How long a villa renovation takes
Most answers to this question are averages, and averages are useless when you are planning around a move-out date. So here is a real programme instead: the villa we have on site right now, 1,500 m² in Dubai, with the dates as they were agreed and as they are running.
Thirteen months, and where they go
3 months of design, an approval window, then 10 months on site. The part owners underestimate is the first one — it looks like the stage you could shorten, and it is the stage that decides whether the other ten run to plan.
| Stage | Duration | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Layout | 1 mo | How the villa is used decides everything that follows: where the majlis sits relative to the family wing, how staff move without crossing guests, where the lift lands on each floor. Until that is settled, no service run can be drawn. |
| Visualisation | 1 mo | Materials and light are decided here, on screen, where changing them costs a day rather than a demolished wall. Marble, veneer and finishes are chosen against each other rather than one at a time. |
| Working drawings | 1 mo | The set a site can actually build from: every socket, drain, ceiling level and joinery dimension. This is the document that keeps the build from turning into a series of decisions taken on the spot. |
| Municipality approval | 2 weeks | On this villa the Dubai Municipality approval took two weeks. It is submitted before demolition, never after. |
| Demolition | 1 mo | Everything that will not stay comes out, and the villa is stripped back to structure. This is also when the building tells you what the drawings did not: where a slab is thicker than recorded, where an old service run is hiding. |
| Partitions and plaster | 2 mo | The new layout is built in blockwork and plastered. Walls go up before services because the routes are chased into them; getting this order wrong means opening finished surfaces later. |
| Electrical and plumbing | 2 mo | First fix for a villa of this size is a substantial job in itself: power, water, drainage, cooling and low-voltage runs for the smart systems, all set before anything closes. It is inspected and photographed while still open, because after plaster nobody can see it again. |
| Painting, ceilings, tiling, mouldings | 3 mo | The longest stage, and the one where the villa starts to look like itself. Three-level ceilings are built and their mouldings run, tiling is set out so joints land where they should, and painted surfaces are prepared to a standard that will hold under the ceiling artwork. |
| Parquet, paint, second fix, furniture | 2 mo | Parquet with its marble inlay goes down, final coats of paint go on, and electrical and sanitary fittings are installed. Bespoke furniture arrives in parallel — it was ordered months earlier against site dimensions, because production time does not wait for the site. |
Notice where the time sits. Three months go on painting, ceilings, tiling and mouldings — more than on demolition and services combined. Finishing is where a villa either looks expensive or looks rushed, and it is the stage that cannot be compressed by adding people.
What actually causes delays
In our experience it is almost never the construction. It is three things, and all of them are decided before anyone picks up a tool.
Approvals submitted late
Approvals run on the authority’s clock, not the contractor’s, and inside a master community there is a second gate: the developer’s no-objection certificate. Emaar processes soft-landscaping and external-painting NOCs in two business days and minor or major works in three, once documents are complete and correct. In the Dubai Holding communities — Nakheel, Meraas and Dubai Properties now share one set of rules — approved works must be finished within six months, and nothing may start before written approval.
Long-lead materials ordered too late
Bespoke joinery is produced against final site dimensions, and production time runs in parallel with the site or it runs after it. Natural stone has the same problem in a different form: material for one surface has to be reserved in a single lot, because a colour shift between deliveries is not a detail on 1,500 m² — it is a visible line across a floor.
Variations agreed on site
A change decided in conversation during finishing stage costs a week of programme before it costs a dirham. This is why variations should be priced and approved in writing before they are built — not as bureaucracy, but because the written version is the one that gets scheduled.
Working hours are part of the schedule
In the Dubai Holding communities major modifications may run 7 AM to 5 PM on weekdays only, and minor modifications Monday to Saturday, 8 AM to 6 PM. Either way, noisy work is confined to 9 AM–1 PM and 3 PM–5 PM, and none is allowed on Sundays or public holidays. Extended hours need a separate night-shift NOC from both the authorities and community management.
Do the arithmetic on that: a programme built on twelve-hour days will not survive contact with a community that permits noise for six. A contractor who has not read your community’s rules before quoting has already misjudged the timeline.
See it running
The villa in this article is on site now, and the stage it has reached is shown on its own page — updated from the programme rather than written by hand. You are also welcome to walk it with us.