Apartment pre-finishing in Batumi

The condition we start from and where we stop

We start apartment pre-finishing in Batumi from one of two conditions. More often it is the developer's white frame: the plaster and screed are already there, but the wiring, the flatness and the outlets have been done for a standard apartment, not for your furniture. Less often it is our own rough renovation from black frame, or after a strip-out in a resale apartment. Then the services are already in place, and what is left for pre-finishing is the skim coat, levelling the floor and primer.

The stage ends when the walls and floor are ready for finishing and nothing more needs chasing or pouring. “Pre-finishing” is a market term, and different contractors put different things into it. So in the contract we write not the name but a list: which walls we prepare for paint, which for wallpaper or tiles, and what covering we level the floor for in each room. Next comes finishing, which we can do, or a crew of your choice.

White frame and pre-finishing: what is the difference

In photos both apartments look equally grey, and in listings they are easy to confuse. The difference is what each one is ready for. The developer writes the scope of white frame into its own contract, and we describe pre-finishing as a list of work in ours. Into white frame you bring a crew to do the renovation; into an apartment after pre-finishing you can bring the painter and the tiler straight away.

How we check the developer's screed and plaster and decide what to keep is covered on the page about white frame renovation. Pre-finishing covers only the first half of the way to moving in. It is ordered on its own when the owner wants to put off the finishing, or hand it to their own crew or to a designer who works with their own tradesmen.

A finishes map: what to decide before the skim coat

The same wall is prepared differently for paint, wallpaper and tiles, and a floor is levelled to different accuracy for laminate and for glue-down vinyl. So before the start we draw up a map of the apartment: the finish of every wall and the covering of every floor. From it, the estimate shows how many skim coat passes and what floor layer you are paying for. The most expensive decisions are the ones changed after the stage:

Skim coat grades and the number of passes are covered on the page about skim coating walls, and when a floor can do without a self-levelling layer, on the page about the self-levelling floor.

The order of work: the skim coat goes after all the chasing

The pre-finishing stage is easiest to spoil through the order of work. Every chase cut after the skim coat means filling it, sanding again, and a patch that will later show through the paint. So we go like this:

1. setting out to the furniture plan: sockets, outlets, positions of the air conditioning units, and a laser line from the finished floor level on every wall;
2. chases, new circuits, moving water and drain outlets, air conditioner pipe runs, then a pressure test and a continuity test;
3. correcting walls and screed where they failed the check, replacing gypsum plaster with cement plaster in the shower area, plasterboard boxing and niches;
4. waterproofing the bathroom and balcony, then 24 hours under water;
5. skim coat, sanding and reveals;
6. a self-levelling layer where it is needed: nobody is carrying stepladders and buckets of mortar across the room any more, and the layer has time to dry while the tiler and the painter are working at the finishing stage;
7. primer, photos, diagrams and the stage certificate.

We usually do the bathroom waterproofing in parallel with the skim coat in the rooms: they are different tradesmen in different rooms, and no week is lost in the schedule. Which product we use in the bathroom, and which in a walk-in shower without a tray and on the balcony, is described on the page about waterproofing.

Acceptance if another crew will do the finishing

If another contractor will do the finishing, accepting the stage becomes the boundary of responsibility, and it is better if a tradesman from the next crew is there. We show them the walls with a lamp, the floor with a straightedge and a moisture meter, the needle of the pressure gauge and the continuity test on the circuits. Comments recorded that day we put right before the certificate is signed. A wave noticed only after painting is harder to sort out: under paint you can't see where our work ended and someone else's began.

Together with the certificate we hand over the things without which the finishing crew would be working blind:

• routing diagrams for the electrics and water, with dimensions from the floor and the corners;
• a line from the finished floor level on the walls of every room;
• a wall map: which walls are ready for paint, and which for wallpaper or tiles;
• a list of the products on the walls and floors, so that compatible adhesive and paint are chosen;
• photos of the waterproofing before it was covered, and a video of the water test.

How much apartment pre-finishing costs in Batumi

Pre-finishing from white frame costs from 175 to 265 ₾ per m² of apartment floor area. This is the price for labour only. Materials are priced separately: you buy the mixes, primer, cable, pipes and waterproofing yourself from our list, or have us buy them. In the price table rough-work materials are shown as a separate line, from 120 to 155 ₾ per m² of apartment, but from white frame less of them is usually needed than in a full rough cycle.

Within the range, the price is moved by the number of new circuits and moved outlets, the skim coat grade and the area that needs a self-levelling layer. As a guide: skim coating walls for painting costs from 23 to 36 ₾ per m² of wall, a self-levelling floor from 14 to 18 ₾ per m², and a liquid waterproofing membrane in two coats from 30 to 42 ₾ per m². An apartment where the developer's layout matches your furniture and the walls are going under matt paint and wallpaper is closer to the lower end. Moving the kitchen, air conditioner runs to every room and semi-matt paint by panoramic windows push the price up.

If the apartment is in black frame, it needs rough renovation first: that costs from 370 to 505 ₾ per m², including rough-work materials. The final cost is set after the site measurement and once the estimate is agreed, and the price of each stage is fixed in the contract.