Renovating vs. Refreshing: What’s the Difference and Which Do You Need?

Understand the Key Differences Between Renovating and Refreshing Your Luxury Interior, and Discover Which Approach Best Aligns with Your Lifestyle and Investment Goals.

Picture this.

You return from a design fair in Milan, stepping into your city penthouse. The view still captivates; but inside, something feels misaligned. The once-sleek kitchen now feels dated, your master suite lacks the sense of serenity you’ve come to expect from your travels, and your living room’s configuration, once ideal for cocktail soirées, now struggles to accommodate the effortless, layered lifestyle you've grown into.

What you’re sensing isn’t mere aesthetic fatigue. It’s the subtle whisper of evolution; of lifestyle outpacing layout, of personal growth demanding spatial harmony.

But here's the pivotal question: Do you need a complete renovation, or would a curated refresh reignite the spark?

At 8687 Studios, we often encounter this moment with clients. High-achieving individuals, visionaries in their own right, who’ve built lives and homes rich in detail. They don’t need more square meters; they need their space to meet them where they are now. Knowing whether to reimagine or refine is both an art and a strategy.

This article is designed to guide you through that distinction, renovating versus refreshing, so that you can make decisions that are aligned with your lifestyle, your time, and your vision for the future. Whether you're in Cape Town, Nairobi, or the Côte d’Azur, this is about more than budget. It's about legacy, rhythm, and how your space performs, today and tomorrow.

Veldstone Estate

What Is Renovating? A Deep Dive into Structural Transformation

Renovating is the architectural equivalent of a symphony: bold, deliberate, and orchestrated to deliver profound transformation. At 8687 Studios, when we speak of renovation, we’re not talking about surface-level upgrades, we’re referring to the complete reimagining of a space’s core. This might mean removing internal walls to open up a floor-plan, replacing outdated infrastructure like plumbing or HVAC systems, or redesigning high-functioning areas such as kitchens, bathrooms, or dressing rooms to serve a new rhythm of living. It’s where luxury meets logistics, and form evolves to match function at every level.

We recently worked with a client, an investor who splits his time between London and Cape Town, whose coastal bungalow offered world-class views but an interior that had fallen out of step with his life. It was compartmentalized, inefficient, and uninspired. Together, we embarked on a full-scale renovation that transformed the home into a seamless extension of its surroundings. We rotated living zones to embrace ocean vistas, installed glass partitions to invite in natural light, and added a floating mezzanine library that became the architectural heart of the home. Throughout, we sourced eco-conscious materials and partnered with local artisans, creating a space that was as sustainable as it was sophisticated.

Unlike cosmetic updates, renovations take time, typically several months or more, and often require temporary relocation. But for clients seeking a lasting, meaningful shift in how they inhabit their space, the rewards are unparalleled. A renovation isn’t simply about fixing what’s broken; it’s about redefining what’s possible. It’s for those who aren’t just updating a home, but who are crafting a lifestyle. The process begins with a single, powerful question: How do you want to live now? From there, every design decision is rooted in intention; whether it’s integrating a wellness studio, planning for multigenerational living, or engineering the home to anticipate your needs before you articulate them.

Visuals play a powerful role in bringing these transformations to life. We often use 3D walkthroughs and before-and-after photo sliders to help clients visualize the journey from outdated to exceptional. Combined with tactile mood boards and real-time client testimonials, these tools allow you to imagine not just a new space, but a new standard of living.

What Is Refreshing? The Power of Subtle, Curated Change

If renovation is a symphony, then refreshing is a jazz improvisation; nuanced, expressive, and masterfully restrained. Where renovation reshapes the bones of a space, a refresh breathes new life into its skin. It’s about rebalancing the aesthetic, enhancing mood, and elevating presence without disrupting the structure beneath. At 8687 Studios, we see refreshing as a finely tuned exercise in precision; an artful layering of textures, palettes, and objects that shift the emotional tone of a space with intent and clarity.

