Krtsanisi Grande Renovation Brief

Why

A shell at $1,840 competes with a new-build at $1,900. It loses.

The developer still sells unsold stock in the same complex from around $1,900/m². A buyer looking at a grey shell has two options: ours at a 3% discount, or the developer's with a warranty, a payment plan and a sales office. That is not a discount, it is a rounding error. The resale shell has no argument to make.

Buyers in this segment are not construction managers. They cannot price the gap between bare concrete and a finished home, so they assume the worst and walk to the apartment where the gap is already closed. The three viewings that ended in someone else's renovated apartment are the market telling us exactly this.

1

Liquidity first, margin second

The property is not selling at all. A finished apartment moves into a deeper, faster pool of buyers: relocators, families, and rental investors who want to move in or let it out this month.

2

The uplift more than covers the work

Break-even sits near $2,350/m². Renovated stock in Krtsanisi trades from $2,300 to $2,800/m². The renovation pays for itself in the middle of that band and earns above it.

3

Distinctive costs almost nothing extra

The delta between a forgettable beige renovation and a memorable one is a few thousand dollars of paint, tile and joinery choices. The price delta at the top of the comp band is five times that.

The thesis in one line. Tbilisi's renovated inventory is overwhelmingly grey-and-white minimalism. We are not trying to beat it on square metres or on price. We are making the one apartment in the search results that photographs like a European home rather than a serviced apartment.

How

Five rules that decide every spend.

Not a taste exercise. Each rule exists to make the listing photos better or the viewing more convincing, and to keep money away from things buyers never notice.

Spend where the camera looks

The first three listing photos do most of the selling. That means the floor, the kitchen wall, the bathroom, and the light through the balcony doors. Concentrate budget on those four surfaces; everything else is competent and quiet.

One committed colour, everywhere else calm

Warm off-white walls throughout, with a single deep blue-green used deliberately, on kitchen fronts, or the WC, or a joinery wall. Colour is what makes a photo scroll-stopping. Colour everywhere is what makes it exhausting.

Warm floor, wall to wall

Oak-toned herringbone through the whole interior, no thresholds between rooms. In a 52 m² footprint, one continuous floor reads as a bigger apartment, and herringbone is the single cheapest signal of "this was designed".

Finish the wet rooms completely

Bathroom and WC done to the last towel rail, kitchen fitted with appliances. A half-finished wet room kills a deal faster than no renovation at all, because it reads as a problem the buyer inherits.

No furniture, but not empty

Fitted joinery, lighting, mirrors, blinds and door hardware are part of the build, not decoration. They carry the photographs without buying a sofa. Digital staging can add the rest for the listing.

Neutral where taste is personal

Deep colour goes on repaintable surfaces. Tile, stone, worktops and floors stay in warm neutrals. A buyer who dislikes the blue can change it in a weekend, and knows it.

What

Scope of the deliverable.

A handover-ready apartment: everything fixed to the building is finished and working. Nothing loose is bought.

In scope

Bathroom, complete: waterproofing, tiling, shower or tub, WC, vanity, mirror, towel rail, extract, plumbed washing machine space
Separate WC, complete: wall-hung pan, concealed cistern, compact basin, tiling or wet-paint scheme
Fitted kitchen: cabinetry, worktop, splashback, sink, tap, hob, oven, extractor, integrated fridge and dishwasher
Floors: levelling screed and oak-toned herringbone across the full interior
Walls and ceilings: plaster correction, plasterboard ceilings, cornice, skirting, paint
Electrics: full first and second fix, consumer unit, lighting design, sockets, data
Heating and cooling: boiler connection, radiators or underfloor, split AC to living room and bedroom
Doors: entrance door upgrade, three interior doors, all hardware
Balconies: both finished, utility corner boxed in and ventilated
Handover: deep clean, snagging, appliance manuals, photography

Out of scope

Free-standing furniture of any kind: sofa, beds, tables, chairs
Soft furnishing, rugs, artwork, plants
Wardrobes, unless a fitted niche unit proves cheaper than losing the wall
Smart-home systems beyond wiring provision
Structural change to load-bearing elements
Anything requiring a permit that adds weeks to the programme

Two grey areas to decide early, both cheap and both photographic: window blinds or curtain tracks, and a fitted bench or joinery wall in the living room. Treat them as scope, not decoration.

When

Sixteen weeks from decision to listing.

Twelve of those are on site. The four that decide whether the schedule holds are the first two and the last two: design lock and procurement at the front, photography and listing at the back.

Weeks 1–2 · Design lock

Pick one scenario and freeze it

Choose from the three scenarios, lock the layout, produce dimensioned plans, an electrical and lighting plan, and tile and joinery drawings. Every change after this week costs money and days.

Weeks 2–3 · Procurement

Order the long-lead items

Kitchen cabinetry, interior doors, tile, sanitaryware, appliances, flooring. Tile and doors are the usual schedule killers in Tbilisi. Order before demolition, not after.

Weeks 3–5 · Rough works

Partitions, first fix, screed

Any partition changes, then electrical and plumbing first fix, bathroom waterproofing, floor levelling. Screed then needs its curing time. Do not compress it.

Weeks 6–8 · Wet rooms and surfaces

Tiling, plaster, ceilings

Bathroom and WC tiled, plasterboard ceilings built, walls skimmed. The apartment stops looking like a building site around week 8, which is a good moment for a site review.

Weeks 9–11 · Fit-out

Floor, doors, kitchen, paint

Herringbone laid, skirting and cornice fixed, doors hung, kitchen installed and templated, painting. Worktop templating adds a week of its own if the top is stone.

Weeks 12–13 · Second fix

Everything switched on

Sanitaryware, taps, appliances, lighting, sockets, AC units, mirrors, towel rails. Commission the boiler and test every circuit and every drain.

Week 14 · Snagging

Punch list closed before anyone photographs it

Walk the apartment with a list, fix everything on it, then walk it again. Deep clean. This is the week people skip and regret.

Weeks 15–16 · Go to market

Photography, staging, relist

Professional photographs in good afternoon light, a short walkthrough video, optional digital staging, then relist at the new price with a new headline. Treat it as a launch, not an edit to the old listing.

Season matters. Sixteen weeks starting now puts the relaunch in late winter, ahead of the spring buying season rather than into it. Starting two months later means listing in summer, which is the slowest window of the year in Tbilisi.

Who

Small team, one decision-maker.

63 m² does not need a project management layer. It needs one person who answers questions the same day, and a contractor who does not need chasing.

Role	Owns	Notes
Owner: Pavel	Budget, scenario choice, sale price, every trade-off between cost and finish	The single approval point. Same-day answers on site questions are worth more than a weekly site visit.
General contractor	All trades, sequencing, site protection, snagging	Fixed-price against a drawn scope. Ask for two references you can visit in person, and hold a retention until snagging closes.
Designer / visualiser	Layout, palette, lighting plan, tile and joinery drawings, renders	Can be a person or an AI-generated scenario pack refined into technical drawings. The drawings are the part that cannot be skipped.
Kitchen supplier	Survey, cabinetry, worktop template and install	Separate contract from the builder. Lead time drives the whole back half of the programme.
Site contact in Tbilisi	Deliveries, access, weekly photo report, cash payments	Essential if the owner is not in the country. A weekly ten-photo report catches most problems while they are still cheap.
Agent + photographer	Pricing sanity-check, listing, viewings, photo shoot	Bring the agent in at week 12, not week 16. A pricing opinion before the paint dries is still useful.

