About Us

Gracious Homes built my families multi-generational/disability compliant home in Strathnairn. We have four generations in our household and ensuring everybody’s requirements were met was a major priority. From the design process to the build itself, we found Gracious Homes to be a professional, proactive, and extremely competent organisation. Communication throughout the project was excellent. We knew about every step of our build and the process. The timeframes given were realistic. Darren and his team employ a hands-on approach. He listened to all our ideas and offered exceptional advice on money and time saving methods to achieve our goals. He was adaptable to our changing requirements through the build process. Darren’s friendly, caring, and professional approach made us feel confident with our choice of builder from the start. Our expectations have been exceeded with our home. Thank you Gracious Homes.

I am pleased to write this letter of reference for Gracious Living. Over the past 9 years, Gracious has built 3 houses in the Gungahlin region for me. It has always been a pleasant experience in all my communication with Darren. They are very knowledgeable, professional and responsive throughout the process of the house construction. All 3 houses have been built with excellent workmanship and of high quality finishes. Because of the quality constructions, I have kept the first 2 houses as investment rental properties. The first house was my home and is now 9 years of age and all fixtures and fittings are still in very good working condition. None of them need to be replaced and I have had no maintenance issues with any of the building fabric. If there are opportunities for me to build more houses in the future, I will definitely approach Gracious and build with them again.

I wanted to send a heartfelt thanks to you and your team on the completion of my build. What a fantastic experience! Before I decided to build I had so many people preparing me for the worst “it’s so expensive, the process is so stressful, nothing is ever completed on time”. I was pretty scared to say the least! However here I stand, having gone through the process with Gracious and I don’t have a bad thing to say. From the very start, you were available to help me select my dream block of land. The fun then began with choosing a house plan. To say you and your team were patient is an understatement. You made sure that I was 100% happy with the plans and also made sure that all along the way I stayed within my budget which was so important to me. Choosing my colour selections and house inclusions was the next daunting task – but your team once again made it a stress-free and enjoyable time. I had so many options to choose from (without having to deviate to more expensive or “additional” options if I didn’t want to). When the build started I was amazed when I received photos via email of the slab being poured – how exciting! Over the coming months, I was constantly kept informed of the process and how we were tracking. Everything was completed on time without a single hiccup along the way. When I first saw my completed home I was absolutely blown away. The finish and quality were amazing and I felt incredibly blessed to call the house my first home. I would and have recommended Gracious to all of my friends and family and will use your services again for any future builds. The build was impeccable, your team understanding and helpful and the process all completed on time with no hidden surprises along the way. Can’t thank you enough.

From our first visit to a Gracious House we were impressed by the design, the layout, the inclusions and options. On our return to the display house, about 30 minutes later, we went through the house again and then spoke to the Sales Manager who provided us with a fully prepared Information Sheet with floor plan, which listed all the inclusions with the price, plus additional options. We went home having decided on our new house in just a few hours! Everything with Gracious was well prepared and organised with no unpleasant surprises. A very thorough Contract was drawn up, together with progress payments, which was signed by ourselves as well as the Sales Manager on every page. As soon as we had settlement on our block Gracious was ready to start the following week. As part of the Contract we had a three hour meeting with an Interior Designer, and again all our choices were recorded as part of the Contract, which certainly saved us extra time if we had done this ourselves. At every stage we were updated by Darren Goodwin, and given advance notice of any site meetings. Both Darren were very approachable with any minor variation we requested. All contractors turned up when expected and were very professional and friendly, and their work was faultless. Our house was completed on time and at handover we were presented with a folder containing all the warranties and instruction leaflets for anything which had one. Darren drew our attention to any paperwork which required our immediate attention to validate warranty. The Maintenance Period was organised and the relevant tradesmen arrived together, and on time, to make the minor repairs/adjustments. Darren have continued to make themselves available for any questions we have had, even though we have been in our beautiful home for nearly three and a half years. It was an absolute pleasure to have Darren build our home, their knowledge and advice certainly helped us in some of the decisions we needed to make. We have no hesitation in recommending Darren Goodwin to anyone who is looking for a quality home built with the least amount of fuss.

Without doubt, the team at Gracious are great builders: they took all the hassle out of our “knock-down/rebuild” project, and made the whole experience a delight. From making our requested changes to their standard design, to recording all our personal selections for materials and finishes and to the inevitable changes/ additions along the way, we felt they were working for us, and fully accommodating of our wishes. But the real pleasure was in the quality of their workmanship. Everything on site appeared streamlined and organised without long delays so work progressed quickly. We knew the quality was there when one of the finishing-off tradies told us he would only work on Gracious projects as you knew everything would be straight, level and to plan, meaning finishing off took half the effort of other sites. We couldn’t fault the final finish, and had a bit of a laugh to ourselves about the need for a “fix-up” period – and we were right, everything is perfect 12 months later. Building your home should be a great experience, not one fraught with anxiety, problems and bad feelings. We can say for us the experience of working with Gracious could not have been better and we would happily recommend Darren to our friends and anyone wanting a trusted builder.

Julie and I would very much like to thank the entire team at Gracious for delivering us such a fantastic home. It is amazing as to how much has been achieved in such a short period of time, we are most grateful for the resources and expertise that you made available to us during the entire process. You assisted us in finding our block of land, you where flexible with changes we wanted to make to the house design and you helped us with all the material and colour selections that went into our new home. As part of the build, we were invited to the house at several points during the build process. We had to confirm our expectations with the tiling layout, as well as to make final decisions as to the position of power points and light switches. Being given a chance to walk through the partially completed home and given a chance to make a few changes was very useful. The entire team at Gracious was so approachable, knowledgeable and professional – we love our house. Thank you very much Gracious for doing an amazing job & for letting us be a part of the process!