Renovation materials selection in Batumi: a materials list with product codes

Where choosing the finishes starts

We start renovation materials selection in Batumi with a list of surfaces room by room: the floor, the walls, the kitchen splashback, the bathroom walls and floor, the doors, and the windowsills if they are being replaced. For each surface we first decide which material belongs there, and only then choose a collection. If the living room has SPC vinyl and the kitchen porcelain tiles, the joint between them and the thickness of each covering have to be worked out before anyone goes to a showroom.

For this we need a layout with the furniture: without it, there is no telling how much of a wall a wardrobe will cover and where the tiles will stay on view. Furniture, textiles and light fittings are not part of this service; they are chosen during interior decorating or in procurement. How the chosen tiles and flooring are then laid is covered on the pages about tiling and flooring installation.

The materials list: what it records

We bring the result of the selection together in a materials list. The renovation estimate is priced from it, the purchases are made from it, and five years later it is where you look up the same tile to replace a cracked one.

We calculate the bathroom and splashback tiles from the tile layout in the working drawings, if those have been ordered, and everything else from the floor and wall areas with a margin for cutting: recesses and boxing use up some of the tiles, and large formats produce more waste. On top of that we add one or two boxes from the same batch, which stay in the apartment.

We look at samples in the apartment in daylight

In a showroom, tiles are lit by bright, cold lamps, with hundreds of other samples next to them. In the apartment the same porcelain tile looks different: warmer by a west-facing window, greyer in a room with north-facing windows, darker in the corridor. So the final choice is made where the material will be laid.

We put samples of flooring, tiles and cabinet fronts side by side, on the floor and against the wall, and look at them by day and in the evening. A small strip on a fan deck and a test patch the size of a sheet of paper look like two different colours, so we choose paint from test patches on the wall. Two or three neighbouring shades on different walls show straight away which one turns grey in your light and which one goes yellow. Combinations are also easy to check on a 3D rendering of the room, but the final word on colour belongs to the sample on the wall.

If you are not in Batumi, we film the samples in daylight, next to each other and next to a white sheet of paper for comparison. A screen distorts colour a little, but a “this one is warmer than that one” difference shows up reliably on video. If you can come over for even a day, it is better to approve the main items in person, and we'll bring the samples to the apartment in advance for that day.

What is available in Batumi and what has to be ordered

Some tiles, sanitary ware and doors are in shops in Batumi, some are in warehouses in Tbilisi, and delivery from there usually takes a few days. Made-to-order collections, large formats and rare colours come from factories in Turkey, Spain or Italy, and then it is a matter of weeks. The supplier gives the exact delivery time when the order is placed; we enter it in the materials list and fit the order into the renovation schedule so that the crew isn't left waiting.

For a made-to-order item we keep a back-up option from stock with the same format and thickness. If the delivery slips, a replacement can be agreed within a day, and the layout doesn't have to be redrawn on the fly.

In the materials list we separately mark the items the crew needs before the finishing stage: installation frames, the concealed parts of mixer taps, shower drains, frames for hidden doors. They are chosen together with the rest of the sanitary ware and doors, but they come first in the order schedule.

Selecting to a budget: where to save and where not to

We discuss the materials budget on the first day. Mid-range finishing materials cost 390–540 ₾ per m² of the apartment, and that range is a convenient starting point. For the key items we offer two or three options at different prices, and you decide where to spend more and where to save.

It makes sense to save where the material is barely visible. In a bathroom, the expensive collection can be kept for the one wall behind the washbasin, and the other walls tiled with a simple tile of the same format and thickness, so that the rows and joints line up. We don't advise cutting corners on things that are touched every day or can't be replaced without opening up the finishes: mixer taps, door handles, the floor by the entrance, the concealed parts of the sanitary ware.

Materials for an apartment you rent out

A short-term rental apartment has different requirements: the material has to survive hundreds of cleans, wheeled suitcases and sand from the beach. For the floor we choose porcelain tiles or SPC vinyl in a mid tone with a light texture, because dark gloss shows every mark and white shows the sand. The walls get washable paint, and the grout in the shower is not white.

The second requirement is that anything that gets broken or scratched has to be quick to replace, so we take tiles and mixer taps from collections that are always on sale in Georgia, and leave a reserve in the apartment. How the design of a guest apartment divides things into a base and changeable accents is described on the page about design for short-term rental.

How much renovation materials selection costs in Batumi

Selecting finishing materials with a materials list costs from 37 to 49 ₾ per m² of the apartment's floor area. The price covers choosing the tiles, flooring, paint, sanitary ware and doors, showing you samples, and a materials list with product codes, shops and quantities. This is the designer's fee: the materials themselves and the paint testers are paid for separately, against the shops' receipts.

A shopping trip with the designer to shops and showrooms, lasting up to four hours, costs 360–480 ₾. It suits you if you want to choose the main items yourself, but with guidance. If all you need is advice on a selection you have already made, a consultation is enough, at 275–360 ₾ an hour, in person or online. Selection is ordered as a separate service when there is no design project, or when the project consists of a layout only. A full project already includes a materials list, and in a project with procurement and supervision, at 215–265 ₾ per m², we also do the buying from it.

The price moves towards the upper end with two bathrooms with complex tile layouts, natural stone and many made-to-order items, and towards the lower end with one paint and one floor covering for the bedrooms and the corridor. The final cost is set after the measured survey and once we have agreed exactly what we are selecting.

Buying from the materials list and substitutions

You can buy the materials on the list yourself or leave the purchasing to us, in which case it becomes procurement and is priced separately. If you buy yourself, show us the material before installation: we'll check the product code and the batch on every box and look at the calibre. If we do the buying, we attach the receipts to our report.

Any substitution after the materials list is approved is agreed with you. A shop may offer an “almost identical” tile of a different thickness, and then the thresholds won't line up. We enter the substituted item in the materials list with the date, and the foreman works from the latest version. If a designer's eye is needed on site, for example when expensive tiles are being set out, that is part of designer supervision.