Context

Where this stands today.

The asset

Complex	Krtsanisi Grande, Grande Group
Address	Krtsanisi Lane 17, Tbilisi 0114
Status	Construction finished, unit delivered
Unit	1-bedroom + living/kitchen, 2 balconies
Interior	52.35 m²
Balconies	4.24 + 6.48 = 10.72 m²
Total	63.07 m²
Condition	Grey shell / white frame
Purchase	$1,600/m² · $100,800
Held	≈ 2.5 years

The market signal

Listed at $1,840/m² in shell condition. Several viewings, no offers.
Every viewer who did buy, bought a renovated apartment instead.
The developer still sells in the same complex from ~$1,900/m², which caps what any shell resale can ask.
Krtsanisi renovated stock in modern complexes trades roughly $2,300–2,800/m².
Turnkey renovation from shell in Tbilisi runs $350–600/m² depending on specification.

Read it plainly. The shell is priced into a segment that does not exist. There are buyers below us for cheaper districts and buyers above us for finished homes. Nobody is shopping for a $116k concrete box in a premium complex.

Market figures cross-checked against Korter (Krtsanisi Grande), MyHome price-per-m² by district, Rinox renovation costs 2026 and PB Services renovation guide. Treat them as a band, not a quote. Confirm with a local agent before setting the sale price.

Layout

One long living space, one bedroom, one wet core.

The plan is unusually good for its size: a 3.80 × 7.75 m living space with glazing at both ends, a genuine 12.75 m² bedroom, and the wet rooms stacked on one wall next to the entrance. The whole renovation is easier because the plumbing never has to travel.

Developer floor plan of the 63 m² apartment showing living area 33.14 m², bedroom 12.75 m², WC 5.33 m² and two balconies — **Developer plan.** 52.35 m² interior: living/kitchen 33.14 m², bedroom 12.75 m², wet room 5.33 m² (2.25 × 2.95 m). Balconies 4.24 m² and 6.48 m². Entrance at the top, into the living space.

Layout study showing proposed new partitions in green with kitchen run, wet room fixtures and bedroom wall — **Layout study.** Green marks new partitions. Kitchen run and tall units along the entry wall, wet-room fixtures grouped on the party wall, and a partition defining the bedroom.

What the plan gives us

7.75 m of clear length with light at both ends
Wet rooms adjacent to each other and to the entrance
Services already terminated on the balcony: gas, water manifold, heating distribution
Two balconies, one of them 6.48 m²: a real outdoor room, not a ledge

What the plan costs us

5.33 m² is tight for a bathroom that also has to hold a washing machine
The kitchen has no window wall, so lighting design has to do the work
Only one bedroom, so the living space has to feel generous enough to justify the price
Entering directly into the living space with no hallway needs a designed threshold

Decisions the scenarios must answer

One bathroom plus a separate WC, or one larger bathroom?
Kitchen along the entry wall, or an island / peninsula splitting the long room?
Bedroom closed with a solid wall, glazed partition, or sliding doors?
Washing machine in the bathroom, or moved to the balcony utility corner?

Location

Krtsanisi: green, diplomatic, five minutes from the old town.

Krtsanisi sits along the Mtkvari south-east of the historic centre: government residence, embassy row, Krtsanisi Forest Park, and a corridor of new premium complexes. It is quiet in a way central Tbilisi is not, and still inside the city.

Map of Tbilisi with the Krtsanisi district marked south-east of the historic centre — Krtsanisi district, Tbilisi 0114. Marker is approximate, the complex address is Krtsanisi Lane 17. Open in Google Maps. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Distances

Old Town / Meidan	≈ 2.5 km · 5–10 min drive
Rustaveli Avenue	≈ 4 km
Krtsanisi Forest Park	walking distance
Tbilisi International Airport	≈ 20–30 min drive

What the complex sells

Outdoor and indoor pools, fitness and spa, three-level underground parking, 24/7 security and concierge, and roughly 10,000 m² of landscaped grounds with a playground. These are the amenities the listing should lead with. They justify a premium per m² that the apartment alone does not.

Who the buyer is

Relocated professionals and their families who want a finished home and a secure compound; Georgian buyers trading up from older stock; and investors buying for long-let, for whom "furnished-ready, tenant next month" is the whole pitch. All three want to see a finished kitchen and bathroom before they take the viewing seriously.

Inspiration

Thirteen references, one consistent taste.

Collected without a brief, they converge hard: warm oak laid in herringbone, chalky off-white walls with proper white mouldings, and exactly one saturated colour, a deep blue that runs from navy to petrol teal, carried on joinery, doors and full walls. Brass where metal shows. Black used sparingly as a line, never a field.

Handleless dark-stained oak kitchen run against a white wall with a pale stone worktop — Dark-stained oak, handleless, pale worktop. Cabinetry as furniture.

Fluted oak island with a stone top, off-white tall cabinetry and herringbone parquet — Fluted oak island, stone top, off-white tall units, herringbone floor.

Kitchen room with tall white joinery, oak herringbone floor and moulded doorframes — Tall joinery to ceiling, deep skirting, moulded reveals.

Living room with a navy accent wall containing painted niches and a light oak floor — Navy wall with painted-in niches. The colour does the whole job.

Hallway with doors and panelling painted the same deep blue, oak parquet floor — Doors, frames and wall in one blue. No visible hardware fuss.

Teal painted wall meeting a white ceiling with a deep white crown moulding — Teal against white cornice. The moulding is what makes it look built, not painted.

Corridor with a navy accent wall, white joinery and a wide-plank oak floor — Navy on one plane only, white everywhere else.

Wide herringbone oak-look floor meeting tall white skirting at a corner — Herringbone in a wide format with tall white skirting. The achievable version.

Navy kitchen island with a brass tap, brass pendant lights and a chevron wood floor — Navy island, brass tap and pendants, chevron floor. Warm, not cold.

Small guest WC painted teal with black trim, wall-hung pan and a slim basin — Small WC, saturated teal, black trim. Exactly our 1.5 m² problem, solved.

Bathroom with navy painted lower wall, white tiles above, brass taps and patterned floor tile — Navy dado, white tile above, patterned floor, brass taps.

Hallway with navy built-in bookcase and wall, white doors and chevron oak floor — Navy joinery wall in a corridor. Storage that reads as architecture.

Living room with a blue-grey wall, recessed shelving in oak and a wide oak floor — Blue-grey wall, oak shelving, light floor. The calmest version of the palette.

Derived direction

Warm European classic, built at Tbilisi cost.

Not Japandi, not Scandi, not the grey minimalism that fills every other listing in the district. A warm apartment with white mouldings, oak underfoot and one deep blue-green room. The look of a renovated Amsterdam or Paris flat, delivered with Turkish and Georgian materials.

