When Is a Kitchen Measured? The Renovation Order of Works

They call on a Tuesday morning: “Everything's done, just the kitchen left — can you come and measure?” We arrive: tiles already on the wall, floor laid, walls painted, the flat smells new. We measure the niche, all fine. Then we look at where the plumbing came out. By the layout, the sink belongs under the window; the drain sits some forty centimeters to the left, where the old sink used to be. The sockets for the fridge — exactly behind the spot where the fridge meets the wall, so the door won't close properly.

None of that was the tradesmen's fault. Nobody told them what the kitchen would look like, so they ran the services where they found them. The fix meant chiselling out brand-new tiles, patching, and hunting for the same tile finish that had gone out of production in the meantime. All in — several hundred euros and two weeks, for a piece of information that had been free six weeks earlier.

We're a joinery workshop. We come into a renovation near the end, when most of the work is done — which is exactly why we see the consequences of everything that happened before us. We get this phone call a few times a year and it's always the same story. So this article starts with the kitchen rather than with the demolition.

Short answer: a kitchen is measured twice

You call the joiner the first time before the electrician and plumber start chasing walls, with a draft kitchen layout in hand. The second time after plastering but before tiling, when the exact measurements are taken and the kitchen is built to them. The third visit is the installation itself, after floors and painting. If you read only this paragraph, you've already avoided the most expensive mistake in a kitchen renovation.

Exactly when the kitchen comes in

Most people assume the joiner is called at the end, once the flat is finished. In practice the joiner is called three times, and the first visit matters far more than the last.

The first visit takes half an hour and most workshops don't charge for it — ask when you book. The second is non-negotiable, because a custom kitchen is cut to measured walls rather than drawn ones; a two or three centimeter difference along a wall is the rule in older buildings, not the exception. The third is the installation.

One more thing worth knowing up front: a custom kitchen takes four to eight weeks to build once the measurements are signed off. That overlaps neatly with the screed drying, so if you book the measuring on time, the kitchen arrives exactly when the flat is ready. Book it once everything is finished, and you'll sit in a completed flat waiting another two months. We covered the whole ordering process, and how to read a workshop quote, in our complete guide to custom kitchens.

A checklist for your electrician and plumber

Print this list and hand it over before anyone starts chasing walls. It's written from what is most often missing when we turn up to install.

• Sink: supply and drain within the width of the unit the sink sits in — not “somewhere in that area”, but in that unit.
• Dishwasher: supply, drain and a socket, with the socket never behind the machine but in the neighbouring unit.
• Fridge: socket in the adjacent unit or above, never directly behind the fridge, or the appliance won't sit flush to the wall.
• Built-in oven and hob: two separate connections if they're independent appliances, and a dedicated circuit for the oven.
• Extractor hood: a socket inside the wall unit, plus a vent opening if the hood ducts outside.
• Sockets above the worktop: positioned so none of them ends up behind a tall unit or an appliance.
• Under-cabinet lighting: power run into the wall units while it can still be hidden.
• Washing machine in the kitchen: supply, drain and socket to the side, never behind the machine.
• Boiler and stopcocks: still reachable after the kitchen is installed — the unit in front of a valve has to open.

One rule that settles most of the arguments

You work from dirty to clean, from the top down, and from services to surfaces. Anything that makes dust, rubble or moisture comes before anything that is hard to clean or easy to damage. Whenever you're unsure what goes first, ask which of the two jobs makes more mess — that one goes first.

There's a corollary that rarely gets said out loud: decisions come before works. You can't run electrics until you know where the fridge stands, and you can't buy tiles until you know where the kitchen ends. Expensive renovation mistakes rarely happen because somebody did the job badly. Usually the job was done properly, just against a decision nobody had made yet.

The order of works, step by step

1. Decisions and layout — Before the first tradesman walks in, know where the sink, cooker, fridge, washing machine and every socket will go. Changes at this stage cost nothing; the same changes after the walls are chased cost hundreds of euros.
2. Building permissions and neighbours — Notify the building manager and the neighbours, check when noisy work is allowed and where the skip can stand. Removing load-bearing walls or relocating wet areas requires approval and drawings — not a formality worth skipping.
3. Strip-out and demolition — Out go the old kitchen, sanitaryware, floors, tiles and any partition walls. Take the rubble out as you go rather than stacking it in rooms; in a smaller flat it will block every other trade.
4. First-fix services — Electrics and plumbing are chased into the walls and run to their new positions. This is the point of no return: anything you change afterwards, you break open. The kitchen layout has to be on paper and in the tradesmen's hands here.
5. Blockwork and plastering — New partitions go up, chases are closed, walls are plastered. From this moment the drying clock starts, and no amount of negotiating speeds it up.
6. Screed — The floor base is poured. Allow roughly a week of drying per centimeter of thickness, and insist on an actual moisture reading before anything goes on top of it.
7. Windows and door frames — Windows and internal door frames are fitted. Leave the door leaves for the end so painters and fitters don't damage them.
8. Tiling — Bathroom and kitchen tiles. Before the first kitchen tile, the tiler needs to know where the worktop sits and where the tall units go, so you don't pay to tile what nobody will ever see — or leave bare what everybody will.
9. Skimming and first coat — Walls are levelled and given their first coat while the flat is still empty and still allowed to get dirty.
10. Floors — Parquet or laminate, only once the screed moisture has been measured and is below the flooring manufacturer's limit. Skirting boards wait until after painting.
11. Kitchen, wardrobes and sanitaryware — Custom furniture is installed and the final plumbing and electrical connections are made. This is where you find out whether steps four and eight were done to plan or from memory.
12. Finishing — Second coat of paint, door leaves, switches and sockets, lighting, skirting and a final clean. Only now does the furniture come in.