Imagine walking into a once-familiar holiday villa on the Kenyan coast; same walls, same footprints, but now the energy feels different. The air is lighter. The walls have been lime washed in soft, coastal neutrals. Rich, handwoven textiles from Dakar soften the soundscape. Bronze fixtures catch the morning light. Nothing has moved, yet everything feels reborn. This is the quiet power of a well-executed refresh: the ability to transform your experience of a space without the need to alter its structure.

Refreshing typically involves updates such as new paintwork, custom furnishings, lighting upgrades, window treatments, and curated styling. It might mean reimagining your living room’s layout to foster more fluid conversation, replacing heavy drapery with sheer linens to frame a view, or introducing sculptural lighting to dramatize a dining space. For clients who are seasonal travelers or maintain multiple residences, a refresh offers the flexibility to align each home with its evolving purpose and surrounding environment; often within weeks, rather than months.

One client, an art collector based in Paris with a secondary home in Marrakech, engaged us to refresh her riad without disturbing its historical bones. We introduced a palette of deep ochres and desert neutrals, reupholstered her existing furniture in textural Belgian linens, and collaborated with local artisans to craft bespoke lighting from raw brass and hand-blown glass. The transformation was atmospheric and deeply personal, retaining the soul of the space while elevating it to reflect who she had become.

For many high-net-worth individuals, time is the ultimate luxury. A refresh respects that reality. It’s non-invasive, swift, and can often be completed while clients remain in residence. But more importantly, it delivers a dramatic shift in ambiance, ideal for those who crave change but don’t require reinvention. It’s about finding joy in the details: the curve of a chair’s silhouette, the warmth of a new timber floor underfoot, the way a gallery wall tells a story differently when it's reframed through a new lens.

To complement this process, we often create mood boards, fabric swatches, and interactive digital mockups, allowing our clients to visualize possibilities with ease and confidence. Styling sessions are documented with behind-the-scenes reels, offering a glimpse into how a well-curated space comes together; not only with flair, but with feeling.

Key Factors to Guide Your Choice: Knowing What Your Home—and Life—Truly Need

Deciding between a renovation and a refresh isn’t just a financial decision; it’s a lifestyle alignment. The most successful spaces we design at 8687 Studios aren’t simply beautiful; they’re deeply attuned to the people who inhabit them. Choosing the right path begins with a pause, a moment to assess not just what your home looks like, but how it supports who you are, and who you’re becoming.

We often begin this dialogue with a deceptively simple question: What has changed? Perhaps your family has grown, or your children have left for university. Maybe your work-life has become more fluid, demanding a seamless transition between morning calls with Dubai and candlelit dinners with friends. Or perhaps you’ve returned from a season abroad, inspired by quiet luxury, natural materials, and layered minimalism, and now your interiors feel loud, heavy, or simply not you anymore.

These shifts in rhythm are your cue.

If your current layout restricts movement, light, or usability, if daily rituals feel compromised, it may be time to renovate. Structural adjustments allow your home to evolve in line with your life. Think of creating an indoor-outdoor transition for sunset entertaining, or integrating a wellness suite where a seldom-used guest room once stood. These changes are transformative, yes, but they’re also deeply practical for those looking to live more consciously, more comfortably, and with greater intention.

On the other hand, if your bones are good; your flow works, your foundations are solid, and your relationship with the space is still fundamentally sound, a refresh can deliver remarkable results. You may be surprised by how much impact can come from changing the visual language: a new material palette, artisanal lighting, contemporary art curation, or custom furnishings that introduce harmony and depth.

Budget and timeline, of course, are considerations; but for our clientele, it’s more about value. What is the emotional and functional return on this investment? How will it elevate your daily life, your gatherings, and your quiet Sunday mornings?

We had a client in Lagos who initially requested a full renovation of his art deco villa, citing that it “no longer felt like him.” But during our spatial review, we discovered that the architecture was not the issue; it was the styling that hadn’t grown with him. We reinterpreted the interiors through a West African modernist lens, blending bespoke woodwork with restrained contemporary art, and retained the home’s original spirit while giving it a compelling new voice. He spent half of what he’d budgeted for a renovation, and gained twice the emotional connection to his home.

