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Renovations go wrong in the order, not the effort. Tick what you are taking on and this gives you the sequence the trades expect, and flags the orderings that cost the most to undo. No account needed.
An example plan. Tick the rooms and jobs you are taking on to get the order for your own house.
Step 01
Houses built before the 1990s may contain asbestos. Textured coatings, old floor tiles, bitumen adhesive, insulation board, old flues and cement roof sheets are the usual places. Get it checked before you disturb walls, ceilings or floors, because a survey costs a fraction of what disturbing it costs.
Step 02
Getting back to a shell shows you what you are actually working with, and it is much cheaper to find a rotten joist now than after the plastering.
Step 03
Rotten joists and floorboards, failed lintels, crumbling brickwork behind the old plaster. This is the moment it is all visible and reachable, and every one of these gets more expensive once it is covered up again.
Step 04
Waste needs a fall, and the fall decides where a bath, a shower tray or a sink can physically go. It constrains the layout, so it is settled before first fix.
Step 05
Pipework that ends up buried, pressure tested while you can still see all of it.
Step 06
Every cable run, before anything covers it, including the manifold, thermostats and controls for any new heating. This is the last cheap moment to add a socket, and the moment to decide whether the consumer unit needs replacing. Electrical work often needs signing off by a registered electrician. Check what applies where you live.
Step 07
A kitchen and a bathroom both need extraction, and interlinked mains smoke and heat alarms belong in the same first fix. Both are awkward and visible if they go in afterwards, and your electrician will know what your area asks for. A duct to an outside wall takes the moisture out of the house where a recirculating hood does not.
Step 08
Only if you are insulating: an external wall, a loft-facing ceiling or a floor. A stripped-back room is the one moment it is affordable, and it goes in after the services so cables and pipes are not buried in it, and before the screed and the boarding.
Step 09
Anything the plasterer finishes up to has to be in place before they arrive, and it is set off the finished floor level. Fitting linings afterwards means either refitting them or paying the plasterer a second visit.
Step 10
The point of no return. Everything behind the wall has to be finished and tested, because reaching it again means breaking the wall open.
Step 11
A skim on plasterboard takes days to a couple of weeks. Backing coats, and plaster on new blockwork, commonly want three to four weeks. It cannot be hurried, and painting too early traps moisture and the paint fails.
Step 12
A watered-down first coat, as soon as the plaster is dry. It is what stabilises the surface, so it comes well before the colour coats and before any tiling.
Step 13
The waterproof layer behind the tiles. It is cheap now, invisible later, and the single thing that decides whether a shower lasts ten years or two.
Step 14
Before the wall tiling, so the tiles run down over the rim and the upstand and the joint sits behind the tile. A tray dropped in against finished tiling leaves the joint facing the water, which is the commonest leak in a new bathroom.
Step 15
Onto the waterproofed, dry surface, over the bath and tray upstand, and before the pan and basin go in so you are not cutting around them.
Step 16
Painting before the floor goes down and before the fittings arrive is far faster, and the cutting-in is neater.
Step 17
Only if the floor runs underneath the units rather than up to them, in which case it goes down before them, because it sets the height every plinth, appliance and integrated door is set from. After the painting, so nobody is cutting in above a brand new floor.
Step 18
Units first, then the worktop templated against the units as actually fitted. Templating from a drawing is how worktops get recut.
Step 19
It is set off the fitted worktop, so it cannot go on until the worktop is in. This is the one piece of tiling that follows the fit rather than preceding it.
Step 20
The last pieces, against finished and tiled surfaces.
Step 21
Connecting up: sockets, switches, lights, taps and appliances, once the things they serve are physically in place.
Step 22
Late, because every trade before it drags tools and dust across the room. Flooring that runs under kitchen units is the exception and went down earlier.
Step 23
It scribes to the finished floor, so it follows the flooring rather than preceding it.
Step 24
Everything before this leaves marks. One final pass costs an afternoon and is the difference between finished and nearly finished.
Step 25
Test everything you have had installed under real use, and collect the paperwork now: the electrician's certificate, the gas engineer's, the window installer's, and any sign-off from your building authority. Chasing a trade for it a year later is much harder, and a buyer's solicitor will ask.
These apply to the plan above. Each one is a job that gets paid for twice when the order slips.
Avoid
Chasing cable into finished plaster means patching, drying and repainting the whole wall. This is the most expensive ordering mistake in a renovation.
Avoid
A weeping joint found later means opening the wall or ceiling you just paid to finish.
Avoid
Disturbing it turns a cheap survey into a licensed removal, and it exposes everyone in the house in the meantime.
Avoid
The tiles have to run down over the upstand. Tiled first, the joint faces the water instead of sitting behind the tile, which is the commonest leak in a new bathroom.
Avoid
The plasterer has to come back to finish up to them, or the linings get fitted proud of the finished wall.
Avoid
Water gets behind the tiles and into the wall. The repair is a full strip-out of the finished tiling.
Avoid
Trapped moisture makes the paint peel and blister, so the wall gets stripped and done again.
Avoid
The splashback is set off the fitted worktop. Tiled first, the joint never lines up and the tiles come off.
Avoid
Every remaining trade then walks on your finished floor. Flooring goes late for a reason.
Avoid
The skirting has to scribe to the finished floor height, so it comes off and goes back on.
The other way a sequence slips. Nothing downstream can start while you are waiting for a delivery.
Units run to several weeks, and a stone worktop is usually one to three weeks after the template, which cannot be taken until the units are fitted.
Check stock before you book the fitter. A back-ordered pan holds up the tiling behind it.
Order the full quantity plus wastage in one go. A second batch is rarely the same shade, and a stone slab can be weeks.
General guidance, not professional or legal advice. The sequencing describes common UK practice. Anything involving gas, electrics, structure or asbestos needs a qualified person, and the rules on permission and sign-off differ by country, so check what applies where you live.