The order of works on a whole-house refurbishment.

Why the order is fixed

A house is built in layers, and a refurbishment takes the layers off and puts them back in the same order. Pipes and cables sit inside walls and floors, so they go in before the plaster; plaster goes on before the skirting; skirting goes on before the paint. Each stage closes something the previous stage needed open. The order below is the one a whole-house refurbishment runs in, with the decisions that have to be made before each stage starts.

1. Survey, drawings and price

The house is measured and drawn as it is, then as it will be: plans of every floor, the kitchen and the bathrooms in detail, a schedule of finishes, and a structural engineer's calculations where a wall is coming out. The price is built from those drawings line by line, and building control is applied to for the structural, drainage and electrical work.

2. Strip-out

Gas capped, circuits isolated and proven dead, water drained down. Then the soft strip: kitchens and bathrooms out, floor coverings up, redundant pipework and cabling out, and back to brick wherever the drawings demand it. What the strip-out reveals, in the joists, the walls and the damp, is checked before anything new goes in.

3. Structure and weathertight

Walls come down and steel beams go in, to the engineer's drawings and with building control inspecting. Roof repairs, new windows and external doors, damp-proofing and any underpinning happen now, so that the house is dry and stable before the services start.

4. First fix

Everything that will be hidden. Plumbing: hot and cold feeds, waste and soil pipes, heating pipework, the positions of every radiator, basin, bath and shower. Electrics: cables for sockets, switches, lighting, cooker, shower and data, run to the positions on the drawings. Carpentry: new stud walls, floor joists, door linings, the staircase. Ventilation ducts and extract fans. This is the stage the kitchen and bathroom layouts have to be final, because the services go where the fittings will be.

5. Plastering

Plasterboard where walls have been rebuilt, then a skim coat throughout, and the drying time that follows. It is the messiest stage and it decides how good the paint looks later.

6. Second fix

The house starts to look finished. Doors are hung, architraves and skirting go on, the kitchen carcasses and worktops are fitted, the bathrooms are tiled and plumbed, the sockets, switches and light fittings go on, the radiators are hung, the boiler is commissioned. Floors follow: timber, stone or tile, then carpet last.

7. Decoration

Filling, sanding, mist coat, then the finish coats; wallpaper where it is specified. Decoration is last because every trade before it marks a wall.

8. Snagging and handover

The house is checked room by room against the drawings, the snags are cleared, the building control completion certificate is issued, and the house is cleaned and handed over with the drawings, the finishes schedule and the certificates for the gas, the electrics and the windows. Those documents are what let a tile, a tap or a paint colour be matched years later.

The decisions, in order

1. Structure and layout, before the price.
2. Kitchen and bathroom layouts and fittings, before first fix.
3. Lighting positions and switch positions, before first fix.
4. Floor finishes, before second fix, because they set the door and skirting heights.
5. Tiles, worktops and ironmongery, before second fix.
6. Paint colours, before decoration. The one decision that can wait.

On a design and build refurbishment the drawings carry those decisions from the start, so the trades arrive in order rather than waiting on a choice. The service is described on the refurbishments page; a bathroom and a cloakroom drawn and built this way are at Blue Emerald.