We do not give a duration before seeing the work, and we prefer to say why rather than advance a figure that would not hold. A renovation schedule is not a division: it is not a floor area multiplied by a rate. It is a sequence of phases, each waiting on the one before, crossed by three clocks that are not ours — that of the administration, that of the materials, that of the building or the neighbourhood.
The phases of a renovation, in order
A complete project always follows the same sequence. The existing fabric is surveyed and probed. It is stripped out. The structure is repaired where it asks for it, and that is the moment when everything that follows is decided. The networks are run — services, electricity, ventilation, controls — while the walls are open. Things are closed up, rendered, screeded. Finishes, joinery and equipment are fitted. The work is finished, cleaned, handed over.
This sequence does not parallelise. That is the most frequent misunderstanding: adding tradesmen does not shorten a phase that is waiting for another to end, and a screed does not dry faster because the site is crowded. Time is gained upstream, on decisions and on procurement, almost never during.
The incompressible times, which no one negotiates
Some delays belong to the material. A screed dries at its own pace, and laying a finish over a substrate that has not released its water is preparing a defect. The lime renders of an old building set slowly, and that is precisely what makes them compatible with a wall that breathes. Polished concrete is built up in successive coats, each waiting on the last. Solid stone must be chosen on the block, sawn, calibrated, sometimes shipped from Italy. Bespoke joinery is made after survey, never before.
A schedule does not hold because it is ambitious: it holds because it has allowed for what takes time.
What really derails a schedule
Stripping out, first. It is the moment of truth of a renovation: the real state of floors, load paths and services buried in the walls comes to light. In an old party-wall building around a courtyard, load paths are shared with the neighbouring buildings, and opening a load-bearing wall there engages the structure of a whole, not of a single flat. In Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where the intra-muros plot pattern has been stable for over three centuries, party structures are old and entangled: repairing a load-bearing element there almost always engages a neighbour.
Administrative examination, next. Its duration is not the same under every regime. On an inscribed site, works altering the appearance of the place fall under a prior declaration; on a classified site, under a special authorisation from the prefect or the minister responsible for sites, depending on their scale. In Saint-Tropez, the entire municipal territory has been covered by the inscribed site of the peninsula since the order of 15 February 1966. In Monaco, the regime is entirely different: the file must be signed by an architect registered with the Order of Architects of the Principality, examination falls to the Directorate of Forward Planning, Urban Development and Mobility, and applications are reviewed by an advisory committee.
Access, finally, which is the most systematically underestimated item. The village of Èze is entirely pedestrian: supplies and removals go up and down the same lanes and the same stairways. In Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the intra-muros is served only by the two openings in the wall, whose geometry sets the maximum admissible size. Cap-Ferrat is a cul-de-sac: you enter and leave by the same bottleneck. Monaco stands on about two square kilometres, entirely built up, with no surface available to store anything. On the Lérins islands, everything arrives and leaves by sea. None of these constraints is discovered: they are surveyed beforehand, or they are paid for in weeks.
And then there are our clients. A decision on a material that is a month late delays fabrication, therefore laying, therefore everything that follows. It is the only cause of drift over which the client has the hand, and that is why we date the decisions expected of them just as we date the tasks.
What a workable schedule contains
A credible schedule is not a frieze with an end date. It carries verifiable milestones, hold points where one phase governs the next, the dates by which decisions must be taken, and the phasing of deliveries for works where nothing can be stored. It also states what is not yet known — and in an old building, there is always something that is not.
That is how an honest schedule is recognised: it does not promise to know everything, it says when we shall know. The rest is settled day by day, by being on site and by coordination.