This sequence isn't scripture, and in practice the phases overlap — while the screed dries, the workshop is already building your kitchen and you're choosing tiles. But two things are never skipped: services go before surfaces, and drying goes before anything laid on top of it.

How long each phase really takes

On a flat of around fifty square meters, the actual work fits into three or four weeks. The trouble is that a renovation doesn't take three or four weeks — between the trades things dry, deliveries are waited on, and then things dry again.

Added up, a full renovation of an older flat realistically runs eight to twelve weeks from demolition to moving in. If someone promises you three weeks for all of it, either it's a refresh with no new services and no screed, or drying is being skipped somewhere — and that always gets paid for later, usually through the floor.

Where it usually goes wrong

• Tiles run to the ceiling behind tall units that nobody will ever see — money straight in the bin. Or the reverse: tiled only “as far as the kitchen goes”, and then the layout changed.
• A socket directly behind the fridge or dishwasher, leaving the appliance standing a few centimeters proud of the wall and ruining the whole run.
• Forgotten power for the extractor hood, later solved with a cable snaking across the wall units.
• Parquet laid on a screed that wasn't dry, because the move-in date was closer than common sense.
• The kitchen measured before plastering, so the units don't sit flush against a wall that gained two centimeters in the meantime.
• Door leaves fitted before the painters, so the rest of the renovation is spent protecting them with plastic.
• A budget with no contingency. There's always something under the old floor and the old kitchen, and it's never a pleasant surprise.

If you're staying in the flat during the works

You can, but the sequence changes. The work is then done zone by zone rather than phase by phase across the whole flat: bathroom finished completely, then the kitchen, then the rooms. It takes noticeably longer and generally costs more, because the trades leave and come back several times. Dust is its own story — plastic sheeting over doorways helps less than you'd hope.

Our honest advice from experience: if it's only the kitchen, stay put and you'll survive those few weeks. If you're replacing services throughout the flat, find somewhere to be for a month. The maths almost always favours moving out, even when you're paying rent.

Budget and contingency

A full renovation of an older flat in Serbia currently runs somewhere around €450 to €700 per square meter including labour and materials, while a refresh that leaves the services alone costs considerably less. Within that budget, services, tiling and floors eat by far the largest share; furniture and the kitchen come last, which is exactly why people end up economising there — the money is already spent.

Add 15 to 20 percent contingency and don't touch it until the services are finished, because that's where the surprises live. We broke down the kitchen part of the budget, item by item, in our article on kitchen renovation costs. If the kitchen is a small one, it's worth reading how to use every centimeter before the services are set in concrete.

Questions we get asked most

When should I call a joiner to measure the kitchen?

Twice. First before the first-fix services, with a draft layout, so power and water come out in the right places. Second after plastering but before tiling, for the exact measurements the kitchen is built to. Manufacturing then takes four to eight weeks, which lines up neatly with the screed drying.

Where should the fridge socket go?

In the adjacent unit or above the fridge, never directly behind it. A socket behind the appliance pushes the fridge a few centimeters off the wall, and the whole run of units stops sitting in line. The same rule applies to the dishwasher and the washing machine.

How far up should kitchen tiles go?

The standard is to tile the zone between the worktop and the wall units, usually 50 to 60 centimeters high. Anything behind the base and wall units is money in the bin, but the tiler can only know that if you give them the kitchen layout. If you're planning a kitchen with no wall units or with open shelving, the tiling goes higher — one more reason the layout has to exist before the tiler starts.

Which trade comes first in a renovation?

After the strip-out, the first serious trade is the installer — electrics and plumbing come before everything else, because the chasing is done into bare walls. The only people on site before them are the ones demolishing and carting out rubble. If you're renovating a kitchen or bathroom, have the layout on paper before the installer arrives.

How long does a full apartment renovation take?

For a flat of 50 to 60 square meters with new services and a new screed, eight to twelve weeks is realistic. Less than half of that is actual work — the rest is plaster and screed drying, which can't be skipped, and waiting on deliveries.

What goes first, tiles or flooring?

Tiles first, flooring after. Tiling brings water and dust, while the floor is the most vulnerable surface in the flat and therefore goes in as late as possible. For the same reason, skirting boards go on after painting.

When do the doors get fitted?

Frames go in after plastering and before skimming, so the junctions can be finished properly. The leaves are hung right at the end, after painting and floors. If a fitter offers to hang the leaves straight away, expect to spend the rest of the renovation protecting them with plastic.

Can you renovate while living in the flat?

You can, if the work is done zone by zone — one room finished, then the next. It takes longer and costs more because the trades return several times, and dust gets everywhere regardless of sheeting. For a full replacement of services throughout the flat, moving out is almost always cheaper than it first appears.

Our advice, for what it's worth

Renovations don't fail because of bad tradesmen — they fail because of sequence. A good tiler will tile the wrong wall perfectly if nobody told him where the kitchen goes, and that won't be his fault. You don't need to know how plaster is mixed. You just need every trade to get the information it needs, in time.

So the single most useful thing you can do before the first hammer swing is draw the layout. Draw your kitchen with exact measurements in our free 3D planner, print the drawing, and hand it to your installer. Half the mistakes in this article disappear with that one sheet of paper, and it costs you an afternoon.