People put more than money into a home.

SCD Design and Build is a team of six, based in Richmond and building across Nelson and Tasman. We do new homes and renovations, and we're equally at home in either.

What we like most is when someone arrives with a dream, a concept, or a rough idea of what they want — and we get to turn it into something real. Just as often we're building to someone else's drawings, working alongside an architect or designer from pricing onwards. Both suit us.

We can come in at any stage and step back out at any stage. Some clients want us from the first conversation through to the landscaping; others already have consented plans and want a builder they can trust with them.

People put an enormous amount into these projects. Money, certainly — often everything they have. But also time, energy, and a good deal of themselves. Clients are attached to a house long before they move into it, and what reads as a construction decision on paper is rarely just that to the person paying for it.

All of that deserves a house worth it, so a lot of what we do is helping people get more out of what they're putting in.

That means real advice about where money is best spent: which decisions stretch the lifespan of the building, which ones make it warmer, drier and healthier to live in, and which ones only look like value. Some of it costs nothing to get right at design stage and a fortune to fix afterwards.

We keep an eye on what's changing too — new products, better methods, things worth adopting and things that aren't. The aim is straightforward: you should get the best possible house for what you spend, and it should still be a good house in thirty years.