How long does renovating an apartment take?

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.

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.

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.

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.