A full kitchen renovation runs in a fixed order, and the order matters more than most people expect.
You cannot plaster a wall before the pipes and cables are inside it.
You cannot fit cabinets onto a floor that has not been made good.
You cannot template a stone worktop until the cabinets are standing and level.
Get the sequence wrong and you pay for it in dead weeks, when nobody can start because the previous trade has not finished.
So before you book anyone, it helps to understand the running order of the whole job and why each step waits on the one before it.
Sign off the design before anything is ripped out
The single most expensive mistake is starting demolition while the design is still loose.
Every later step is measured against final decisions: where the sink goes, whether the hob is gas or induction, how deep the cabinets are, where the fridge sits.
Change your mind about the sink position after the plumbing is roughed in and you are paying to redo work that was already correct for the old plan.
Nail down the layout, the appliances and the worktop material first.
This is the stage where you should also sort out the boring structural things, because you cannot see them once the walls are closed up.
Demolition and taking the room back to bones
With the plan locked, the old kitchen comes out: units, old worktops, tiles, sometimes the flooring, sometimes a wall if the layout is opening up.
This is also the moment any hidden nasties show themselves.
Damp behind the units, dodgy wiring, a floor that is not level, a joist that has quietly rotted.
It is worth budgeting a small contingency here, because what the demolition reveals often changes the next step.
A wall that looks solid can hide a problem you now have to fix before you go any further.
First fix: the plumbing and electrics inside the walls
First fix is everything that gets buried.
New water supply and waste pipes run to where the sink and dishwasher will sit, gas is moved if the hob is changing, and the electrician chases cables into the walls for sockets, appliance circuits, extractor and lighting. None of it is connected to anything usable yet, this is the rough-in.
It has to happen now because the plasterer is coming next, and once the walls are skimmed, any pipe or cable you forgot means cutting the wall open again.
This is why a good kitchen fitter walks the room with the sparky and the plumber holding the actual plan, not a rough idea.
Plastering and making the walls good
Once the pipes and cables are in and signed off, the walls and any patched areas get plastered and left to dry properly. Rushing this is a false economy.
Cabinets and tiles fixed to damp or uneven plaster do not sit true, and you see every millimetre of it later at eye level.
Fresh plaster needs days to dry before anything is fixed to it or painted, so this is a natural pause in the job rather than a delay.
Fitting the cabinets
Now the room starts to look like a kitchen.
The carcasses go in, get screwed to the walls and, critically, get levelled. Leveling is not cosmetic.
The worktop, the doors, the appliances and the plinths all reference the cabinet tops, so if the units are out, everything above them is out too.
On a floor that slopes, and most floors slope a little, this is fiddly work with packers and a long spirit level. Take the time here and the rest of the job falls into place.
Templating and fabricating the worktop
Here is the step that catches self-managing homeowners out, and it is worth understanding before you start booking trades.
Worktops cannot be measured until the cabinets are installed and levelled, and stone fabrication then takes a week or more, so this is where self-managed projects stall: the homeowner is left cooking off a camping stove while the plumber and the stonemason each wait on the other to finish.
This is the point where a single point of contact earns its keep, and having one team coordinating the trades means the template is booked the day the carcasses are levelled rather than a fortnight later once someone remembers to call.
Companies that run design, cabinetry, installation and finishing in-house, such as Brisbane’s Action Kitchens, sequence the second-fix plumbing and electrics, the tiling and the final painting back-to-back off a single programme, which is what keeps a kitchen renovation to weeks rather than months.
If you are managing the trades yourself, the fix is to warn everyone about this gap in advance.
Tell the stonemason the likely template date the moment cabinets are booked, and ask the tiler to hold the days after fabrication.
The dead time comes from nobody owning the calendar, not from the work itself being slow.
Second fix: connecting everything up
With the worktop fabricated and fitted, the second fix is where the buried services become a working kitchen. The plumber connects the sink, tap, dishwasher and any water line to the fridge.
The electrician fits the sockets, switches, extractor and lights onto the cabling that was chased in during the first fix. The hob and oven go live.
This is why first and second fix are the same trades doing two separate visits, weeks apart, and why a self-managed job needs both dates pencilled in early rather than chased when the moment arrives.
Tiling, splashbacks and the finishing touches
The splashback and any wall tiling go on after the worktop, because the tiles usually sit on top of it and need it as a level base.
Then the flooring is finished if it was not done earlier, the walls get their final coat of paint, the cabinet doors and handles are adjusted so everything lines up, and the trims and skirtings go back.
This is the stage where the room stops being a building site, and it is also where rushing shows, so it is worth letting the finishing trades take the time they need.
Why the order is the whole point
Read back through the steps and the pattern is simple: nearly every one is blocked by the one before it. That is fine when a single programme moves each trade in as the last one clears.
It falls apart when you book each trade separately, because now the gaps between them are yours to manage, and a missed phone call becomes a fortnight of a kitchen you cannot cook in.
Whether you hire one company to run the lot or project-manage it yourself, the thing to protect is the sequence.
Know what waits on what, book the next trade before the current one finishes, and the job that could drag on for months instead runs in weeks.
