How much does it cost to renovate a room in Poland?

Below are indicative ranges from the HandyMan24 price list (Warsaw) for each job, a worked example for a 14 m² room, the order of work and what tends to push the quote up. The final price still comes from the tradesperson in their bid, once they have seen your photos.

How much a room renovation costs, job by job

There is no single price per square metre for a room. It is a handful of separate jobs, each priced in its own unit: walls per square metre, skirting per running metre, doors per piece. The table shows indicative ranges from the HandyMan24 price list for Warsaw. Rates in other Polish cities can differ, and the table always carries the current figures.

In numbers: stripping old wallpaper runs from 20 to 35 zł/m², a gypsum skim coat from 55 to 90 zł/m², primer from 15 to 25 zł/m², and painting walls or a ceiling in one colour, two coats, from 30 to 45 zł/m². Laying laminate costs from 70 to 90 zł/m², skirting boards from 30 to 45 zł per running metre, ceiling cornice from 30 to 55 zł per running metre, and fitting an interior door from 700 to 1100 zł. The painting stage is covered step by step in our article on wall painting prices.

The rates cover labour and small fixings. Materials (paint, filler, laminate, skirting, doors), rubbish removal and carrying materials upstairs are paid separately. Sockets and light fittings have their own per-piece items in the price list.

Price ranges and offers from tradespeople: handyman prices in Warsaw.

Sample estimate for a 14 m² room (indicative)

Say you have an ordinary room, 3.5 by 4 m, with a 2.6 m ceiling, one window and one door. Minus the openings, that is roughly 35 m² of wall, 14 m² of ceiling and 14 m² of floor, plus about 14 running metres of skirting and 15 of cornice. It is a rough guide: measure your own room or show it in photos.

• Wallpaper removal: about 35 m² at 20 to 35 zł/m².
• Skim coat on the walls: 35 m² at 55 to 90 zł/m². If there are only small dents under the paper, a full skim often isn’t needed.
• Primer on walls and ceiling: about 49 m² at 15 to 25 zł/m².
• Two coats of paint: the same 49 m² at 30 to 45 zł/m².
• Laminate: 14 m² at 70 to 90 zł/m², plus about 14 m of skirting at 30 to 45 zł per metre.
• Ceiling cornice: 15 m at 30 to 55 zł per metre.
• New interior door: fitting from 700 to 1100 zł.

Multiply the metres by the ranges and you get a ballpark for labour alone. We deliberately don’t give one total. The gap between the low and high end is wide, and where you land depends on the walls, the ceiling height, the number of corners and whether the room is empty. Materials come on top. The actual figure shows up in the bids.

You can also trim the scope. Sound walls usually just need patching, primer and paint once the paper is off. Laminate that doesn’t creak and hasn’t swollen at the edges can stay.

The order of work, from wallpaper to skirting

Getting the order right saves money. Lay the laminate before painting the ceiling and you’ll be scrubbing paint off a brand-new floor.

1. Empty the room or push the furniture to the middle. Floor, window and door get covered with plastic sheeting.
2. Strip the wallpaper and wash off the old paste. Only now can you see what the plaster is like.
3. Prepare the electrics. Loose back boxes are best fixed before the skim coat. Power goes off at the breaker, and anything on the wiring is done by someone qualified for electrical work.
4. Fill the holes or skim the whole wall, sand, remove the dust.
5. Prime. Without it, fresh plaster soaks up paint unevenly and you get blotches.
6. Ceiling cornice goes up before painting; the gap at the ceiling is sealed with acrylic and painted with the ceiling.
7. Paint the ceiling first, then the walls, two coats.
8. Laminate, trimming the door if needed, skirting.
9. Finally the interior door, sockets and lights on the finished walls.

Skimming and painting make up most of the work in a room like this. When a full skim is worth it and when patching will do is explained in our piece on gypsum skim coating before painting. If you live in the capital, have a look at painters and decorators in Warsaw.

What raises the price and what photos don’t show

The same 14 m² room can cost very different amounts. Usually the culprit is something that only appears once the wallpaper or old flooring is off:

• Several layers of wallpaper, or paper hung over oil paint. It comes off slowly, and there are almost always dents underneath.
• Crooked walls. Filler deals with cracks; a bulging wall takes far more material and time.
• High ceilings and plaster mouldings: more square metres and work from a platform.
• An uneven subfloor. Laminate on a wavy base creaks and opens up at the joints. Floor screeding isn’t available through the platform; that is a separate stage with a separate contractor.
• Plaster that falls off in chunks rather than just cracking. Machine plastering isn’t offered either, so that becomes a different job.
• A non-standard door size, or an opening that needs widening.
• A room full of furniture that has to be moved and covered.
• Old wiring: aluminium cables, back boxes falling out, sockets that spark. That is for a qualified electrician, not something to paint over.

That is why close-ups of the wall, the floor by the threshold and the door with its frame tell a tradesperson more than a nice wide shot of the room. From those they can size up the job before coming out, and there are fewer surprises in the price later.

How to order a room renovation in the app

HandyMan24 is a platform: it connects clients with tradespeople and doesn’t do the work itself. You describe the room in the app, add photos and say what you want changed. The order goes to tradespeople in the matching categories, and they send bids with their own price and timing.

You won’t find a single turnkey contractor with a site manager and one estimate for everything here. Each job is a separate line in the order: skim coat and painting might go to one person, laminate to another, the door to a third. Often one person takes on several jobs, but you only see that in the bids.

• The price comes in the bid, before you choose anyone. You compare the figure, ratings and reviews.
• Until you choose, you talk in the platform chat; the address is shared only afterwards.
• You pay the tradesperson directly, and they issue the receipt or invoice.
• Whoever did the work answers for it. They redo their own work; cracked plaster, a crooked floor and other people’s mistakes are not on them.

The app takes orders from anywhere in Poland. If more than one room is on the list, see how apartment finishing in Warsaw works.

Common questions

Room due for a refresh? Describe it in the app and add a few photos of the walls and floor. Tradespeople send their own prices, and you pick who does the job.

Are you a finishing tradesperson? Join HandyMan24 and bid on jobs near you. Signing up is free.