Chalk white#F4F0E8 · walls

Trim white#FFFFFF · cornice, skirting

Deep navy#1E3A57 · joinery

Petrol teal#17505A · WC, alt joinery

Warm oak#C6996A · floor

Aged brass#A8813F · taps, handles

Materials

Oak-toned herringbone, 8–10 mm laminate or SPC in a wide format. Engineered oak if the budget allows
White cornice and 100–120 mm skirting throughout, mitred properly
Matt chalk paint, washable in wet zones
Pale stone or compact-surface worktop, honed not polished
Large-format warm-neutral tile on bathroom walls; patterned or terrazzo-look floor tile for character
Fluted or shaker-profile fronts on at least one joinery run. Texture is what photographs

Fittings

Brushed brass taps, shower set and door handles; black only as a thin line
Wall-hung WC with concealed cistern in both wet rooms
Frameless glass shower screen, no shower tray lip if the floor build-up allows
Slim recessed downlights plus warm 2700K accent lighting: under-cabinet, mirror, and one pendant point
Full-height mirror in the bathroom, wall-to-wall over the vanity
Blinds or curtain tracks fitted, not left to the buyer

Deliberately avoided

Grey everything, cold white LEDs, glossy white cabinet fronts
Suspended ceilings with a light strip around the perimeter
Marble-look porcelain on every surface at once
Chrome fittings mixed with brass
Accent walls in more than one room
Anything that dates the apartment to 2019

Target condition

The same plan, finished, in three dimensions.

Traced off the developer plan above: you come in through the middle of the north wall, the wet room is on your right, a short corridor runs down to the bedroom, and the living space and kitchen fill the whole east side. Every surface is a texture cut from the reference photographs — the herringbone is that oak, the navy is that navy, the patterned wet-room floor is that tile. Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, or jump straight into a room.

Loading the model…

Solid is what is being paid for. Anything outside the budget — furniture, rugs, the wardrobe, the media joinery — is drawn 60% transparent, so the model shows the renovation and the dressing as two different things. Massing and finishes are indicative at this stage, not a construction drawing.

What the model commits to

The plan as drawn. Entrance mid-north wall, L-shaped wet room in the north-west corner, corridor down to the bedroom, living and kitchen filling the east side
One wet room, not two. Bathroom and WC combined, with the walk-in shower in the leg that runs south, so no plumbing moves and there is one lot of tanking and tiling instead of two
Kitchen in the north-east corner, an island facing the room, nothing blocking the door
Glazing only on the balcony wall: the flat has no other openings, so the kitchen is lit by design or not at all
Herringbone oak everywhere except the wet-room floor
One deep colour, navy, on the kitchen and the vanity. White everywhere else
White cornice and 100 mm skirting in every dry room

What it deliberately leaves open

Island versus peninsula, once the kitchen supplier quotes
Bedroom closed with a solid wall, as drawn, or a glazed partition
Washing machine in the wet room, as drawn, or on the balcony
Whether the balcony gets a floor finish or stays screed

The scope, task list and budget further down this page still assume a bathroom and a separate WC. Combining them is the newer decision and those sections have not caught up yet.

How it was built

Geometry from the developer plan, drawn to the metre in three.js. Textures generated by tools/build-textures.py, which crops the inspiration photographs, removes their lighting, relays the oak into a seamless herringbone lattice and tints each sample to the palette above.

Model areas: living/kitchen 36.0 m² including the corridor, bedroom 12.9, wet room 6.6, balconies 6.5 and 4.3. Ceiling 2.80 m. These run larger than the plan's own labels, because the plan does not agree with itself: it dimensions the wet room 2.25 × 2.95 m and then labels it 5.33 m², which is 6.6. The model follows the geometry, not the labels. Worth a tape measure on site before anyone quotes tiling or flooring by the metre.

Current condition

Grey shell, honestly assessed.

Better than the average white frame: glazing is in, services are terminated in a sensible place, and the balconies are already screeded and clad. Everything else starts from concrete.

Bare living room with raw concrete slab ceiling, plastered walls, unfinished concrete floor and installed balcony glazing — **Living room.** Plastered walls, exposed slab ceiling with formwork marks, unfinished floor, glazing installed with protective film. Electrical tails hanging from the wall.

26-second walkthrough: entrance, living room, balcony, utility corner and the view.

View from the entrance along the corridor toward the balcony glazing — Entrance looking through to the balcony. The shot the listing photos will use.

Living room floor with red PEX pipe runs lying loose on raw concrete — Heating pipe runs loose on the slab. No screed anywhere.

Full-height balcony door and window unit, protective film still on the frames — Full-height glazing installed, film still on. Good light, both ends.

Balcony with timber-look clad reveals and a finished floor — Balcony reveals already clad in timber-look panel, floor finished.

Balcony corner with gas pipe, white water manifold with valves and red PEX distribution — Utility corner: gas line, water manifold with valves, heating distribution, floor drain.

View from the balcony over greenery and an adjacent construction site toward wooded hills — View: greenery and hills, plus an active site next door. Shoot around it.

View toward the neighbouring block of the complex — Neighbouring block. Overlooking distances are comfortable.

Wet room shell with a drain stack and pipe stubs in the corner — Wet room shell. Drain stack and stubs in the corner set where the fixtures can go.

Condition audit

Element	State today	Implication
Ceilings	Bare concrete slab, visible joints and formwork marks	Plasterboard ceiling throughout. Buys the coffer for downlights and hides the AC pipework.
Walls	Plastered, unpainted and patchy, some areas raw block	Skim coat and correction before paint. Budget for more correction than the photos suggest.
Floor	Raw concrete, no screed, uneven, pipe runs lying loose	Levelling screed across the full interior, with curing time in the programme.
Windows and balcony doors	Double glazed, aluminium/PVC, installed, film still on	Nothing to spend. Reveals need finishing and sills fitting.
Electrics	Cable tails stubbed out, no boxes, no consumer unit	Full first and second fix. Design the lighting before anything is chased.
Plumbing	Water manifold with valves and heating distribution terminated on the balcony	Good position. Runs to kitchen and wet rooms are short. Boil down to one clean chase.
Gas	Gas line present at the balcony utility corner	Boiler location is effectively decided. Box it in, ventilate it, keep access.
Heating and cooling	None installed	Radiators or underfloor, plus two split AC units. Underfloor competes with floor build-up. Decide at design lock.
Wet rooms	Empty shell, no waterproofing, no fixtures	Full build: tank, tile, fit out. The single biggest line item after the kitchen.
Kitchen	Nothing	Full fitted kitchen with appliances. Longest lead time on the job.
Doors	No interior doors; entrance door basic	Three interior doors plus an entrance door upgrade. Cheap, and buyers touch every one of them.
Balconies	Floors finished, reveals clad, drain present	Light touch only: clean up, lighting, one socket, screen the utility corner.

Verify on site before pricing. Ceiling height to slab, actual floor level variance across the 7.75 m span, whether the heating distribution is sized for underfloor, and the exact wet-room drainage position. Those four numbers move the budget by thousands in either direction.

Task list

Everything that has to happen, in order.

Grouped by phase. Critical path items are the ones that push the finish date if they slip. Nothing below assumes a specific scenario. The scenarios change the finishes, not the sequence.

