Two very different kinds of project

The single biggest factor in how long a project takes has surprisingly little to do with size. It is whether a building permit is required.

A furnishing and decoration project, new furniture, lighting, textiles, no structural work, moves through design, sourcing and ordering before production even starts: twelve to sixteen weeks once ordered, plus delivery. In total, four to seven months from first meeting to installation, driven mostly by production time, not the design itself.

Add wallpaper, paint, new flooring, lighting, or a kitchen and bathroom, and construction runs alongside that process, typically another two to four months, for a light renovation total of six to ten months. This usually needs a simple notification to the commune (up to thirty days), filed early enough not to add to the total.

Removing a load-bearing wall still needs a permit and an engineer’s calculations, but if it affects no neighbour, the commune can often exempt it from public consultation, typically eight to fourteen months in total, though not every case qualifies.

A change of use, a change to a façade, or a structural case that isn’t exempted moves into the full procedure: ten to eighteen months, and well beyond that for a full restructuring or new build.

Very few clients arriving from abroad expect this distinction to matter as much as it does, but it is usually the single most useful thing we can tell someone in a first conversation.

Indicative ranges for French-speaking Switzerland, from first meeting to handover, assuming no major interruptions. Every property, and every commune, is a little different.

Where the months actually go

Swiss design practice follows a recognised sequence, brief, concept, technical detail, tender, build, handover, starting with a clear brief on style, wishes and must-haves. For anything beyond a single room, this becomes a series of phases: concept options, feedback and refinement, then drawings developed for building and quotation, then orders and deliveries. Each phase takes its own time, for a project touching more than about three rooms, expect at least four months here, and an approval that drifts by three weeks pushes the whole project back by three weeks, not less.

Once building work begins, the numbers get concrete: two months on site for a bathroom, twelve weeks for a kitchen after quotation approval, around four months for a larger renovation without exterior work.

Decisions made on paper, before anything is built.

The permit process is the biggest unknown

Switzerland works with more than one route here, under the same cantonal rules (LATC/RLATC) whether a property sits in Vevey, Montreux, Blonay, Corseaux or Grandvaux, and which one applies is often case by case, not from a fixed list. A simple notification covers minor work, usually reviewed within weeks with no public consultation; a full permit, with public inquiry, is needed for anything more substantial, and the line can surprise, since even a small change like a fireplace is sometimes judged case by case. This is why it is worth asking early.

Whichever route applies, the application has to be filed by someone authorised to do so. For a simple notification, that can be the owner or their appointed project manager; a full permit’s technical drawings must be prepared and signed by a qualified architect or engineer. Both routes only begin once the technical drawings are finished, a commune reviews a finished dossier, not an idea in progress.

The public consultation itself is fixed at thirty days by law, but that is one step in a longer review, a realistic total is six to nine months from submission to decision, plus six to twelve more if a neighbour appeals. A notification, by comparison, is usually settled within weeks. None of this is a reason to delay a project, it is a reason to start the conversation early.

Renovating in the mountains — Verbier, Crans-Montana, Champéry

A chalet or apartment renovation in a resort commune follows the same broad principles as Vaud, Val de Bagnes (Verbier), Crans-Montana and Champéry all run their own cantonal procedure, but with one addition: an annual construction-noise calendar that governs when work can happen at all, indoors as well as outside.

The pattern is consistent, even as exact dates shift every year. Sites close completely around Christmas and New Year. Around the February and summer school holidays, work continues only within shortened hours, and the heaviest, noisiest processes, demolition, drilling, jackhammers, are banned or tightly restricted; a bathroom demolition falls squarely into that category. Quieter finishing work, such as painting, can often continue with advance notice to the commune.

This can matter more than it first appears: a project spanning a winter season can lose several weeks of working days to these closures, on top of the usual construction time. We build the calendar into the plan from the outset, and confirm the current dates with the commune before committing to a start date.

A chalet renovation in the mountains follows its own calendar.

What causes delay

A schedule rarely slips because of the design work itself. What usually does: slow decisions, since a delayed approval pushes back everything after it; lead times on anything made to order, which is why we order as soon as a quotation is approved rather than waiting for the site to be ready; and what a building turns out to be once it is opened up, drawings are not always current, and in older buildings, asbestos, ageing pipes or a beam in the wrong place can surface, which is why we stay closely involved through construction. The one thing never worth rushing is the design phase itself, the least expensive part of a project, and the one most likely to prevent an expensive mistake later.

On site: when a renovation reveals what was hidden, we find the solution together with the contractor.

Typical lead times, in practice

• Bespoke kitchens: eight to fourteen weeks, once specified and ordered.
• Made-to-order upholstery: ten to sixteen weeks.
• Natural stone worktops: four to eight weeks after installation begins.

Several of these run in parallel once ordered, another reason an early, approved quotation protects a schedule far more than urgency ever does.

Questions we’re often asked

Can I live in the property while the work is being done?

For work limited to one room, or to surface finishes, often yes. Once a kitchen, bathroom or technical installations are involved, we would generally advise against it, contractors then have to work around you, which slows things down.

When should we actually get in touch?

As early as realistically possible, ideally before a property is purchased. An early visit tells us what a building will actually allow, and whether a permit is needed, before a project’s scope and budget are set.

A project’s real duration is decided in its first few weeks: the scope that is agreed, the permit question that is answered honestly, and how much is genuinely bespoke. Those three decisions, made early and kept to, do more for a schedule than anything attempted once the site is open.

One coherent home, delivered on schedule.