Apartment Renovation Timelines in Paris

The two main phases — and why the first matters so much.

A renovation is not only weeks on site. It starts with an invisible preparation phase that shapes everything else:

Design (2 to 3 months) — surveys, plans, reworking the layout, material selection, detailed costing, consulting trades and, where needed, filing permits. Not a single wall is touched yet, but this is where the final timeline is won or lost.
Works (4 to 8 months) — the build itself: demolition, structure, services, second fix, finishes.

The rule ten years of projects have taught us: a well-prepared project is a site without surprises. Rushing the design to "start sooner" is the surest way to blow the schedule.

How long by scope.

The timeline depends first on how deep the intervention goes. Our real-world ranges in Paris:

Type of project	Design	Works	Indicative total
Refresh (paint, floors, one bathroom)	2 – 4 wks	3 – 6 wks	~ 2 months
Full renovation (services redone, kitchen, bathrooms, finishes)	2 – 3 months	4 – 6 months	6 – 9 months
Heavy / high-end renovation (new layout, structure, custom millwork)	3 months	6 – 10 months	9 – 12 months and up

A useful benchmark: on a Paris apartment, allow on average one to two weeks of works per 10 m² for a full renovation — more as soon as structure is involved or exceptional finishes are the goal.

The typical schedule of a 90 m², week by week.

To give these ranges a concrete shape, here is the typical sequence of a full 90 m² apartment renovation — the order of magnitude of our La Main d'Or project, delivered in 3 months. Every site has its own particulars: this schedule is a reference point, not a promise.

Weeks	Phase	What happens
1 – 2	Set-up & demolition	Protecting common areas, strip-out, removing partitions and fittings, clearing rubble
3 – 4	Services	Setting out new partitions, running plumbing, electrics and ventilation
5 – 6	Plastering	Linings, suspended ceilings, closing partitions after the services have been checked
7 – 8	Substrates & wet rooms	Screeds and levelling, waterproofing, tiling of bathrooms
9 – 10	Surfaces	Parquet and flooring, internal joinery, preparing surfaces for paint
11 – 12	Technical finishes	Paint, kitchen installation, sanitaryware, electrical fittings, lighting
13	Handover	Millwork, touch-ups, end-of-site cleaning, pre-handover inspection and snagging

To which you must add, upstream, the 2 to 3 months of design — and the anticipation of lead times: the kitchen installed in week 11 was ordered during the design phase, not during the works.

What stretches a project.

Two apartments of the same size can have very different schedules. The real drivers:

The scale of the work — moving a kitchen, creating a master suite, opening a load-bearing wall: every move on structure or services adds weeks.
The condition of what exists — in old buildings, the unexpected is not a hypothesis but a given: electrics to fully replace, floors to reinforce, lead or asbestos to handle.
Administrative timelines — co-ownership approval, general assembly to touch common areas, planning declaration or permit, heritage architect sign-off in protected areas. These delays run into weeks, sometimes months.
Lead times — a custom kitchen, natural stone or fine joinery take 8 to 16 weeks to make. Ordered too late, they become the site's critical path.
Paris constraints — access, lift, regulated noise hours, the logistics of an occupied building: small brakes to anticipate.

The real enemy of the schedule is not the site — it is indecision. A kitchen chosen in week 2 is built during the works, with no impact. The same kitchen chosen in week 20 pushes back the whole end of the project. Over the length of a renovation, the client's decisions weigh as much as the trades' work.

Renovating while living on site — or not?

The question comes up on almost every project. Our position is clear: on a full renovation, living in the middle of the works is a false economy.

For the schedule — an empty apartment is worked in the optimal order of trades. Occupied, every phase fragments: you protect, you move things, you close off one room then another, and the weeks add up.
For the budget — reinforced protection, temporary reinstatement of the kitchen or a bathroom, sequenced interventions: all of it ends up in the quote.
For you — dust, noise, water and power cuts: several months inside a building site wear down the most motivated.

Staying on site does make sense for a room-by-room refresh with no work on the services. In every other case, the cost of a temporary rental is generally lower than what occupation loses you in weeks on site — and in peace of mind.

Our real timelines.

Rather than a theoretical average, here is what we actually deliver:

90 m², Paris 11th — full renovation in 3 months (La Main d'Or).
210 m² commercial to public-access standards — 4 months (medical office).
145 m² Haussmann, Paris 9th — 5 months (Le St Georges).
227 m² with a complete change of use — 10 months and 16 coordinated trades (Le Trocadéro).

The range is wide because ambition is: it is precisely the job of a proper study to give you, from the outset, a credible handover date.

How to hold the schedule.

A schedule that is met is not luck, it is method. Ours, as a general contractor:

A single lead — one point of contact carries the schedule, the budget and the coordination of trades. The result: no dead time between packages, each trade follows the last without slack. We explain this model here.
Anticipate lead times — long-lead items are ordered during design, not when it is time to install them.
Freeze choices before starting — materials, layout and equipment approved before the first strike: that is what protects the calendar.
Build contingency into the schedule — as with the budget, we reserve a margin for the unexpected. That is what separates a date announced from a date met.

A project of this kind? Tell us about it in a few lines: we come back to you within 48 hours with a first reading — scope, order of magnitude, realistic timeline.

Get an estimate →Or simply write to us

Five questions to check a schedule is realistic.

Before committing to a date, ask these five questions — the answers speak volumes:

Does the schedule include design and permissions, or only the works? A "3 months" that ignores the co-ownership general assembly is not a date, it is a wish.
Are manufacturing lead times placed on the calendar? Kitchen, natural stone, joinery: 8 to 16 weeks of fabrication that must start during the design phase.
Is there a visible contingency margin? A schedule saturated at 100% slips at the first discovery.
Who coordinates the trades, and how often? An all-trades site without a single lead accumulates dead time between packages.
Is the handover date written into the contract? That is the difference between a commitment and an estimate. With a general contractor, it is.

Three frequent questions.

Can a Paris apartment be fully renovated in 2 months?

For a refresh, yes: that is precisely the order of magnitude of this format (2 to 4 weeks of preparation, 3 to 6 weeks of works). For a full renovation with services redone, no — compressing below 3 months of works is paid for in the finishes. Our low-end reference remains 90 m² in 3 months, with complete preparation upstream.

What is the best time of year to start?

The moment your design is finished. A well-prepared site launched in November progresses better than a poorly prepared one launched in April. The only real Paris constraint: factoring suppliers' August closures into the procurement calendar.

What happens if the site runs late?

It all depends on your contract. In the classic setup, delay is negotiated company by company. With a general contractor, the handover date is a contractual commitment carried by a single responsible party — one of the key points in the choice between the two setups.

Every project has its own rhythm: tell us about yours, and we will come back to you within 48 hours with a first estimate — timeline included.

How long does renovating an apartment take?