#	Task	Phase	Flag
1	Measure the apartment properly: dimensions, ceiling height, floor level variance, service positions	Design	Critical path
2	Choose one of the three renovation scenarios and freeze it	Design	Critical path
3	Produce dimensioned layout, electrical and lighting plan, tile setting-out, joinery drawings	Design	Critical path
4	Confirm target sale price with an agent against live renovated comps	Design
5	Tender the scope to three contractors, fixed price, same drawings	Procurement	Critical path
6	Sign contract with payment schedule tied to milestones and a retention	Procurement
7	Order kitchen cabinetry and worktop, survey first	Procurement	Critical path
8	Order tile, sanitaryware, taps and shower set	Procurement	Critical path
9	Order interior doors and entrance door	Procurement	Critical path
10	Order flooring, skirting and cornice with 10% waste allowance	Procurement
11	Order appliances: hob, oven, hood, fridge, dishwasher, washing machine	Procurement
12	Register works with the building management, agree lift access and working hours	Procurement
13	Site protection: glazing, entrance door, balcony finishes, lift	Rough works
14	Build or adjust partitions per the chosen layout	Rough works	Critical path
15	Electrical first fix: chases, consumer unit position, all circuits, lighting points, data	Rough works	Critical path
16	Plumbing first fix: hot, cold and drainage to kitchen, bathroom, WC, washing machine	Rough works	Critical path
17	Heating: boiler position and flue, radiator or underfloor loops from the balcony manifold	Rough works	Critical path
18	AC first fix: indoor unit positions, condensate runs, outdoor unit mounting	Rough works
19	Bathroom and WC tanking: full waterproofing to floor and wet walls, flood test	Rough works	Critical path
20	Levelling screed across the full interior, then cure	Rough works	Critical path
21	Tile bathroom and WC: floor and walls, setting-out approved on site before adhesive	Surfaces	Critical path
22	Plasterboard ceilings with service voids and AC access panels	Surfaces
23	Wall correction and skim, window reveals, sills	Surfaces
24	Kitchen splashback and any feature wall tiling	Surfaces
25	Lay herringbone flooring wall to wall, no thresholds between rooms	Fit-out	Critical path
26	Fix skirting and cornice, fill and caulk every joint	Fit-out
27	Hang interior doors, fit entrance door and all hardware	Fit-out
28	Install kitchen cabinetry; template worktop and install once cut	Fit-out	Critical path
29	Build any fitted joinery: niche unit, bench, wardrobe carcass	Fit-out	Optional
30	Paint everything: ceilings, walls, trim, accent colour	Fit-out
31	Sanitaryware, taps, shower screen, towel rails, mirrors, bathroom accessories	Second fix
32	Appliances installed, plumbed and tested	Second fix
33	Electrical second fix: sockets, switches, all light fittings, extract fans	Second fix
34	AC units mounted and commissioned; boiler commissioned and certified	Second fix
35	Blinds or curtain tracks fitted	Second fix	Optional
36	Balcony finishing: clean up, box in and ventilate the utility corner, add light and socket	Second fix
37	Snagging walk with a written list; fix; second walk to close it	Handover	Critical path
38	Deep clean including glazing, balconies and inside every cabinet	Handover
39	Collect warranties, appliance manuals, boiler certificate, paint codes for the buyer	Handover
40	Professional photography and a walkthrough video, shot in afternoon light	Go to market	Critical path
41	Digital staging of the empty rooms for the listing	Go to market	Optional
42	Relist as a new launch: new price, new headline, new photo set, agent briefed	Go to market	Critical path

Money

What it costs and what it has to return.

Illustrative, not a quote. The point is the shape of the trade, not the third decimal place. Confirm every line against a real Tbilisi tender before committing.

Indicative budget

Line	Low	High
Design, drawings, site setup	$900	$1,800
Partitions, plaster correction, screed	$2,500	$3,500
Electrics, first and second fix	$2,200	$3,200
Plumbing and heating distribution	$2,400	$3,600
Boiler, supply and install (balcony)	$650	$1,050
Split AC, two units	$1,100	$1,900
Bathroom + WC, complete	$4,500	$6,800
Kitchen with appliances	$5,000	$8,000
Flooring, skirting, cornice	$2,300	$3,800
Doors and hardware	$1,200	$2,100
Ceilings, painting, decoration	$2,000	$3,000
Lighting and electrical fittings	$900	$1,700
Balconies, clean, snagging	$800	$1,400
Contingency, 10%	$2,645	$4,185
Total	$29,100	$46,000
Per m² of total area	$461	$729

Plan around $32,000. Below $28k the finish stops being the reason someone pays a premium; above $40k the maths only works at the top of the comp band. The boiler is its own line now, not folded into "plumbing": it's a wall-hung gas combi, 24–28 kW, landing on the balcony utility corner where the gas line and water manifold already terminate — visible in the shell walkthrough video, and real stocked products at that corner's supplier (Domino sells the Ariston Clas X and EMKO ranges), though the live GEL price wasn't pullable this session, so the number above is a regional estimate against those real SKUs.

The trade

Scenario	$/m²	Sale	vs. today's ask
Do nothing (current ask)	1,840	$115,920	n/a
Break-even after $32k	2,348	$147,920	$0
Conservative	2,400	$151,200	+$3,280
Mid-band	2,550	$160,650	+$12,730
Top of band	2,750	$173,250	+$25,330

All figures on 63.07 m² total area, $32,000 renovation, before agency fees and taxes. If local comps are quoted on interior area only, the totals hold but the per-m² numbers shift up by ~20%.

Where the risk actually sits. Not in the budget. Tbilisi construction cost is reasonably predictable. It sits in landing at $2,400 instead of $2,700. That gap is $19,000, and it is decided almost entirely by the kitchen, the bathroom and the first three listing photos. Which is exactly where the brief tells you to spend.

Scenarios

Three renovations, three buyers, three bets.

Same shell, same $350–600/m² Tbilisi market, three genuinely different plays rather than three shades of one scheme. They differ on layout (developer plan kept, wet core combined, bedroom opened in glass), on colour courage (one joinery wall, a saturated wet room, colour carried through kitchen and doors), and on which buyer they're built to close. Every material named below was checked against a live Tbilisi retailer or a real workshop quote this session — green marks a live, checked price with a source link; amber marks a regional estimate that still needs a contractor walk-through. Money throughout is USD, converted from GEL at 2.7 GEL/$1 where the source quoted lari. Photos of the eight verified, buyable-today materials are below, split into the four every scenario shares and the ladder that climbs tier by tier.

Materials

What actually gets delivered, photographed at the retailer.

Real product photography, pulled from each supplier's own listing this session, not renders and not stock photography. Four products are common to all three scenarios; everything else is a tier ladder that climbs from Scenario 1 to Scenario 3. Click a photo to zoom.

Common to all three

Same product, same supplier, same price in every scenario. What changes is how much of each one gets used, and that is in the ladder below.

Kronostep Oak Mandisa laminate plank, oak decor, close detail — **Kronostep “Oak Mandisa” laminate**$21/m² · 57 GEL/m² · DominoThe floor in all three. Only the lay pattern changes, and that is labour, not material.

