Renovating apartment

Depends on what materials, cupboards and appliances you choose. And how much plumbing or electrical work there is. try to find a contractor that does everything or works with people who can do the plumbing/electrical. usually smaller contractors as opposed to big kitchen/bathroom showrooms can provide all services. My kitchen is about the size of that one, my bathroom a bit smaller. bathroom/WC cost €15,000, with extensive plumbing and electrical work and natural stone sinks. My kitchen more than €20,000. But again, I chose rather expensive materials and all new appliances. It's also not a ready-made kitchen but custom built to get the most out of the space. So the whole thing could have been done for as low as about €10,000 had I made different choices.

Couple of years back, we bought an apartment and renovated almost everything, except the kitchen. I think i spent about 3 days going to different bathroom stores to pick tiles, etc, and then I would get an estimate. Based on the material, estimates for 10m2 bathroom were from 5,000 euros to almost 10,000 euros, and that includes the so called 6% savings on materials. The manual labor though, no discount on that. The people at these stores had workers that could come in and do the job. You also have to look at the availability and how fast these people plan to do the job. I've had colleagues who hire a Belgian firm to do the renovations and it takes longer than expected as many times the workers don't show up because of whatever reason. So if you're going to hire somebody, make sure you get data from previous clients on how long it took to get the job done. Fortunately for us, we ended up being helped by family members who were do it yourselvers so we got our work done in record speed time according to Belgian standards.

Typical builders excuses:

- the van broke down
- my wife is sick
- I have to attend a funeral
- my uncle/auntie is in town and I need to spend time with him/her

Never mentioned:

- I am working in another building site

@R
I'm guessing that, if the job at your place takes longer than planned, you've got no objections if your builder leaves the work unfinished because he wouldn't want not to turn up at MY place as promised?!