Renovation vs touch-up: what is the difference, and what does a real house renovation cost in Thailand?
A touch-up is surface work: new paint, ceilings or floors, with no repair to the structure, no work on the electrical and plumbing systems and no new layout. A renovation fixes the house from the structure and the building services through to how the spaces are laid out. A real renovation costs roughly THB 20,000–25,000 per m² to build, depending on the condition of the building and the drawings, so a 100 m² house needs a construction budget of about THB 2–2.5 million. Most of what is sold as a “renovation for a few hundred thousand baht” is a touch-up.
Touch-up vs renovation
| Touch-up | Renovation | |
|---|---|---|
| What is done | Paint, ceilings, floors: the surfaces look new | Structure, building services and a new layout |
| Structure | Not repaired | Surveyed, repaired or strengthened for the new work |
| Electrical, plumbing and services | Not touched | Laid out again for how you use the house |
| Layout | Unchanged | Redesigned for how you live now, fixing heat, darkness and still air |
| Who does it | A builder or handyman | Architect, engineers and a contractor |
| Construction cost | Much lower, because it is surface work | Roughly THB 20,000–25,000 per m² |
Why people think renovation is cheap
Most articles and ads about “renovating a house for a few hundred thousand baht” describe touch-ups. The house looks new in photos, but the old problems are all still there. Some jobs just add a lightweight partition wall without any structure to carry it.
If the house has problems in its structure, its services or a layout that no longer fits the way you live, new paint does not fix them, and the work may have to be torn out and done again later.
What a real renovation costs
Construction cost is hard to estimate, because it depends on the condition of each building and the drawings. As a rough figure, a real renovation costs about THB 20,000–25,000 per m².
| Area renovated | Approximate construction cost |
|---|---|
| 50 m² | THB 1–1.25 million |
| 100 m² | THB 2–2.5 million |
| 150 m² | THB 3–3.75 million |
| 200 m² | THB 4–5 million |
These are construction costs only, without the design fee. See our design fee; renovation is charged at the same rate as new design.
When to hire an architect for a renovation
From a construction budget of about THB 2–3 million, or whenever the structure, the services or the layout need to change, an architect pays off: detailed drawings let several contractors price the same list, and someone checks that the work matches the design. For a touch-up, hiring a builder directly is enough.
Old buildings can hide anything, so start with a survey of the structure and the services
When an old house is opened up, we can find anything. Before we design a renovation, we survey the existing building, so the new design and the budget rest on its real condition.
What we find most often is the building services of houses 30 years old or more:
- Plumbing and drainage still run to old cesspits and soakaways that have to be pumped out, not a modern packaged septic tank.
- Electrical wiring has no earth (ground) wire, which is very dangerous.
A touch-up on an old building that leaves the services as they are is therefore quite dangerous: the house looks new, but the old risks are still there behind the fresh paint.
Steps and timing
A renovation follows about the same steps and design time as a new house: preliminary design, design development, construction and engineering drawings, the permit and the tender. See how long designing a house takes.
An example from our work: 3789
A run-down old building of about 300 m² in Bang Rak, Bangkok, renovated into a bright and airy home: the spaces open into each other, and glass-block walls bring in light while keeping the rooms private. See the 3789 project, and a video walk-through on our Facebook.
How to start
Send us photos of the house as it is, the existing plan if you have it, the floor area, what you want to fix and a rough budget on LINE. We will tell you whether it is a touch-up or a renovation, and draft a proposal first, at no charge.