Empolo DAVA brushed-gold basin mixer tap, product photo — **Empolo “DAVA” brushed-gold mixer**$76 · 204 GEL · MerlonsBasin tap in all three. The one brass note that never changes tier.

AMTile Mahor patterned decorative porcelain tile, product photo — **AMTile “Mahor” patterned porcelain**$9.60/m² · 25.90 GEL/m² · AMTileThe patterned line in all three. Coverage climbs: narrow accent, then floor, then wall.

AMTile plain field porcelain tile, product photo — **AMTile field porcelain**$8.50/m² · 23 GEL/m² · AMTilePlain wet-room tile in all three, paired with the patterned line.

What changes by scenario

Left to right is the ladder: lean, balanced, top of band. Three products appear in exactly one column each, photographed where they land. Where a cell is marked built to order there is no stock photo to show and the price needs a workshop quote.

Element	1 · The Quiet FlipLean	2 · The Krtsanisi ClassicBalanced	3 · The Top ShelfTop of band
Floor, as laid	Straight-lay planks. Same boards as the other two, none of the site-cut labour premium.	Herringbone, every board cut on site. No pre-formed herringbone product exists locally.	Herringbone throughout, plus an engineered-oak accent strip framing the peninsula floor.Parquet Gallery · price per unit unconfirmed
Kitchen cabinets	2.4 m run, painted MDF, TrueHomeBuild's base tier.Built to order	2.6 m run, painted MDF shaker in petrol teal or navy, Geometria, Blum/Hettich hardware.Built to order	~3.7 m with the peninsula return, Geometria oak-veneer or fluted painted fronts.Built to order
Cabinet hardware	Handleless push-catch. Nothing to source.	Handleless push-catch, same as Scenario 1.	Imported brushed-brass edge pulls, Istanbul hardware market, inside the programme.Bought to order
Worktop	Art House postforming laminate, 27 mm entry tier.Built to order	Art House postforming, 38 mm marble-decor tier (Aurora Marble or Kungurite Marble Gloss).Built to order	Avangardi compact laminate (HPL), stone-effect. A real material step up from postforming.$180–270/m² · Avangardi
Shower	Ravak Ronda tray with a separate glass door, sourced apart. The lean way to do it.$189–215 · 510–580 GEL · Valorem	Ravak SKCP4 80 cm door and tray, sold as a matched set. No fit mismatch to manage on site.$356–378 · 960–1,020 GEL · Valorem	The same Ravak SKCP4 set, upsized. The combined wet room has the width for it.
Tile coverage	Field tile on the walls, patterned line used sparingly as a narrow accent band.	Patterned line as the full bathroom floor, field tile on the walls.	Patterned line as a full-height feature wall behind the shower and vanity, on its own accent circuit.
Skirting & cornice	80 mm skirting, simple ogee cornice, both white.	100–120 mm mitred skirting, proper white cornice.	120–150 mm skirting, deeper cornice profile. More presence than Scenario 2's.
How far colour travels	One joinery wall: the kitchen fronts, nothing else.	Kitchen fronts and the bathroom's lower wall, a fully saturated wet room.	Kitchen fronts, interior doors and the glazed partition's frame, navy running as one material.
Renovation, all in	$23,800–32,900	$24,800–34,500	$32,900–45,300

Kronostep Crossblade SPC rigid vinyl plank, oak decor, close detail — **Kronostep Crossblade SPC**$33/m² · 89 GEL/m² · Domino

Priced, but specified in none of the three

Rigid vinyl, waterproof, same warm oak decor, 57% more per m² than the laminate. It sits here because the question comes up in every Tbilisi renovation and the answer deserves a number rather than an opinion: in this flat the wet zones are tiled and the rest of the floor never sees standing water, so the laminate is the specified product in all three scenarios. If the owner wants the insurance anyway, this is what it costs, and it swaps in without touching anything else in the spec.

What this section can't photograph, honestly. The kitchen cabinets (Geometria, TrueHomeBuild), both Art House worktop tiers, the Parquet Gallery accent strip and the brass edge pulls are cut, built or bought to order, so there is no stock photo of "the" product the way there is for a laminate plank. Those five are also, inconveniently, most of what separates the three scenarios. Worse: Geometria's own marketing images turned out to be AI-generated renders, not photographs of real installed kitchens, and TrueHomeBuild's portfolio photos are real but from unrelated projects in other styles — neither is honest to show here as a preview of a navy-and-oak kitchen. The real test is a workshop visit with the Style section's reference photos in hand and a sample door front made up before committing. The boiler (Ariston Clas X or EMKO, both real Domino SKUs) has the same problem for a different reason: Domino's product pages were unreachable from here today, for the photo and the price both — confirm in person or by phone.

Scenario 1 of 3 · Lean & disciplined · keeps the developer's plan

The Quiet Flip

The cheapest apartment in the building that no longer looks cheap. Wins the investor who wants a tenant or a buyer inside sixty days, not a design credit.

Targets: Investor buy-to-let or fast flip
Target price: $2,280–2,380/m²
Renovation: $23.8k–32.9kall-in, boiler included
On site: 10–11 wksfastest of the three

The bet

Wins the buyer who prices in yield, not romance: an investor letting long-term or flipping fast, or a Georgian buyer who wants finished-and-affordable over finished-and-photogenic. Targets the bottom of the renovated comp band, $2,280–2,380/m², because the pitch isn't "look what we built", it's "move in Monday, nothing left to spend." Every dollar spent here has to earn its place twice over, since margin is the thin part of this scenario — its real edge is speed and certainty, not profit.

Layout

Developer's plan, unchanged. Kitchen stays a single 2.4 m run on the indicated entry wall. The 5.33 m² wet room does split into a bathroom and a genuinely separate WC, via one new stud partition roughly 1.0 m long with a standard-swing door — this is the one scenario that follows the brief's split literally, because a second door is exactly what a letting agent's search filter rewards. Bedroom closed with a solid stud wall, no glazing spend. Washing machine under the kitchen worktop at the run's end, off the same wet wall as the sink. Boiler stays exactly where the gas line and water manifold already come up on the larger balcony — visible in the shell walkthrough — boxed in and ventilated, not relocated. Entrance threshold: a plain aluminium transition strip, no design moment spent here.

Palette & materials

Chalk-white walls throughout, colour held to one joinery wall only: the kitchen fronts
80 mm skirting, simple ogee cornice, both white
Floor: Kronospan “Oak Mandisa” laminate, straight-lay, not herringbone — same warm oak decor, none of the site-cut labour premium
Worktop: Art House postforming laminate, 27 mm entry tier
Wet rooms: AMTile plain field tile, patterned tile used sparingly as a small accent only

Kitchen

2.4 m run, painted MDF, TrueHomeBuild's base-price tier
Handleless push-catch, no hardware to source
Art House postforming worktop + stainless undermount sink + Empolo brushed-gold basin-style kitchen mixer
Compact budget appliance set: 4-burner hob, slimline recirculating hood, combi oven, undercounter fridge
Extraction: recirculating hood with carbon filter — no window on this wall, and no ducting run through the slab

Bathroom & WC

Bathroom: Ravak Ronda 80 cm tray + separate glass door, wall-hung basin, Empolo brushed-gold mixer, heated towel rail
WC: wall-hung pan, concealed cistern, compact corner basin
Both rooms: AMTile field tile with a small AMTile patterned-tile band, waterproof tanking to both floors
No separate vanity storage beyond a mirror cabinet — this is the room this scenario spends least on

Lighting plan

Recessed 2700K downlights in the living space, kitchen and bedroom, one per roughly 4 m² — general light only, no accent circuits. Kitchen gets a single run of under-cabinet task lighting, wired on its own switch. Bathroom and WC each get one surface-mounted mirror light plus a ceiling downlight. Nothing decorative: this scenario doesn't spend on a statement fitting.

