Guide
The order of works in a light refurbishment
In a whole-flat programme the sequence is the thing you are buying. Everything else is materials and labour.
The sequence, and why it is that way round
Strip-out first, then first fix — the plumbing, electrics and extract that live inside walls and floors. Wet rooms are formed, waterproofed and tested next, because they are the elements most expensive to revisit. Then floors, then second fix, and decoration last.
Decoration goes last for a plain reason: every trade that follows a decorator damages what the decorator did. A programme that paints early to make the flat feel finished is buying a fortnight of morale at the cost of a fortnight of making good.
Where the waits actually are
Two of them, and both belong in the lead-in rather than the middle. The first is consent: a licence to alter in a leasehold flat is outside anyone's control, and a flat stripped out while a letter is awaited is the worst outcome in this whole subject.
The second is long-lead materials — cabinetry, stone, sanitaryware, sometimes tiles. Ordering happens once dimensions are confirmed on site, and the strip-out date is set against confirmed delivery dates rather than hope. There are also drying times that cannot be compressed: screeds, plaster and waterproofing systems all want their time.
Provisional items and what they are for
In a period building, some of the work cannot be scoped until the floors are up and the walls are open. Rather than pretend otherwise, those items are listed as provisional with an allowance: a length of failed waste, a subfloor that will not take a finish, wiring that serves something not on any drawing.
They are confirmed or released once the position is known, and any change is written rather than agreed verbally in a corridor. A proposal with no provisional items in this housing stock is usually a proposal that has not looked.
Where this service stops
Light refurbishment covers kitchens, bathrooms, decoration, flooring and joinery within the existing rooms. It does not cover forming or widening structural openings, dropping a floor, or adding a storey. Work outside this main service is covered in our Other services catalogue; the scope and responsible business are confirmed before an instruction.
The practical consequence is that the plan you start with is the plan you finish with. Where a brief genuinely needs walls to move, it is a different kind of project and should be scoped as one from the beginning.
Questions
Sometimes, in a large flat where the areas are genuinely separated and the route in and out does not pass through finished space. In a typical conversion flat it is a false economy: the traffic, dust and the inevitable return visit to a first-fix detail undo it. We will say where the flat allows it.
It is recorded while the area is open, priced as a written variation against the agreed scope, and put to you before anything is done about it. Where it was anticipated as a provisional item, the allowance is confirmed or adjusted against what is actually there. Nothing gets absorbed silently in either direction.
The work this applies to
Where this comes up
Related guides
- Living through a renovation: occupied-home sequencing
Most people can stay for a single room. Very few enjoy staying for a whole flat.
- What decides the cost of a kitchen or bathroom renovation
There is no price list on this site. What follows is what actually moves the figure, so that a proposal reads as a set of decisions rather than a number.