Chanice and Spencer's Place: DIY couple's renovation built 77K Instagram following

Jordan Pinto
Sep 18
3 min read

Five minutes for forever.

Catchy Australian power pop band name or four words that tell the story of one family’s life-changing decision?

Ponder that for a second.

And that’s just about how much time Chanice had to make the call that would change everything.

Out on a hike with friends, the five-minute window to view a property in Oakbank was closing.

Fast.

"I said to my friends 'we're not going to make it',” Chanice recalls.

“And I didn’t even really care at the time.”

But the rest of the group did – this was going to happen.

“And I just loved the high ceilings,” a smiling Chanice says of the moment they made it there.

“I didn’t really notice much else. I told Spencer, who was away working at the time, that we should put an offer in. We won it. That was it.”

But that wasn’t it.

That snap decision would launch a transformation.

One that goes far beyond architecture.

A transformation of a 1993 brick house that lacked any distinct character – those soaring four-metre vaulted ceilings aside.

And a transformation of this married couple’s life that revealed new possibilities neither expected.

What started as a place to document their first renovation journey, @Oakbankreno has become a business platform after the DIY couple's renovation built a following of more than 77,000 on Instagram.

“We really discovered our love for design, building and creating,” Chanice tells Place Journal.

“So much so I believe it has inspired our future careers.

“This home should bring Spencer home from the mines.”

Five minutes for forever.

But for a while, five minutes felt like forever.

"We've technically camped in the house more times than I'd like to admit," Chanice says.

"Times where the house has been literally open, no doors or back walls, and we've been sleeping in the elements.

“We lived in the house the entire time… it was hard.”

The original house was a cramped two-bedroom, one-bathroom space with a kitchen that measured just 2.6 squared.

"It was like a caravan kitchen," Chanice recalls.

And ‘we’ wasn’t just Chanice and Spencer for long either.

Daughter Banks was born during the extension phase.

Covid hit, too, material costs doubling on the other side.

But the pair – well, maybe more Chanice - remained focused on the vision.

“I am not good at compromising,” she laughs.

Just ask the local council, who tried forcing them to set the extension back seven metres from the street.

"I rebutted that other houses in the area were only three metres back and won," Chanice says with satisfaction.

Winning was also doing “90 per cent” of the work themselves, because there was no scaling back the design.

And the love the pair have put into this project shines through in the living area.

A favourite space of their now four-bedroom home, it features a custom DIY micro cement bench seat and steel bi-folds made by Chanice and Spencer.

On top of that, their own brand - Oakbank linen curtains.

This place couldn’t be more them.

And them is a style described as “Mid-century meets Japandi inspired by Bali”.

See.

“It’s spacey, earthy, has high ceilings, a huge kitchen and custom furniture,” a proud Chanice says.

“It’s just us and you can’t buy it from a store.”

The home, or the experience.

Because as this family has learnt, sometimes the most important transformation isn't what happens to your house.

It's what happens to your life along the way.

CHANICE AND SPENCER'S PLACE

Built: 1993

Land: 700m2

Bed: 4

Bath: 1

WHAT THEIR PLACE TAUGHT THEM

Research.

Learn at least a little bit about every trade and finish. It will make everything so much easier and you’ll save money and time, just by having knowledge. Whether you’re project managing or not.

Do it cheap, do it twice.

Don’t compromise on that gut feeling.

If it’s something you want, you have to do it otherwise you’ll never be satisfied with the end result.