The three photographs

Entrance looking the full 7.75 m length to the balcony glazing, morning light, kitchen run and floor in frame
Bathroom straight-on from the door: shower and basin in frame, warm artificial light, clean and simple
WC door held open from the hallway: wall-hung pan and basin visible, proving the second door is real

Budget

Line	Low	High	Basis
Design, drawings, site setup	$700	$1,100	estimate
Partitions (WC split), plaster, screed	$2,600	$3,400	estimate
Electrics, first and second fix	$2,000	$2,800	estimate
Plumbing and heating distribution	$2,000	$2,900	estimate
Boiler, supply and install (balcony)	$600	$950	estimate
Split AC, one unit (living room)	$900	$1,500	estimate
Bathroom + WC, complete (split)	$3,200	$4,300	fixtures verified
Kitchen with appliances	$4,200	$5,600	cabinets + worktop verified
Flooring, skirting, cornice	$1,750	$2,300	material verified
Doors and hardware (3 doors)	$700	$1,000	estimate
Ceilings, painting, decoration	$1,800	$2,400	estimate
Lighting and electrical fittings	$550	$800	estimate
Balconies, clean, snagging	$600	$900	estimate
Contingency, 10%	$2,160	$3,000
Total	$23,800	$32,900
Per m² of total area	$377	$522

This still comes in under the brief's own stated $28,000 floor, boiler included. That floor assumes a fuller specification — herringbone everywhere, one generous bathroom. A genuinely lean, straight-lay, split-WC spec doesn't need to spend that much, and the shortfall is margin an investor buyer should pocket, not money spent for its own sake. Boiler tier here is the cheapest real option found (EMKO or entry Ariston Clas X, both stocked at Domino) — it still has to be sized to the apartment's real heating load, not just the budget.

Programme risk

The WC partition has to be framed before either wet room's waterproofing pass can start — sequence it first, not alongside the bathroom
Straight-lay is where this scenario saves real labour money; don't let a contractor upsell herringbone mid-job, it erases the budget's whole advantage
The number above sits under the brief's stated floor — confirm the owner will hold that line, since "just add a little" is how this scenario quietly becomes Scenario 2

What this deliberately skips

Herringbone, brass beyond the kitchen tap, a generous single bathroom, any accent lighting. All traded for a second finished door, because that's the one thing an investor's tenant search actually filters on. Net gain over today's $115,920 ask is the thinnest of the three plans — this scenario's argument is time, not margin.

Scenario 2 of 3 · Balanced · wet core combined into one bathroom

The Krtsanisi Classic

One finished apartment, priced like Tbilisi, photographed like the thirteen reference images. Wins the relocated professional and the Georgian buyer trading up.

Targets: Relocator or family trading up
Target price: $2,400–2,500/m²
Renovation: $24.8k–34.5kall-in, boiler included
On site: 12 wksmatches the brief's programme

The bet

Wins the buyer who is furnishing a home, not a spreadsheet: a relocated professional or family who needs to see a finished kitchen and a real bathroom before they take the viewing seriously, or a Georgian buyer trading up from older stock. Targets the lower-middle of the renovated comp band, $2,400–2,500/m², because the job here is simply to stop losing to the developer's own $1,900/m² shells — not to chase the ceiling of the market.

Layout

Kitchen runs the full 2.6 m of the indicated wall, no window to design around. Wet room becomes one combined bathroom, not a split — 5.33 m² net, envelope 2.25 × 2.95 m, used whole for a proper walk-in shower and a full-width vanity rather than carved into two rooms too small to photograph well (arithmetic below). Bedroom closed with a solid stud partition: this apartment is already glazed at both ends, so glass here would spend money borrowing light it doesn't need. Washing machine under the kitchen worktop at the run's end. Boiler stays put on the larger balcony, on the existing gas line and water manifold seen in the shell walkthrough, boxed in and ventilated rather than moved. Entrance threshold: a flush transition strip, no raised sill.

On the wet room: one bathroom, not a bathroom plus separate WC. A partition to carve out a separate WC costs roughly 0.7–1.0 m² of the room to the wall itself and the circulation it forces, plus a second door and a second waterproofed floor build-up — and still leaves each room too small to photograph well. This is a deliberate departure from the brief's own hard constraint: splitting only pays off for the investor-letting play in Scenario 1, where two independent tenants value two doors more than either values a generous shower.

Palette & materials

Chalk-white walls, colour on the kitchen fronts and the bathroom's lower wall — a fully saturated wet room, not a single accent wall
100–120 mm mitred skirting, proper white cornice
Floor: Kronospan “Oak Mandisa” laminate, hand-cut and laid herringbone — no pre-formed herringbone product exists locally, so every board is site-cut
Worktop: Art House postforming laminate, 38 mm marble-decor tier (Aurora Marble / Kungurite Marble Gloss)
Bathroom: AMTile patterned porcelain as the full floor, AMTile field tile on the walls

Kitchen

2.6 m run, painted MDF shaker in petrol teal or navy, Geometria (Tbilisi/Batumi), Blum/Hettich hardware
Handleless push-catch as standard — matches the fluted, minimal-hardware look in the reference photos without sourcing brass pulls
Postforming worktop, undermount sink, Empolo brushed-gold mixer
Mid-tier appliance set: hob, hood, combi oven, undercounter fridge
Extraction: recirculating hood, carbon filter

Bathroom & WC

Shower, not a tub: Ravak SKCP4 80 cm door + tray set, matched pair, no fit mismatch
Carpenter-made vanity in the kitchen's finish, full-height mirror with light
Empolo brushed-gold basin and shower mixers, heated towel rail
AMTile patterned floor against plain field walls, full tanking, extract fan
No separate WC — see the layout note above

Lighting plan

Recessed 2700K downlights, general coverage in living, kitchen and bedroom. Kitchen adds a run of under-cabinet task lighting on its own switch, plus one brass pendant over the worktop's end. Bathroom: recessed general light, a dedicated mirror light at the vanity, and the shower on its own damp-rated fitting. Nothing outside the kitchen and bathroom gets an accent circuit — this scenario spends its lighting budget where the camera looks.

