Group since 2005.
Building a house takes more than a designer. Depending on the site, you may need a surveyor, a soil test, a structural engineer, an energy assessment, a town planner or an interior decorator.
You do not have to go and find them. Rufus Design Group has long-standing relationships with consultants across Central Queensland and brings in whoever your project needs, when it needs them.