Ultimately, choosing between renovating and refreshing is about clarity. Clarity in vision, in how you live, and in how your space can support your future. Whether we’re drafting architectural plans or reimagining a color palette, our role at 8687 Studios is to help you interpret what your home is quietly asking for; and then answer with elegance, precision, and soul.

To assist in this process, we often create lifestyle matrices; visual diagrams that map your priorities across time, space, and function. Paired with immersive renderings and tailored consultation, these tools guide our clients to decisions that feel not only informed, but deeply intuitive.

Real-World Scenarios: When to Renovate, When to Refresh

At 8687 Studios, we’ve seen it all, sun-drenched villas in Lamu with centuries-old bones, modernist penthouses in Accra needing rhythm and warmth, Parisian pieds-à-terre aching for relevance. And time after time, the question arises: is this a renovation or a refresh?

To bring clarity, it helps to explore real-world scenarios, each one echoing the quiet dilemmas our clients face. Because behind every design brief is a lifestyle story in motion.

Take, for instance, a Johannesburg family estate we were recently commissioned to transform. Built in the late 1980s, it had the grandeur of scale; sweeping staircases, generous proportions, but an outdated layout. The client, a philanthropist and art patron, envisioned a space that could accommodate charity dinners, host visiting artists-in-residence, and still feel intimate on quiet mornings. The solution was a full renovation: we restructured the entryway to open sightlines, created an atelier space where the garage once stood, and introduced a floating stairwell crafted from locally sourced timber and steel. The architecture now serves both the home’s legacy and the owner’s present-day rhythm.

Compare that to a recent refresh we completed for a young couple in Nairobi. Their glass-fronted apartment already had strong architectural bones, but it lacked identity. Together, we layered textures; tactile linens, statement rugs from Northern Africa, soft lighting schemes, and introduced curated art and greenery to reflect their cosmopolitan sensibilities. The transformation was complete in under two months, and the couple described it as “coming home to ourselves for the first time.”

Here’s another: a Lagos entrepreneur purchased a mid-century bungalow with the intent to demolish and rebuild. But upon closer inspection, the structure revealed a rare elegance in its simplicity; slatted wood screens, breeze blocks, and a courtyard that danced with morning light. We advised against renovation, and instead curated a high-impact refresh that preserved the architecture’s authenticity. We introduced earthen tones, contemporary Afrocentric furnishings, and sculptural lighting that echoed the original design language. The outcome? A heritage reborn; modern, rooted, and unique.

These stories reflect more than design choices; they reflect value-driven decisions that honor both the past and the future. For those with multiple homes, a refresh may be all that’s needed to reenergize a secondary residence, making it feel aligned with your current taste. For legacy properties, or homes where your lifestyle has fundamentally evolved, renovation may be the only route to true alignment.

A valuable exercise we often suggest is this: walk through your home at different times of day. Ask yourself, where do I feel inspired? Where do I feel blocked? Which spaces energize me, and which feel like they belong to a version of myself from five years ago? The answers are often surprisingly clear.

To further guide this process, we produce immersive visual case studies and cinematic before-and-after videos that let you see how similar spaces, perhaps even in your neighborhood or design style, have evolved through either method. These not only illustrate the possibilities, but help clients imagine what their transformation might look and feel like.

Fynbos Estate

Whether you choose to renovate or refresh, the decision ultimately rests on how your space supports the life you’re living and the life you aspire to lead. At 8687 Studios, we don’t see homes as static structures. We see them as living, evolving canvases; reflections of your values, aspirations, and unique narrative.

Renovation offers a chance to reshape your environment from the inside out. It’s bold, comprehensive, and ideal when your space no longer aligns with the cadence of your life. A refresh, on the other hand, is a whisper rather than a declaration; a curated shift in tone, mood, and feeling that can have just as much emotional impact, especially when the foundation is already strong.

Both approaches require vision. Both demand an understanding of who you are and where you’re going. And both can elevate your daily experience in profound, often unexpected ways. The beauty lies in choosing with intention; guided not by trends or pressure, but by clarity and confidence in what truly serves you.

At 8687 Studios, our role is not just to design spaces, but to help you interpret what your space is telling you. And to translate that into interiors that don’t just look extraordinary but feel like home.