High-end renovation: how long it takes, what it costs, and where money gets lost

Who worked on this project

Our guests are from 101 Group, the contractor we worked with on this project.

Sergey Gradeev has been in construction since 2003, and in finishing and renovation specifically since 2018. He came into the industry through design: his wife started working as an interior designer and needed a foreman of her own. From then on, the company has specialised in delivering designers' projects.

Dmitry Khoroshavin has been in construction for more than ten years. It all started simply: he and his brother repaired windows, then bigger orders followed. Today he delivers high-end projects.

Do you work in the high-end segment?

Mostly we try to stick to it. We also take on upper mid-market projects, but hardly ever budget work or resale property: our whole process is already set up for a different level of work. That's more or less where we were heading all along.

Full cycle: from approvals to finishing

What did you do on this project?

The full scope of work, from start to finish. Starting with preparing the property: getting the building services documentation approved by the management company and the relevant authorities, and then getting the reconfiguration approved. After that we stripped off all of the developer's plaster, and that's a story in itself.

In most cases, that kind of stripping-out is necessary. The base that a developer leaves behind simply isn't acceptable for a property at this level. The first factor is the workforce: an ordinary building site and a site at this level are very different. That is where the uneven walls and the departures from proper practice come from.

We checked everything, filmed it, and gave our opinion, and it was the only correct one. Otherwise the walls simply wouldn't have come out flat, and fixing it afterwards would have taken a very long time.

A crack across the whole wall: the cost of one concession

There was a funny case here too. While we were filming, the plaster came away in a whole sheet on one of the walls. We told the client that all the plaster needed to come off. And at some point he says: fine here, fine there, but in the bedroom behind the curtain, surely we don't need to strip that, no one will see it there.

We gave in on that one, and regretted it badly afterwards.

When we got to the finishing stage, to the painting work, a crack ran the whole width of the wall above the window, on the very wall the client had asked us to leave alone. Good thing no one was sleeping there. And good thing we hadn't left the site yet: redoing plaster at the finishing stage is a messy, much more complicated process, but we fixed it. It would have been worse if the crack had appeared after we'd gone.

After that case, we don't listen to clients on questions like this any more: everything has to come off completely.

The reason isn't just the workforce. The finishes on these walls are very expensive: when something like that comes away, the bill is huge. Plus there's basic good practice that is far from always followed: the junction between the floor slab and the brickwork, joints between different materials, movement joints in the ceiling plaster. The building's own settlement plays a part too: when several apartments in a multi-storey building are being renovated at once, the load on the structure increases, and movement joints have to absorb the resulting shifts. So it's better to get it right at the start: redoing it later is slow, expensive and exhausting.

An extractor in the island: seven people and several months

Were there any interesting technical solutions, details you had to invent on the spot?

Of course. Every project is essentially a one-off, custom-made product, and a significant share of the solutions are worked out on the spot: sometimes for the first time, sometimes for the second or third. On top of that, technologies and wishes keep changing, and all of it has to be integrated.

The most telling detail here is the extractor built into the kitchen island's worktop. We met for several months, seven people at a time: the designer, the foreman, a representative of the air conditioning and ventilation contractor, Vozdukh-Expert (we talked about the climate systems on this same project in a separate episode), and the kitchen makers. We took the whole extractor unit out and test-fitted it.

The motor was originally supposed to be installed separately, with soundproofing there too. In the end, we put it inside the island, tested it fifteen times, and soundproofed it so it would be as comfortable as possible while running. You'd think that's simple, but in fact we redid all the ductwork completely: the standard ducts didn't fit the height of the screed, and the required volume of air couldn't pass through them.

General contracting: who brings everyone together on site

You bring all the contractors under your own control and manage when they come on site. How difficult is that?

Not easy, because of the general shortage of skilled workers. But we do our best.

How long a renovation like this takes

How long does it take to deliver a project like this?

For an apartment of around 148 m², if you want everything done without rushing, you need to allow at least a year to eighteen months. And that's just the builders' stage of the work.

The furniture makers have to fit into that same timeframe, and that's a story of its own. Italian furniture, a Spanish cabinet, a German wardrobe: all of it has to be assembled and set in place so it works together. In practice, that turns out to take a very long time.

Logistics: six hours a day and no goods lift

Time restrictions add to the schedule: on this project, the building's rules only allowed work roughly from 10 to 12 and from 15 to 17. In practice, that left a maximum of six working hours a day.

Plus carrying everything up the stairs: builders here aren't allowed to take materials up in the lift, and there simply isn't a goods lift. Everything is carried up by hand, and that has to be organised, agreed with the management company and coordinated with the loaders. That's where the timelines come from.

The higher the floor, the more expensive the service. Sometimes it's cheaper to call in a crane, remove a window frame and lift large-format tiles by crane than to carry them up to the twelfth floor by hand.

What it costs

How do you calculate the cost?

Prices have gone up very significantly over the last two to three years, across the board. Measuring against what things cost three years ago isn't relevant any more. Today we quote per square metre, and for this level of work the range is wide.

Only the labour is included in that. Materials are separate. Transport and lifting work are also separate line items, and the situation varies from site to site: on this project, the lifting work was costly.

How to start a renovation without mistakes

What would you advise designers and clients who are just starting out?

Prepare as thoroughly as possible. Preparation means a complete, already approved design project. Beyond that, ideally, a fully drawn-up building services design: plumbing, electrics and the other services.

That makes it possible to give a firm cost at the outset and set the client's expectations properly. Building services can be done in very different ways today: you can install a proper water supply manifold, as was done here, or simply run a polypropylene pipe from the developer's connection point to where it's needed. Both will work, but the quality of everyday life and the reliability are not the same.

An engineering project gives you control and calculation: everything can be properly planned and agreed. And, accordingly, you can choose contractors who are able to carry that project out, so that on site there are no more questions about how to do something, where to buy it, and who will do it.