As mentioned before, the more work you are doing to a property, the harder it becomes to predict a finish date. Unforeseen problems have a habit of snowballing and have a knock-on effect on every other line of work. We’ll break down some of the more common problems and give basic timescales when redesigning a property.
We generally class minor construction work as moving a few walls, changing the location of a kitchen or bathroom, or rearranging their contents. Turning a bathroom into a wet-room, changing the floors or creating a new room entirely.
What lies beneath?
The biggest variable here is usually getting the permissions. Councils and building management can take months to reply to you, and might require you to make minor adjustments and resubmit plans.
Because construction work is noisy, your hours of allowable work will be limited (usually 8-5pm but blocks of flat can impose their own restrictions to protect other residents). This can cause a lot of spill over if something isn’t quite finished one day and you have to come in and do 10 more minutes of angle grinding and then 1 hour of packing up and tidying before setting up for the day’s tasks.
Once you start plastering or waiting for adhesives to dry the weather will come into play, as damp or cold weather will slow it all down, even in a fairly regulated apartment block.
It seems very basic, but the timescale will also depend on how many builders you have on site. Obviously the more people you can throw at a build, the quicker it will go (within reason – there is still a set order to do things and certain things will have to dry before anyone can move on) but that’s usually not financially viable.
Usually when people do a large refurbishment they want one or two bespoke pieces of furniture, which can be time-consuming, but even getting a sofa or headboard covered in a fabric of your choice can take 2 months.
Don’t forget when drawing up a plan, add a generous contingency. Don’t assume that when stuff is delivered it will ready to go. It’s not just Ikea furniture that arrives short of parts. Even the most prestigious brands have been known to deliver sofas without legs or upholster in the wrong colour. Items, like splash backs, can also often be damaged during installation.
A basic timeline for our services:
Medium build timeline