Savvy Renovations
Geoff McLeod
Owner & Construction Manager
With 22 years in construction and more than 10 years running Savvy Renovations, Geoff brings a hands-on, practical approach to every renovation.
He started Savvy because he wanted to get back to what he enjoys most — solving tricky problems, working directly with homeowners, and finding the right solution without wasting money on things that don't matter.
As a registered builder, Geoff is involved from the first conversation through to the finished project. He has a particular appreciation for older Melbourne homes, finding ways to respect their character while making them work better for modern life.
Outside work, Geoff is a father of three and spends plenty of time around his kids' football and basketball. He also enjoys go-karting, rock climbing, gridiron, and learning something new whenever he gets the chance.
"Give me a tricky problem and a tight budget and I'll show you what I can do."
22 years
IN CONSTRUCTION
Areas Serviced
working across Melbourne’s inner north and north-west
10+ YEARS
SAVVY RENOVATIONS
HIA
Professional membership
DBU-100779
REGISTERED BUILDER
KBDi
Professional membership
The story
It’s the intricate fixes that have always kept me interested — not the expensive fit-out that anyone with a big budget could order, but the challenge of solving a problem nobody else has worked out. Twenty-two years in this industry and that still gets me out of bed.
I spent a good chunk of those years working for other builders, moving up into management roles and learning how the industry actually runs. Somewhere along the way, I stopped getting the kind of challenges that kept me interested. I wanted to be back in the detail, working directly with the people whose homes I was changing, not managing them from a distance.
So just over ten years ago, I started Savvy Renovations here in Ascot Vale, working across bathrooms and full-home renovations throughout Melbourne’s inner north and north-west. Extensions are where I spent a lot of my earlier career, running them for other builders before I started out on my own.
I’m not a salesperson.
I’m not a salesperson. I never have been. What I’m good at is the work itself — reading an old house, seeing what it wants to become, and figuring out how to get there without wasting your money on things that don’t matter. Learning to talk about that, and to put myself out there for people who’ve never met me, has probably been the hardest part of running this business.
The work
The kind of problems I like solving
Give me an older Melbourne home with good bones, a real budget and an ambitious idea, and that’s where I’m most interested. Most of the jobs I take on sit somewhere between a single bathroom renovation and a full multi-room renovation — projects where the budget is real, but so is the ambition.
If you want someone who’ll respect the character of your home while making it work properly for how you live now, that’s the job I want.
The standard
Registered. Experienced. Accountable
I’m a registered builder with the Victorian Building Authority, registration DBU-100779, and a member of both the HIA and the KBDi.
Those memberships aren’t badges I stick on a van. They’re how I keep myself accountable to a standard, and how you know the person standing in your kitchen talking about waterproofing knows exactly what he’s talking about.
The result
The part that matters most
What keeps me here isn’t the finished photos.
It’s the client who walks into their new space and lives in it differently — better.
My team hears it too, usually before I do: that a client has noticed how well everyone worked together and how much easier the space is to live in now.
That’s the result I care about.
Outside of work
Outside of work, family comes first, and I spend a fair bit of time helping out at local sporting clubs.
Turns out the same thing applies there too.
Show up, do the work properly, and people notice.