How to put together a realistic timeline for a flat renovation

Why a written schedule matters more than a deadline

A deadline tells you when you would like to move back in. A schedule tells you what has to happen on which day, and what has to finish before the next thing can start. Without the second document, the first one is just a hope, and it usually slips because two trades turn up on the same day expecting the same wall.

Write the schedule as a simple list: task, who does it, what it depends on, how long it needs to dry or cure before the next step. It does not need software. A page in a notebook or a spreadsheet with five columns is enough, as long as you actually check it before booking each visit.

The point of the document is to catch conflicts early — an electrician booked before the wall he needs to chase is plastered, a floor screed poured the day before the kitchen fitter arrives. Those conflicts cost more in wasted call-outs than the ten minutes it takes to write the plan down.

Demolition and preparation come before everything else

Strip out first: old flooring, kitchen units, bathroom fittings, any partition you intend to remove. Bag rubble and old tiles as you go rather than leaving a pile, because the next trade needs clear floor space to work and to bring materials in.

This is also the stage to confirm what you are allowed to change. Removing a partition wall usually needs checking against the building's layout, and altering anything load-bearing is not something to attempt or to hire out casually — that work needs a structural specialist, and we do not touch load-bearing walls ourselves.

In an apartment building, tell the korteriühistu board before you start noisy demolition, since many buildings have agreed hours for this kind of work and neighbours will ask regardless. Budget one to three days for stripping out a standard flat, longer if you are removing tiled surfaces down to the concrete.

Electrics and plumbing before any finishing work

Once the space is stripped back, electrical and plumbing work has to go in before walls are closed up, floors are laid, or anything is tiled. This is the stage people most often try to skip or shortcut, and it is the one that costs most to redo once finishes are on top.

New wiring, socket positions and consumer unit changes should be planned and marked on the walls before the electrician arrives, so the visit covers everything in one pass rather than three. Electrical work needs a qualified electrician; it is not a stage to do yourself even if the rest of the job is DIY.

Pipework for a new bathroom or kitchen layout goes in at the same stage, chased into walls or under the future floor build-up. Once both are done and pressure-tested or signed off, you close the chases with plaster or a floor screed — not before, and not around a fitting still waiting on parts.

Wet trades and drying time you cannot skip

Wet trades — plastering, screeding, tiling — are where an ambitious schedule falls apart, because drying and curing take real time regardless of how much you want the next trade in sooner. Plaster on a wall generally needs at least a week before it can be painted, more in an unheated flat over winter. A floor screed needs roughly a week per centimetre of thickness before it can take tiles or flooring, and considerably longer before it can be fully loaded.

Tile adhesive and grout each have their own curing window before the area can get wet or take weight, usually a day or two for adhesive and a similar span before grout is fully cured. Underfloor heating, common in newer Harju county developments, adds another wait: the screed over it needs to cure fully before the heating is switched on for the first time, gradually, not turned up to full straight away.

Write each drying time into the schedule as its own line, not as a guess folded into the next task. This is the single most common mistake: booking the next trade for the day after a wet job finishes, then losing a week to a wall that is still damp underneath a fresh coat of paint.

• Plaster: allow at least a week before painting, longer in cold or unheated rooms
• Floor screed: roughly a week per centimetre before tiling or flooring
• Tile adhesive: a day or two before grouting
• Grout: a day or two before the area gets wet
• Underfloor heating screed: full cure before first heating cycle, then a gradual warm-up

Finishing work and the order it goes in at the end

Once wet trades are dry and cured, finishing runs roughly ceiling to floor: ceiling paint, then wall paint, then skirting boards, then flooring, then final fittings such as light switches, radiators and door handles. Painting a ceiling after the floor is down risks drips on a finish you have already paid for.

Kitchen and bathroom fitting usually sits near the end, once tiling is done and plumbing points are capped ready for the final connection. Doors are often the very last item, hung after flooring is in so the gap underneath is measured against the actual finished floor height.

This is also the stage where a flat renovation booked as one job, rather than as separate visits, starts to look more efficient — a single team carrying the schedule from demolition through to finishing, priced from 180 € for the job, removes the coordination problem this whole guide is about.

When to write the schedule yourself, and when to hand it over

A single room — a bathroom refresh, a kitchen refit without moving pipework — is manageable to schedule yourself if you follow the order above and are honest about drying times. Write it down, book trades with a few days' buffer around each wet stage, and check progress before confirming the next visit.

A full flat with several rooms, structural questions, or more than three or four trades involved is harder to hold in a notebook, because a slip in one room usually pushes every other room's schedule too. That is when a written plan from someone who does this regularly is worth the time it saves.

If you just need a single stage sorted — an odd job of hanging doors, fitting skirting, or patching plaster before painting — that can be booked as hourly work from 39 € per hour rather than folded into a bigger schedule. If you would rather hand over the whole sequence, a flat renovation booked as one project is the more direct route.