Building in WA: One Photo for Every Stage of Your Build
If you're building in Perth or anywhere in WA, your builder will talk you through the job in stages. Slab. Walls up. Services. Ceilings and linings. Tiles. Fit-off. Handover. Each one covers up part of the one before it, and the whole thing moves faster than most people expect.
Most Perth homes are double brick, so your builder's stages may read slab, brickwork, roof, then services and ceilings. If you're building in timber or steel frame, the frame stage below is yours.
This guide keeps it simple: one photo worth taking at each stage, while you can still see what's there. It's about keeping your own records, so that later on you can look back and know what's where. It isn't an inspection checklist, and it isn't legal, building, safety or warranty advice. If something about the work worries you, talk to your builder or a qualified professional.
One habit that makes every stage easier
Before the stages, one habit. For anything worth a photo, take three:
- Wide: from the doorway or a corner, so you can tell which room and which wall.
- Close: the detail itself, filling the frame.
- Label: the room, what it is and the date, in a few plain words.
Then keep the photo with the room it belongs to. A photo pinned to the right spot on your floor plan is far easier to find than one sitting among a few hundred others on your phone.
Arrange site visits with your builder first. It's their site, and they'll tell you when it's safe and what to wear.
Stage 1: Before the slab is poured
Before the concrete goes in, the pipes are laid out across the site. Once the slab is poured, they're under it for good.
The one photo: one wide of the pipes laid out before the concrete goes in, taken from a corner so you can see how they sit across the whole site.
Stage 2: Walls and frame up
When the frame is up and the walls are still open, you can see the bones of every room. It's a short window.
The one photo: a wide shot of each wall, taken straight on. If anything extra has gone in for future fixings, like timber where a TV or heavy shelves might go, take a close of that too and label it with the room.
Why it helps later: when you want to hang something heavy, you'll know where there's something solid to fix to.
Stage 3: Services, before the linings go on
This is the stage people most often wish they'd photographed. The plumber, the electrician and the air-con installer have been through, and pipes, cables and ducts now run through the walls and across the ceiling. Then the ceilings are lined and the walls are plastered, and it all disappears.
The one photo: look up. Take a wide shot of the open ceiling in each room, then closes of where the cables, pipes and ducts run. Do the same for any wall with services in it.
The ceiling holds a lot of what you'll want to find later, and it only stays open for a short while.
Stage 4: Wet areas, before the tiles
In bathrooms, laundries and anywhere else that gets wet, there's a layer that goes on before the tiles. Once tiling starts, you won't see it again.
The one photo: a wide of each wet area after that layer is on and before tiling begins, plus closes of the corners and anywhere a pipe comes through. If you're given paperwork for this stage, photograph it and keep it with the same room.
This isn't about judging what should or shouldn't be there. That's for your builder and their trades. The photo is simply a record of what you saw, and when.
Stage 5: Before fit-off
Fit-off is when the visible bits arrive: power points, light fittings, taps, vanities, all the things you'll touch every day. By now the wall and wet-area tiles are usually done.
The one photo: a wide of each room just before fit-off, showing where the outlets and connections are about to go. Then closes of anything that matters to you, like the power point behind a future fridge or TV.
Stage 6: Handover
Handover feels like the finish line, and it's easy to rush. It's also the last time you'll see the place exactly as it was built, before furniture and boxes take over.
The one photo: a wide of every room from the doorway, plus closes of the meter box, switchboard, hot water unit and outside taps. Label each one with the room and the date.
If you notice something that doesn't look right at any stage, a short, calm note to your builder works much better than a long list later. Our guide on how to document building defects for your builder walks through a simple four-part note.
Keeping it all findable
Taking the photos is the easy part. Finding the right one in two years is the hard part.
A few things that help:
- Label as you go, not at the end of the week. Room, what it is, date.
- Keep each stage's photos together, but always tied back to the room.
- Keep photos of any paperwork alongside the room they relate to.
For a closer look at the services stage, see what to photograph before walls close.
Pin it to the plan
Scopemate is made for exactly this. Upload your floor plan, then pin each photo and a short note to the spot it belongs to. Next time you need to know what's behind a wall or above a ceiling, open the plan, find the room, and it's there.
If you're mid-build in Perth or anywhere in WA, there's no need to catch up on every stage at once. Start with the one you're in now.