Turnkey repair: how to prepare, purchase materials, choose a team and monitor the progress of work

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Some make repairs themselves, others turn to professionals for help. It would seem that in the second case, everything is simple. You pay the money and accept the job. But this is not the case. Turnkey repair is a quest in which every wrong step turns into big losses. Today I will tell you about my repair experience.

A year ago, my family bought an apartment in a new building. There was no one and no time to make repairs on our own, so we decided to hire a team that would do everything on a turnkey basis. The organization of the process fell on my shoulders.

Everything written below is the quintessence of my personal experience gained during the renovation process. I do not pretend to give advice, but I hope that my story will be useful to those who first encountered the decoration of an apartment or house. Here are five main steps to go through.

1. Study of materiel

Some people love renovations. They like to wander around the hardware stores, they know a lot about putty and can tint the paint on their own, and re-gluing the wallpaper for them is sheer nonsense. I'm not one of those. The upcoming renovation terrified me. Largely because of the information vacuum.

A year ago, I did not know anything about building materials and techniques for performing certain finishing works. Why is an acrylic bathtub better than a steel one, but in what way is it inferior to a cast iron bathtub? Why is cork laminate backing better than styrofoam backing? What is fiberglass?

Long before receiving the keys to the apartment, I began to collect and study information on construction and renovation. Disappeared on sites "" and "", watched,,, and other thematic channels on YouTube.

Am I a renovator pro? Of course not. But the fears were gone: “I'm a girl! I don’t want to make repairs - let me cook the borscht better!”. A conceptual apparatus was developed, which later helped to speak the same language with workers and ask specific questions to consultants in hardware stores. As a result, I knew which tile to choose for the bathroom, how to strengthen the plaster wall, and so on.

2. Selection of the brigade

There are not just a lot of finishing and repair teams, but a lot. One has only to drive the query "turnkey apartment renovation" into a search engine, and a whole flurry of ads will fall on you. Naturally, everyone writes that they are experienced, do it quickly, efficiently, help with the purchase of materials, give a guarantee and take out the garbage. How to choose? I went this way.

I selected five officially registered companies, whose name is well-known and whose portfolio I liked, and three private teams that friends and acquaintances recommended to me. I made an appointment for everyone at the facility at an hourly interval (fortunately, measurement and budgeting are free for everyone).

It was difficult but fun. It is difficult, because each team had to explain that this doorway needed to be widened, but here a plasterboard partition has to be built, there it is necessary to paint, and here there will be photo wallpapers.

Here it is worth mentioning separately that I did not overpay for a professional design project. I drew ideas from social networks and the site, and the cadastral plan and Sweet Home 3D and PRO100 programs, as practice showed, is quite enough to visualize the interior.

It was fun, because the brigades knew that other applicants would come for them, and everyone wanted to show their best side, offered, advised. By the end of the day, I had several estimates and draft contracts in my hands.

Some applicants dropped out immediately. For example, one of the private brigades consisted of immigrants from Central Asia. Only one of the three spoke decent Russian. Realizing that it would be difficult to communicate, especially by phone, I refused this option. It also turned out that two out of five companies work on a turnkey basis, but the balcony is not finished and interior doors are not installed.

I settled on a private team of two. They offered the best price and terms. In addition, they were recommended by close friends who collaborated with them and were satisfied.

We did not begin to conclude a full-fledged work contract. On paper there was only an estimate, where it was written what and in what time frame they should do, how much we should pay for it. By the way, about payment. The calculation was carried out in three stages: 10% advance payment, 40% in the middle and the remaining 50% upon completion of the repair. Each time a receipt was drawn up.

Shaking hands, we started buying building materials.

3. Organization of supply

Usually the team is interested in repairing several objects during the season. It is in their interests to work well and quickly, and for this they need to supply building materials on time.

With my team, we agreed as follows: everything that has design variations, I buy, the rest - they, then providing checks. This is much more effective than if I myself chose alabaster, plaster, profiles or screws. You just need to navigate a little in prices and understand how much a good finishing putty or tile glue costs.

