Renovation Timeline Template for Malaysian Homes (Free Excel Download)

A free renovation timeline template that works out your move-in date, skips Malaysian holidays and festive breaks, and tells you when to order everything.

Your contractor said “three months, no problem.” You’ve already told your landlord you’ll move out in March, and your loan repayments start next month. Then you look at a calendar and see Chinese New Year sitting right in the middle of the job.

This free renovation timeline template turns a contractor’s rough estimate into real dates. You enter when you start planning and when you want to move in. It works out every phase, skips Sundays, public holidays and festive breaks, and tells you whether you’re on track. It also tells you the last day to order tiles, approve carpentry drawings and book everything else, so nothing holds up the work.

The file opens in Microsoft Excel. To use it in Google Sheets, upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets.

What’s in the Free Renovation Timeline Template

Each tab handles one job. You only type into the yellow cells; everything else updates by itself.

How to Use the Renovation Timeline Template in 5 Steps

You need about 15 minutes for the first pass, and five minutes a week once work starts.

1. Fill in the Start Here tab

Enter your property type first, because it changes the default durations: a landed house has more of everything to hack, wire and tile. Your planning start date is the day you start meeting designers or contractors, not the day hacking begins. Planning and approvals usually take four to six weeks before anyone touches a wall. If you’ve only just got your keys, our new home key collection checklist covers the documents, utilities and JMB steps that come first.

Set the contingency buffer to 20% or higher. If your contractor says 12 weeks, plan for 14 to 16.

2. Check the Holidays tab

The template already includes national public holidays and typical worker breaks for Chinese New Year and Hari Raya. Add your state’s own holidays, such as Thaipusam or the Sultan’s birthday, and ask your contractor when their workers actually go home for the festive season. Many crews take two weeks for Chinese New Year, not two days. Our guide to the best time to renovate in Malaysia shows which months to avoid starting in.

Islamic holiday dates depend on moon sighting, so check them against the official list at the start of each year.

3. Replace the default durations with your contractor’s schedule

The defaults are a starting point for a full renovation. Once your contractor or interior designer (ID) gives you their schedule, type their working days into the yellow Your estimate column. If they run two phases at the same time, such as finishing the ceiling while tiling starts in the bathrooms, enter the overlapping days in the Overlap column.

Then compare the two. A schedule much shorter than the default is worth questioning before you sign.

4. Work through the Orders & Approvals tab

Most renovation delays don’t come from slow workers. They come from decisions made too late. Aircond piping, power points and the water heater have to be decided before the walls are closed, and carpentry needs three to five weeks in the factory after the carpenter measures the site.

The tab shows the last safe day for each decision. Mark items as Ordered or Done as you go, and the reminders disappear.

5. Update it weekly and share it

Change each phase’s status every week and log your site visits. If a phase runs late, change its days in the Timeline tab and every later date moves with it, including your move-in date. That gives you an early warning to talk to your contractor, extend your tenancy or rearrange your move.

Default Durations: Condo vs Landed House

These are the working days the template starts with. They’re estimates for a full renovation of an existing home, so a partial renovation will be shorter. For what happens in each phase and why it takes as long as it does, read our room-by-room renovation timeline.

Working days are not calendar days. If your contractor works Monday to Saturday, six working days is about one week.

The Malaysian Delays Most Renovation Schedules Forget

A schedule from a contractor often covers the work itself and nothing around it. These are the gaps the template is built to catch.

• Festive breaks — Work slows down or stops for one to two weeks around Chinese New Year and Hari Raya, when workers go back to their hometowns.
• JMB or MC approval — Condo renovations need approval from the Joint Management Body (JMB) or Management Corporation (MC) before work starts, usually with a renovation deposit and worker passes. Landed houses may need a permit from the local council (PBT), such as DBKL or MBPJ, for structural or external work.
• Condo working hours — Most condos allow work only on weekdays and some Saturdays, never on Sundays or public holidays. Check your management’s house rules, then set the Saturday option on the Start Here tab to match. If you’re living at home through the works, use the same hours to plan which weeks to stay away.
• Factory lead times — Built-in carpentry, stone countertops and imported tiles are made or shipped to order. Order late and the site sits idle while you wait.
• The ponding test — Bathrooms need at least 24 to 48 hours of standing water after waterproofing to prove there are no leaks. Rushing it can mean hacking up new tiles later.
• Surprises found during hacking — Resale units often reveal old wiring, leaking pipes or hollow screed once the tiles come off. Fixing them adds days and cost. Our guide to hidden renovation costs covers the usual ones.
• Monsoon rain — Rain mostly affects external painting, roofing and balcony works. Indoor work carries on.

The contingency buffer exists for these. A schedule without one assumes everything goes right.

Example: A Condo Renovation Starting in November

To see how the dates fall, the template ships with this example filled in: a condo, planning starts on Monday 2 November 2026, the contractor works Saturdays, and the buffer is 20%.

Painting takes seven working days but stretches across almost three weeks on the calendar, because the Chinese New Year break lands in the middle of it. That one festive break pushes everything after it back by nearly two weeks.

The whole job, from first meeting to move-in, takes about five months. The same plan for a landed house moves the move-in date to early June 2027.

A plan like this lets you give your landlord notice for the right month, rather than the month you hoped for.

Link Payments to Finished Work, Not Dates

The Payments tab ties each progress payment to the end of a phase. If tiling runs two weeks late, the tiling payment moves with it. That keeps you from paying for work that hasn’t been done yet.

The template’s example uses five stages: a deposit on signing, then payments after the wiring, tiling, carpentry and painting, and a final 10% held until every defect on your snag list is fixed. Your contract decides the real split. Check how it’s laid out when you compare renovation quotations, and pay only into the company’s account, never a personal one.

Before You Share the Schedule With Your Contractor

Go through these before work starts:

• Your contractor’s working days are in the Timeline tab, not just the defaults
• Your contractor has confirmed their festive break dates, and they’re in the Holidays tab
• Your condo’s working hours match the Saturday setting
• The JMB or MC application and renovation deposit are in hand before hacking is booked
• Every item on the Orders & Approvals tab has an owner: you, the ID or the contractor
• Each payment is linked to a finished phase, and the stages add up to 100%
• Your move-in date includes the buffer, and your tenancy or move is planned around it

Send the Gantt tab to your contractor and ask them to flag anything that looks wrong. Agreeing on the dates now is much easier than arguing about them in February.

For everything else to sort out before work starts, go through our complete renovation checklist.

A renovation that runs to a schedule is a calmer one. You know which week the tiles go down, when to book the movers, and that the first night in your new home will be on a date you chose, with the paint dry and the boxes already waiting.