Renovations

Remodel, not a new plot

On the quote form this is “renovation or remodel.” It covers kitchens and rooms reworked, facades that have tired, compounds reorganised, and buildings brought back into better daily use. It is not a new build on a clear plot, and it is not automatically a structural repair. The overlap is real: a remodel that opens a wall can discover that the wall was doing more work than the drawing assumed. We would rather find that on a visit than in a fixed price written from a mood board.

Micheletti Construction reads the request. The same company handlesroofing, which matters because renovations leak at the moment the old covering is disturbed. A new ceiling under a tired sheet is a way to hide a problem for one season.

Occupied buildings

If the household stays, the programme is a sequence of rooms, not a single dramatic strip-out. Dust, noise, and a dry path to a bedroom are part of the job. In a shop or a small office the equivalent is keeping a trading bay open. Tell us that on the form. A renovation priced as if the building were empty will be wrong on the first Monday.

Wet months raise the stakes. In Lagos, roughly April to October, an open external wall or a lifted roof needs a same-day way to keep the rain out. The August lull is not a guarantee. In Abuja the peak is later in the single wet season, and harmattan dust will mark wet paint and fresh render if the openings are not managed. In Ibadan the long wet season and the second peak around September punish a renovation that started because August looked kind.

The three cities wear differently

Lagos renovations often fight moisture and salt as much as fashion. A Victoria Island or Lekki house may need the envelope — windows, railings, roof edges — looked at before the interior is specified. A Surulere or Yaba house may be an older fabric with previous patches, tight access, and neighbours on the party line. Magodo and Festac add gates and estate roads to an otherwise domestic job. Flooding at street level is a separate question from a stained ceiling; both can be true, and a new floor finish will not solve the street.

Abuja renovations often sit inside districts with rules. A Maitama house and a flat in Wuse do not share access or a likely age of building. Gwarinpa and Lokogoma estates repeat similar houses, which can make a finish easier to match and a scaffold more visible to the estate office. Dust on external repaint is a dry-season subject; leaking balconies are a wet-season one. Flat roofs on some newer houses turn a “coat of paint” into a waterproofing question.

Ibadan renovations meet older stock. Jericho and Iyaganku GRAs, Old Bodija’s planned plots, houses near the University of Ibadan, and busier New Bodija or Challenge frontages have been altered for decades. Sheets have been patched. Rooms have been added. A remodel that does not ask what the last alteration did to the roof will repaint a leak. Akobo’s mix of older bungalows and newer flats means the street, not the postcode, tells you the job.

A straight description

Say what you want to be different when the work is finished, and what must keep working during it. Say the city and the neighbourhood. Mention previous repairs if you know about them. Photos of the rooms and of anything stained or cracked are optional and useful. We will not publish them as a case study.

Prices stay off this page. The cost moves with how much of the building must stay in use, how high the work is, what materials are being asked to survive the local weather, and whether the job can wait for a drier window. Request a quote when you want that looked at properly.