Renovating a classic Budapest apartment
Keep what made you buy it. Replace what is behind the walls.
The ceiling height, the stucco and the herringbone parquet are not decoration. They are why a pre-war Pest apartment is worth more than a new build of the same size. Hungarians call these flats polgári lakás, and that is the word you will see in every listing and on every contract.
- Whole, empty apartments only.
- Stucco and parquet restored.
- Services replaced completely.
- All 23 districts.
What stays and what goes
Most of the damage in these flats comes from someone either throwing everything out or keeping everything. Neither works. In a pre-war building the structure and the ornament stay. The services and the surfaces go.
What we keep
- Stucco, rosettes and cornices: restored, not painted over.
- Herringbone parquet: sanded and re-oiled, not replaced.
- Sound casement windows: repaired, not swapped for plastic.
- Panelled doors, brass hardware, and the ceiling height.
What we replace
- The entire electrical installation, aluminium wiring included.
- Water and waste pipework, often including the cast iron stack.
- Heating and radiators.
- Screed, plaster, tiling, bathroom and kitchen.
What an older building needs checking for
Aluminium wiring.
Common in work done between 1960 and 1980, and no longer acceptable. If it is there, the whole installation is replaced. It cannot be patched.
Timber floor structure.
Many Pest buildings have one. It decides what screed and what floor finish can go on top, and how much weight a bathroom can carry.
Where the wet rooms are.
Moving a bathroom or kitchen affects the building’s waste stack, which is common property. That has to be settled before the strip-out, not after.
Ceiling height against services.
The height is an asset, and a dropped ceiling eats into it. It can usually be avoided, at the cost of more work.
The residents’ association.
Starting work has to be notified, and the house rules set when noise is allowed. We handle that.
Lift and staircase.
With no lift, every bag goes up and down by hand. That shows up in the price and the schedule, not as a surprise.
Stucco and parquet
Restoring stucco is not painting. The layers of old paint have to come off, missing sections have to be cast to match, and only then can it be painted. Anyone who runs a roller over it takes the sharpness out of the profile permanently.
Herringbone parquet is the same. It can be sanded once or twice before the wear layer is gone. If the floor will take it, we sand and re-oil. If it will not, we relay it in the same pattern rather than substituting laminate.
The building is from 1890. The wiring should not be.
Renovating a pre-war apartment is not a question of style.
Keeping the visible part is the easy half. The hard half is what sits behind the wall: the wiring, the waste, the screed and the floor structure. Skip that and the apartment looks beautiful, and has to be opened up again in five years.
Common questions about older apartments
Can the original parquet be kept?
Often yes. At the survey we check how much wear layer is left and whether the blocks are intact. If it will take it, sanding and re-oiling is both cheaper and better looking than new.
Do the old windows have to be replaced?
Not necessarily. If the timber is sound, a casement window can be repaired, and it often performs better than people expect. If the timber has gone, it has to be replaced.
Can the bathroom or kitchen be moved?
Often, but it affects the building’s shared waste stack, so it has to be agreed with the residents’ association in advance. We tell you at the survey what is realistic.
Is an older apartment more expensive to renovate than a panel flat?
Usually, because there is more to strip out, the walls are less true and the services need replacing completely. By how much depends entirely on the condition.
Do I need a permit?
For internal work that does not touch the structure, usually not, but the start of work must be notified to the residents’ association. Touching a load-bearing wall is a separate process, and we raise it at the survey.
What does polgári lakás mean?
It is the Hungarian term for the large apartments in the tenement blocks built in Pest between roughly 1870 and 1914 for the middle class: high ceilings, stucco, parquet, thick walls, often a courtyard gallery. If you have bought one, this is the word for it. In German it is the same idea as Altbau; in American English, a pre-war apartment.
Do you work in listed buildings?
Yes, though the listing governs what can be touched, particularly anything facing the street. It helps to know before the survey whether the building is listed.
Let us see what is behind the walls.
The survey is free, and afterwards you get a fixed price and a schedule in writing.