Thinking about rendering your Menai Place but not quite sure it's worth it, or whether your old brick is even up to it? Fair enough. It's a decent spend, and you want to get it right. We've rendered a lot of homes round Menai over the years, the 80s and 90s brick ones especially, so here's the straight version of how it works – no sales waffle. We're a local Shire crew, so it's an easy trip out to have a look and talk it through.

Matching old and new

If you've added on at some point, rendering's the best way we know to make the new bit and the old bit look like they were always the same house. The trick is keeping it all consistent: same texture, same colour, clean lines where the extension meets the original. Get it right and you can't pick where the old house stops and the new one starts, which is the whole idea. Most additions are built from different stuff to the original brick, so we prep and coat each part the way it needs and let the finish tie everything together.

Acrylic or cement for your home?

People always ask which render's better, and honestly, it depends on the wall. Cement render is tough, and it's the cheaper option, and it does a great job on the solid original brick a lot of Menai homes are built from. Acrylic render has more give in it, so it copes with movement better, which makes it the smarter pick for extensions and lightweight sheeting where things shift around a bit. Plenty of jobs end up a mix, the right one on each part of the house. We'll talk you through it in plain English and tell you what we'd actually do, not just flog you the dearest option. A coloured textured render goes over whichever base we use to seal it and set the colour.

Built for the bush

Menai sits right up against the bush, and the homes here cop proper weather: big sun, cold nights, and the odd belting of rain. All that temperature swing is what makes a stiff, badly done render crack over time, so we usually go with a flexible acrylic and a texture coat that can move with the house instead of fighting it. Done over a sound, well-prepped wall, a good render also keeps the weather and a fair bit of moisture out of the brick. One thing we'll always be straight about: render's a finish and a bit of protection; it's not a fireproofing system. If bushfire ratings come into it, follow your certifier's advice, and we'll work with whatever's needed.

Sorting the colour

Colour's where most people get stuck, so don't stress about it; we'll help. We leave a few samples up on the wall for a couple of days so you can see how they look in the morning sun and the afternoon shade before you commit to anything. The main thing is picking something that brings the place up to date but still works with the roof and whatever brick or stone you're keeping. Most people land on a soft grey, a charcoal or a warm neutral, and they're pretty hard to get wrong.

What it costs, and how long

Everyone wants a price up front, and the honest answer is it depends. The size of the house, single or double-storey; the state of the walls; and the finish you go with all move it. What we won't do is throw a number over the phone and then bump it once we're on site. We come out, measure up, and put a fixed price in writing. As for time, a render's not a one-day job done properly; the coats need to dry and cure between them, so most homes run over a few days, a bit longer for a big one or a two-storey one. We keep the site tidy and let you know which days we'll be making noise or need to get at a particular side of the house.