The three photographs

Kitchen run shot from the dining end, late-afternoon light through both glazed ends, worktop and petrol-teal fronts in frame
Bathroom straight-on: shower and full-width vanity in frame, warm accent lighting on, patterned floor visible
Bedroom doorway shot: the solid navy door against the herringbone floor running through uninterrupted

Budget

Line	Low	High	Basis
Design, drawings, site setup	$800	$1,300	estimate
Plaster correction, screed	$2,400	$3,200	estimate
Electrics, first and second fix	$2,200	$3,000	estimate
Plumbing and heating distribution	$1,700	$2,500	estimate
Boiler, supply and install (balcony)	$650	$1,050	estimate
Split AC, two units	$1,000	$1,700	estimate
Bathroom, complete (combined)	$2,000	$2,800	fixtures verified
Kitchen with appliances	$5,900	$7,900	cabinets + worktop verified
Flooring, skirting, cornice	$2,200	$2,700	material verified
Doors and hardware (2 doors)	$500	$750	estimate
Ceilings, painting, decoration	$2,000	$2,700	estimate
Lighting and electrical fittings	$650	$950	estimate
Balconies, clean, snagging	$500	$800	estimate
Contingency, 10%	$2,250	$3,135
Total	$24,750	$34,500
Per m² of total area	$392	$547

The brief's own target of $32,000 sits inside this range, in the upper-middle. Hold the contractor to the verified lines above and there's room to move — the efficiency comes from picks that are genuinely cheap and genuinely presentable at once, not from cutting scope. Boiler: same wall-hung gas combi category as the other two scenarios, mid-tier (Ariston Clas X, real Domino SKU), sized to this apartment's own heating load rather than to the scenario's taste.

Programme risk

Herringbone labour, not material, is the schedule risk — no pre-cut herringbone laminate or SPC exists locally, so every board is site-cut. Lock the installer's day rate before ordering anything else
The kitchen is built to order, not stocked — get a firm written quote and start date from Geometria in week one
Electrical and plumbing labour are the weakest numbers in this budget, since no Tbilisi trade prices labour on a public website the way a laminate retailer prices a plank

What this deliberately skips

Real solid oak or engineered herringbone, genuine quartz or stone worktop, imported premium tapware, and a separate WC. All exist and are buyable in Tbilisi; all would each eat several thousand dollars of a $24–33k budget for a resale nobody lives in past closing. Every dollar saved went into the kitchen and the floor underfoot at the front door, the two things a viewer actually judges a home by.

Scenario 3 of 3 · Top of the comp band · bedroom opened in glass

The Top Shelf

Colour carried through the whole apartment, glass borrowing length from the bedroom. Wins the buyer paying top price for a flat that looks imported.

Targets: Designer buyer paying top of band
Target price: $2,650–2,800/m²
Renovation: $32.9k–45.3kall-in, boiler included
On site: 13–14 wksbespoke glazing is the tail

The bet

Wins the buyer who is paying for a designed apartment, not a finished one: someone who has seen the same thirteen reference images and wants the version that actually got built. Targets the top of the renovated comp band, $2,650–2,800/m², because this is the one scenario that argues for a genuinely different apartment, not just a competently finished one. It carries more execution risk and a thinner buyer pool than the other two — the arithmetic below shows why it's still worth considering.

Layout

Kitchen becomes a peninsula: the same 2.4 m entry-wall run plus a 1.3 m return, anchored on a short new stub wall (~1.2 m), breaking the 7.75 m room into a defined entry/kitchen zone and a dining/living zone rather than one long corridor. Wet room combined into one bathroom, as in Scenario 2. The one genuine layout departure: the bedroom is closed with a full-height glazed partition, a fixed panel plus one pivot door in a navy powder-coated steel-look frame, instead of a solid wall — it borrows length and light down the full 7.75 m span and reads as a converted loft rather than a one-bed flat. Trade-off stated plainly: full blackout needs a blind or a frosted lower panel, and that's a buyer's decision to make, not this scenario's to hide. Washing machine under the peninsula's return. Boiler unmoved, on the same gas line and water manifold already on the larger balcony, boxed in behind a slim vented panel finished to match the balcony cladding rather than left bare. Entrance threshold: a brass-edged transition detail, the one deliberate design moment spent there.

Palette & materials

Colour carried through the kitchen fronts and the interior doors and the glazed partition's frame — the boldest colour move of the three, navy running as one continuous material rather than one wall
120–150 mm skirting, a deeper cornice profile — more presence than Scenario 2's
Floor: herringbone Kronospan laminate through living and bedroom, with a genuine engineered-oak herringbone accent strip framing the peninsula floor (Parquet Gallery, real product, price per unit unconfirmed — confirm before committing)
Worktop: Avangardi compact laminate (HPL), stone-effect, a real material step up from postforming
Bathroom: AMTile patterned tile as a full-height feature wall behind the shower and the vanity, not just the floor

Kitchen

~3.7 m of total cabinetry (2.4 m run + 1.3 m peninsula return), Geometria's oak-veneer “under natural wood” MDF fronts or fluted painted fronts
Imported brushed-brass edge-pulls (Istanbul hardware market, within the programme) rather than handleless throughout
Compact laminate worktop, undermount sink, matched Empolo brushed-gold kitchen and basin mixers
Higher-tier integrated appliance package (unverified this session, budgeted accordingly)
Pendant light over the peninsula, under-cabinet task lighting

Bathroom & WC

Ravak, upsized to a 90–100 cm door + tray set for real showering room
Upgraded carpenter-made vanity, full-height mirror with integrated light
Matched Empolo brushed-gold basin and shower mixers, heated towel rail
AMTile patterned tile as a full feature wall, not an accent band — confirm a terrazzo-look line in the same range, or a large-format terrazzo porcelain from Domino's tile hall, at install
No separate WC — this scenario also bets the full 5.33 m² on one excellent room

Lighting plan

Everything in Scenario 2, plus: a statement pendant over the peninsula, a wall-washing accent grazing the glazed partition's frame at night, and brass wall sconces flanking the living-zone side of the partition. Bathroom feature wall gets its own accent circuit, separate from the general 2700K downlights, so it can be shown lit for photography without lighting the whole room flat.

The three photographs

Wide shot from the entrance through the glazed partition into the bedroom, full 7.75 m depth, peninsula and pendant in the foreground, golden hour
Bathroom feature wall: patterned tile, shower, brass fixtures catching afternoon light
Detail shot: brass edge-pull on a fluted oak-veneer front against the navy door beyond, shallow depth of field — the hero image agents use for the listing thumbnail

Budget

Line	Low	High	Basis
Design, drawings, site setup	$1,400	$2,000	estimate
Partitions (peninsula stub), plaster, screed	$3,200	$4,200	estimate
Electrics, first and second fix	$2,600	$3,600	estimate
Plumbing and heating distribution	$2,000	$3,000	estimate
Boiler, supply and install (balcony)	$750	$1,150	estimate
Split AC, two units	$1,300	$2,100	estimate
Bathroom, complete (combined, upsized)	$2,800	$3,900	fixtures verified
Kitchen with appliances	$7,200	$9,400	worktop verified
Flooring, skirting, cornice	$2,600	$3,300	base material verified
Glazed bedroom partition	$1,200	$1,800	estimate, bespoke
Doors and hardware (2 doors)	$800	$1,150	estimate
Ceilings, painting, decoration	$2,400	$3,200	estimate
Lighting and electrical fittings	$950	$1,350	estimate
Balconies, clean, snagging	$700	$1,000	estimate
Contingency, 10%	$2,990	$4,115
Total	$32,900	$45,300
Per m² of total area	$522	$718

This runs past the brief's own $42,000 ceiling, not right up against it: a genuine peninsula reconfiguration, a bespoke glazed partition, upgraded material tiers and a real priced boiler don't all fit under $42k at once. That's the honest number, not a rounding trick to land on the ceiling. If the owner wants to hold the $42k line, the glazed partition is the item to cut first — back to a solid stud wall saves $1,200–1,800 and pulls the high end close to the ceiling again. The high end also runs well past the market's typical $350–600/m² turnkey band, which is the rest of the point: it buys real upgrades a generic contractor's average doesn't include. Push further into real solid oak or genuine stone throughout and the gap only widens.

