A full renovation is, first of all, an order
Renovating a home in full is not a sum of separate jobs, it is a chronology. Each trade opens the way for the next and closes the one before it for good. A conduit forgotten before the lining is paid for in chases cut into a new wall; tiling laid before the joinery is paid for in chipped edges. The order is not a site preference, it is what decides the final cost.
That is what an all-trades contractor is for. The same person holds the demolition, the structure, the services, the partitions, the floors and the finishes: nobody waits for anybody, and nobody passes the blame for a defect to the trade next door. You sign one quotation, not seven.
What you find when you open up, in Nice
Period buildings in the centre. Carré d'Or, the Musiciens quarter, Cimiez, Libération: floors on timber joists, brick partitions laid in plaster, lath-and-plaster ceilings. These floors cannot be loaded like a concrete slab, and a partition thought to be light has sometimes ended up carrying the one above. The services are often as old as the building — lead, cast iron, circuits with no earth — and they are renewed while everything is open, never afterwards.
Residences from the 1960s and 70s. Fabron, Mont Boron, northern Nice: concrete structure, thin slabs, shared service risers. Sound insulation becomes a subject as soon as a carpet gives way to a hard floor. The heating is sometimes embedded in the slab, which is not something to drill into blind.
Old Nice and the Port. Thick walls, narrow staircases, access along lanes a lorry cannot enter. Anything visible from outside falls to the Architecte des Bâtiments de France. Removal of rubble and deliveries are arranged before the first blow of the sledgehammer, not on the day.
And in any building whose permit predates July 1997, an asbestos survey is mandatory before floors, adhesives or ducts are taken up. This is not one more formality: it is what decides whether the strip-out takes two days or two weeks.
Timescales: what really decides them
It is almost never the floor area. It is three things. First the administrative delays: a vote at the general meeting to touch a common part, a prior declaration of works, an opinion from the Architecte des Bâtiments de France. Then the lead times: dressed stone, made-to-measure joinery or a limited-run wall tile is ordered when the quotation is signed, not when it is due to be laid. And finally drying: a screed, a plaster coat, a paint impose their own calendar, and forcing it shows in the result.
The programme we issue with the quotation separates these three kinds of delay. You know what depends on us, what depends on a third party and what depends on nobody.
Budget: what moves it
Every item is priced separately. This is not an accounting presentation, it is a tool for making choices: you see what a bathroom costs, what a floor costs, what the joinery costs, and you decide before signing rather than halfway through the works.
Surprises almost always come from what was hidden — a weakened structure, services long past their age, damp of long standing. So we open up what needs opening during the visit, and anything that remains uncertain is written down as such in the quotation rather than discovered along the way.