How long a flat renovation actually takes, stage by stage

Preparation and demolition work

Clearing a two-room flat down to the walls and floor slab, taking out old flooring, removing a kitchen and pulling down non-structural partitions usually takes two to four days, depending on how much has to come out and how the building's rubbish chute or lift access works. Panel flats from the Soviet era often have a layer of old linoleum, hardboard and screed to remove, which adds time compared with a newer flat.

This is also when you find out what is actually behind the walls: old wiring, damp patches, or a wall you assumed was a partition but which turns out to be load-bearing. We do not touch load-bearing walls, and if a wall's structural role is unclear, that gets confirmed before anything is taken down.

Rubbish removal itself can add a day if there is no space for a skip nearby, which is common in Kalamaja and other dense older areas. Booking a lift slot or arranging skip access with the apartment association ahead of time saves a day of standing around.

How long electrical and plumbing work takes

Rewiring a two-room flat, including chasing new cable runs into the walls, fitting a new distribution board and moving socket positions, typically takes three to five working days. Plumbing work, replacing pipes, moving a bathroom's supply and waste points, or fitting new radiator connections, runs on a similar timescale and is often done in parallel by different tradesmen.

Electrical work is carried out by a qualified electrician, and this stage is usually the one with the least flexibility on sequence: sockets, switch boxes and any underfloor heating cables have to be in and tested before walls are plastered or screed goes down.

If the flat is on district heating and radiators are being replaced or moved, coordinating with the building's heating schedule can add a day or two, particularly outside the heating season when access to risers is easier to arrange.

Wet works and how long they need to dry

Plastering walls, waterproofing a bathroom and laying a new screed are the stages where the calendar, not the labour, sets the pace. Plastering itself might take two to three days across a two-room flat, but each coat needs roughly one day per millimetre of thickness to dry properly before the next coat or a coat of paint goes on, so a standard plaster job often needs five to seven days of drying built in.

A cement-based floor screed is the biggest single wait in the whole renovation. A self-levelling screed a few centimetres thick generally needs around one week before it can take light foot traffic, but a full cure to the point where tiles or flooring can safely go down is closer to three to four weeks, longer in an unheated flat over winter.

Bathroom waterproofing, applied before tiling, typically needs twenty-four to forty-eight hours to cure between coats. Skipping or shortening these waits is the single most common cause of cracked tiles, lifted flooring and mould turning up months later, and it is not something that can be sped up by adding more workers.

• Plaster: around 1 day drying per mm of thickness, often 5–7 days total
• Screed: 1 week to light traffic, 3–4 weeks to full cure before tiling or flooring
• Waterproofing membrane: 24–48 hours between coats
• Tile adhesive: 24 hours before grouting, longer in cold or damp rooms
• Paint: check the tin, but 4–8 hours between coats is typical for water-based paint

Tiling and flooring work

Once the screed has properly cured, tiling a bathroom in a two-room flat, walls and floor together, usually takes two to three days, plus another day of curing before grout is applied and the room can be used. Our tiling work starts from 35 € per job for smaller areas such as a splashback or a single wall.

Flooring in the remaining rooms, whether that is engineered timber, laminate or vinyl over the cured screed, generally takes one to two days for a two-room flat once the surface underneath is flat, dry and clean. Flooring work through us starts from 15 € per job, with the exact time depending on the material and how much cutting around doorways and fittings is needed.

Underfloor heating, if it is being fitted, needs its own drying and commissioning time before flooring goes on top: the screed over the heating cables or pipes needs the full cure mentioned above, and the system is usually run through a slow warm-up cycle over several days before floor coverings are laid.

Finishing: painting, corners and the final clean

Painting walls and ceilings across a two-room flat, including filling and sanding joints, corners and any patched areas, typically takes three to five days, mostly because each coat needs to dry before the next and small defects only show up once the first coat is on. Skirting boards, architraves and door casings are usually fitted at this stage too, adding a day or so.

The final clean, removing dust from a renovation site is more thorough than a normal clean and covers window frames, light fittings and inside cupboards, generally takes half a day to a full day depending on the size of the flat and how much dust the demolition and sanding stages generated.

This is also when small snags surface: a socket cover that does not sit flush, a skirting board gap, a tile that needs re-grouting. Building a day or two into the schedule for this kind of finishing work avoids the last stretch feeling rushed.

The whole renovation timeline in summary

For a typical two-room Tallinn flat with a full renovation, including new electrics and plumbing, a bathroom retiled, new flooring throughout and a full repaint, a realistic total is roughly six to ten weeks from the first day of demolition to moving back in. Around half of that is drying and curing time rather than active labour, which is why adding more people on site does not shorten it much.

A lighter refresh, new paint, flooring and a partial bathroom update without moving pipework, can be done in two to three weeks. A full renovation that also involves opening up layout, moving a kitchen, or waiting on a fixed quote and material deliveries can run longer, particularly if it falls over the winter months when unheated rooms dry more slowly.

A full flat renovation through us starts from 180 € per job, with a fixed quote given once we have seen the flat or photos of it, so you know both the price and a realistic schedule before work begins.