Do you do kitchens and bathrooms?

Why these two rooms are different

Every other room in a house is mostly surfaces. A kitchen and a bathroom are machines with surfaces attached.

Underneath the part you chose from a showroom there is drainage that has to fall in one direction, venting that has to reach the roof, supply pipe, a panel that has to carry the load, circuits that have to be dedicated, and in a bathroom a ventilation fan that has to actually go outside. All of that is buried and none of it is negotiable after the wall closes.

Which is why these rooms reward planning and punish improvisation. A living room can be repainted on a whim. A bathroom where the drain was put in the wrong place has to be opened again from underneath.

The sequence, roughly

1. Decisions, before demolition

   Layout fixed, fixtures selected by model number, appliances confirmed with their real dimensions. Half the delays in these rooms are a decision that was left open, not a trade that did not turn up.

2. Demolition, and a look at what is there

   The old plumbing, the old wiring, the floor structure and any water damage become visible. This is the moment the scope either holds or has to be adjusted, and the adjustment is a written change, not a conversation.

3. Rough-in

   Plumbing, electrical, any framing changes and any ductwork, all in before anything is covered — and inspected while it can still be seen.

4. Close the walls

   Insulation where it applies, then board, then the waterproofing in a wet area, which is its own step and not the same thing as tile.

5. Tile, cabinets, tops

   In that order, and countertops are templated after the cabinets are physically set, not from a drawing. That template-to-delivery gap is real and it belongs in the schedule from the start.

6. Fixtures, trim and the list

   Everything connected, everything tested, then a walk round where you write down what is not right before the job is called done.

The two things that actually blow schedules

Not the building work. The building work is predictable.

The first is a long-lead item. A cabinet run, a particular tile, an appliance, a vanity, a shower enclosure — anything that is made to order rather than taken off a shelf. If it is ordered late, the whole job waits at the point where that item is needed, with the room already unusable. Ask, at the start, which items have long lead times and when each has to be ordered, and get that list in writing.

The second is a decision you have not made. Contractors are rarely willing to say this out loud, so here it is plainly: a renovation runs on a stream of decisions from the owner, and each one has a date after which it starts costing time. Ask for those dates at the beginning. A schedule that shows when you have to have chosen something is more useful than one that only shows what the trades are doing.

A kitchen does not wait for the cabinets. It waits for the one item nobody ordered.

Old plumbing and old wiring

In a house of any age, opening these rooms up tends to reveal the history of the building's services.

Drain lines that have been extended twice and no longer fall properly. A vent that was capped inside a wall. Supply pipe that has been patched in three materials. A circuit feeding the kitchen that was fine when a kitchen had a toaster on it. In a bathroom, a fan that has always been ducted into the attic rather than outside, which is where the mould at the ceiling edge came from.

None of that is anybody's fault and all of it has to be dealt with, because once the wall is open, what goes back has to meet what is required now rather than what was acceptable when it was first installed. The useful thing to agree in advance is not whether this will happen but how it gets handled when it does: you are shown it, told what it changes in time and cost, and given the decision, in writing, before it is covered up.

Living without the room

A kitchen or a bathroom under renovation is out of use, and if it is the only one you have, that is the single biggest thing shaping how the work is sequenced.

It can usually be planned around. A temporary kitchen somewhere else in the house, a sequence that gets one bathroom finished before the other is started, a phase that brings the room back into use before the last of the finishes are done. What makes that possible is saying it at the first visit, because it changes the order the work happens in rather than just the schedule.

What to nail down before you sign

Who supplies what

If you are buying fixtures yourself, agree what happens when one arrives damaged, late or wrong — including who waits and who pays for the return trip.

Allowances, and what they are

An allowance is a placeholder for something not yet chosen. It is not a price you have been given. Ask how the difference is handled in both directions, and ask which allowances are in your scope.

The fixtures, by model

Named in the document, not described. "Standard vanity" is not a specification and it is where disappointment comes from.

Waterproofing, named

In a shower or a wet room, what system is going in behind the tile. It is invisible afterwards and it is the thing that fails expensively.

Patching and painting

Where the new work meets the old — the ceiling edge, the doorway, the floor transition. Frequently nobody's job because nobody wrote it down.

Protection and the route

What gets sealed off, what gets covered, and how materials come in and out. Agreed before the first day.