Since I already had a theoretical base, before starting work, I took a week off to travel around the shops, look after and buy everything I needed. Shopping after work or on weekends would take a lot more time and effort.

While shopping, I made several discoveries.

• What is not found in large hypermarkets is sure to be found in small construction shops. We toured all the plumbing shops in the city, but found the right sink in a modest shop in the construction market.
• Tiles from the same series and even from the same box may vary in size. You need to unpack and check, as they say, without leaving the checkout. Within two weeks, the goods are accepted back without question. After 14 days, you can return only goods of inadequate quality, but this procedure is not easy and quite long: first you have to write a claim, then a braker will come to you, send samples for examination, and only after its results you can exchange the goods or return the money.
• It is better to stay away from the words "stock" and "sale". Having saved one hundred rubles, you can face the fact that this was the last roll of wallpaper, and these are no longer produced.

When the bulk of the materials were purchased, the fun began.

4. Monitoring the progress of work

My new apartment is located more than a hundred kilometers from the old one. But even if they were separated by a hundred meters, it would hardly be possible to visit the object every day. Fortunately, I had young guys working for me who know what Telegram and WhatsApp are.

We agreed that every evening they would send me photo reports about the work done. All incomprehensible moments were discussed and decided during video calls: "Nastya, look, are we doing this niche in the middle or shifting to the edge?"

Once a week I came to the facility to see and touch everything personally, to find out if something else was needed, to verify the checks and leave money for the next batch of consumables.

To say that it is convenient is to say nothing. This approach can save you a lot of time. You continue to go about your business, but you do not drop out of the repair process, you can quickly make adjustments and permanently control the quality. But most importantly, when you receive another batch of photos in the evening, you feel progress - the dream takes on real shape.

A month and a half later, as agreed, the guys invited me to the final reception.

5. Acceptance of the apartment

The long-awaited and most enjoyable moment in a turnkey renovation. When you cross the threshold of an apartment, where everything is beautiful and new, butterflies begin to flutter in your stomach.

But we must not lose our vigilance! It is imperative to click all switches, check sockets and taps, open and close doors and windows, and so on. If everything is in order, you can open the champagne!:)

This is my humble experience. For myself, I made the following conclusions.

• Don't be afraid. Even if the case is completely new, frightening by the unknown, you need to treat it as a challenge. Life gives you the opportunity to become better by overcoming all difficulties.
• Knowledge and planning is power. If you know what, you can decide when. If you know what and when, you can figure out how. Having decided on repairs, you need to understand what exactly you want (colors, textures, shapes, materials), determine the stages and terms (better with a margin). I had a huge red notebook where I wrote down everything for the repair: from the addresses of stores and SKUs of goods to the dates of their delivery and phone numbers of the performers.
• Do not forget that the market for construction and repair services is still a market. And this is worth using. For example, the benefits of competition. Our mentality is such that it is often inconvenient for us to apply elsewhere, if we seem to have already agreed in one place. Sometimes it's embarrassing to point out flaws and force them to redo. It is necessary to discard these prejudices and clearly understand that the client's position is a priori advantageous.
• I love gadgets and the internet. Nothing makes life easier than they do. Think about it, you can determine a sufficiently saturated color of the paint at a distance, or add more color. You can quickly transfer money to consumables if they suddenly run out. You can open an online calculator and calculate how much linoleum you need. You can send a photo of the wallpaper to your mom and ask: "How is it?" Modern technology opens up a huge number of possibilities for us.
• Repair is a quest. You finish one task and start another. If you missed something, then it will be difficult to fix it. You are the main character, but you cannot do without interaction with other characters. They will help if you ask the right questions. Your superpower is money. Your main resource is time.

I went through my quest called "turnkey renovation". I am happy with the result. I would be glad to discuss in the comments your experience in decorating an apartment. Write how you organized the process, what you learned during the repair.