What an apartment renovation really costs in Brisbane in 2026
We pulled the invoices from our last twelve months of jobs and wrote down what people actually paid, by room, by finish level, no vague ranges.
Everyone asks the same question first: what's it going to cost? Fair enough: it's the number that decides everything else. So here's what our clients actually paid over the last year, straight from the invoices.
The honest per-room numbers
Kitchens ran $11,000-$18,000 for most jobs. The floor of that range is a cosmetic refresh: new doors, tops, splashback. The top is a full custom rebuild with stone and integrated appliances. Bathrooms landed between $14,000 and $20,000, and the spread there is mostly tapware and tile choice, because the waterproofing underneath costs the same either way.
Whole-unit renovations, kitchen, bathroom, floors, paint, lighting, averaged $52,000 for a two-bedder. Our price list has the full per-service breakdown if you want line items.
What moves the number most
- Access. A ground-floor unit with a loading zone saves real money over level 8 with a booked lift. Labour is labour, but logistics is labour too.
- Layout changes. Keeping plumbing and electrical where it is is the single biggest saving available. Moving a toilet across the room can cost more than the toilet.
- Finish level. A laminate benchtop at $400 a metre vs stone at $900, neither is wrong, but they live in different budgets.
- Surprises. Asbestos removal, slab levelling, ancient wiring. In pre-90s buildings we budget a contingency because there's almost always something.
The bit nobody puts in their quote
Body corporate approval takes two to three weeks and costs nothing if you use a builder who knows the forms, it costs months if you don't. Budget your calendar, not just your cash. Our whole-unit page explains how the approval dance works.
The cheapest quote we see lose is usually the one missing waterproofing, clean-up and a schedule. Read the inclusions, not the total.
How to actually budget
Take the honest range for your rooms, add 10% for the thing you can't see yet, and don't spend the contingency on nicer tapware in week one. If the job comes in clean, the money's still yours at the end. And get the quote in writing: 'about forty, maybe forty-five' is not a quote.
Want numbers for your specific place? A free walkthrough takes 40 minutes and produces the only figure that matters.
Our services
Written by Dan Casinny
Owner of Casinny Repairs. Writes the quotes, applies the waterproofing, answers the phone.
Want the real number for your place?
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