Programme risk

The glazed partition is bespoke, not a stocked product — get a firm quote and lead time from a local glazier before locking the programme. This is the single most likely item to slip
The peninsula changes the plumbing and electrical rough-in versus a straight run — lock the drawing before first fix starts, moving it after screed means demolition
Top-of-band buyers are a thinner pool than the other two scenarios' — real time-on-market risk that the net-gain arithmetic below doesn't price in

What this deliberately skips

Full engineered-oak flooring throughout (kept to a small accent strip only), a second bathroom or WC (this scenario also bets the whole wet room on one excellent room), and genuine natural stone worktop — a real Tbilisi quarry supplier exists (AllStone.ge), but its pricing couldn't be verified this session, and compact laminate reads convincingly close at a fraction of the risk.

Compare

Side by side.

Scenario	Target buyer	Target $/m²	Target sale	Renovation	Net vs today's $115,920 ask	Weeks on site	Main risk
1 · The Quiet Flip	Investor, buy-to-let or flip	2,280–2,380	$143,800–150,100	$23,800–32,900	+$2,700	10–11	Thin margin leaves no room for scope creep
2 · The Krtsanisi Classic	Relocator or family trading up	2,400–2,500	$151,400–157,700	$24,800–34,500	+$9,000	12	Herringbone labour and kitchen lead time
3 · The Top Shelf	Buyer paying for a designed flat	2,650–2,800	$167,100–176,600	$32,900–45,300	+$16,800	13–14	Bespoke glazed partition; thinner buyer pool

Net figures use each scenario's mid-point sale price minus its mid-point renovation cost minus today's $115,920 ask — the profit of renovating and selling versus doing nothing. Indicative, not a guarantee: the comp band itself is a range, and hitting the top of it is never certain.

Recommendation

Run Scenario 2. Decide on Scenario 3 by Friday.

Scenario 2 clears the best net gain per dollar of execution risk: every material is stocked or quoted today, nothing is bespoke, and it fits the 12-week programme the brief already commits to. Scenario 3 nets nearly double, but that upside rides on a bespoke glazed partition with no local precedent found this session and a thinner top-of-band buyer pool — worth taking only if the owner is genuinely confident about landing that buyer and can absorb a slip. Scenario 1 is correct only if the goal changes from margin to speed: a specific investor ready to move, or a hard date to be off the books.

The one decision this week: commission Scenario 2 as the working plan, and in the same week get a firm written quote and start date from Geometria for the kitchen — it's the longest lead item in all three scenarios and the schedule has no slack to find it later. If Scenario 3 is still live, get the glazed-partition quote in the same week; that's the other item that decides whether the 12-week programme is real.

Appendix

Image-generation prompts, one set per scenario.

For a text-to-image model, to give the owner something to react to before any wall is opened. Empty rooms, fitted elements only, no furniture, no people. Scenarios 2 and 3 don't have a separate WC, so their third prompt is a bathroom detail shot instead — noted where it applies.

Scenario 1 · The Quiet Flip

Living/kitchen: "Empty apartment interior, long rectangular room 3.8×7.75m, floor-to-ceiling glazing at both ends, warm oak-look laminate floor laid in straight planks, single-run kitchen with matte navy painted flat-front cabinets and handleless push-catch doors, pale marble-look laminate worktop, brushed brass tap, white chalk walls, simple white cornice and skirting, recessed downlights, no furniture, no appliances visible beyond built-in, midday light, photorealistic architectural photography"
Bathroom: "Empty small bathroom, 2.25×2.95m, walk-in shower with clear glass door on one wall, white wall-hung vanity, mirror cabinet, plain white and light patterned accent floor tile, brushed brass mixer tap and heated towel rail, chalk white walls, warm artificial light, no towels or decor, photorealistic"
WC: "Empty compact separate WC, roughly 1.2×1.8m, wall-hung toilet with concealed cistern, small corner basin, plain white wall tile with a narrow band of patterned accent tile, brushed brass tap, white walls, single ceiling downlight, no decor, photorealistic"

Scenario 2 · The Krtsanisi Classic

Living/kitchen: "Empty apartment interior, long rectangular room 3.8×7.75m, floor-to-ceiling glazing at both ends, warm oak herringbone floor, single-run kitchen with petrol-teal painted shaker fronts, handleless, pale marble-look laminate worktop, brushed brass tap, chalk white walls, tall white skirting and cornice, one brass pendant light over the worktop, recessed downlights, no furniture, golden hour light, photorealistic architectural photography"
Bathroom: "Empty bathroom, 2.25×2.95m, full-width walk-in shower with glass door, petrol-teal painted lower wall (wainscot height) meeting white tile above, full-width vanity in matching teal, patterned terrazzo-look floor tile, brushed brass shower and basin mixers, heated towel rail, warm accent lighting, no towels or decor, photorealistic"
Bathroom detail (no separate WC in this scenario): "Close detail shot of a brushed brass basin mixer tap against a pale marble-look laminate vanity top and petrol-teal painted cabinetry, soft directional light, shallow depth of field, photorealistic product-style interior photography"

Scenario 3 · The Top Shelf

Living/kitchen: "Empty apartment interior, long rectangular room 3.8×7.75m, floor-to-ceiling glazing at both ends, warm oak herringbone floor with a darker engineered-oak herringbone accent strip framing a kitchen peninsula, peninsula and run in fluted oak-veneer cabinetry with brushed brass edge-pull handles, navy interior door visible beyond a full-height glazed partition with a navy steel-look frame, pale stone-effect compact laminate worktop, brass pendant light over the peninsula, chalk white walls, deep white cornice, golden hour light streaming through both ends, no furniture, photorealistic architectural photography"
Bathroom: "Empty bathroom, 2.25×2.95m, full-height patterned terrazzo-look tile feature wall behind an upsized walk-in shower with glass door, matching full-width vanity, brushed brass shower and basin mixers, heated towel rail, warm accent lighting on the feature wall, chalk white remaining walls, no towels or decor, photorealistic"
Bathroom detail (no separate WC in this scenario): "Close detail shot of a brushed brass shower mixer against a full-height patterned terrazzo-look tile wall, afternoon light catching the brass, shallow depth of field, photorealistic product-style interior photography"

Next step

Pick one, freeze it in week two.

The recommendation above is Scenario 2, with Scenario 3 live pending two supplier quotes. Whichever is chosen, get it in front of a contractor this week: the line items and sources above are specific enough to tender against directly.

Back to the scenarios Read the original prompt Walkthrough video