What Order Should You Renovate a House In? The Complete Guide
Most people renovating a house think hard about WHAT they want done. Fewer think about the ORDER they do it in. It is an expensive lesson to learn the hard way: paint the walls before the floor goes down, and you get paint spatter on a floor you just paid for. Tile before the pipework is properly first-fixed, and you end up ripping out a finished room to correct a mistake that should have been sorted the week before. This guide covers which rooms to tackle first, the correct order of trades within each room, and what you actually need approval for before you take a hammer to anything.
Start with the building envelope
Before you think about paint colours and tile samples, check that the house is actually sound. A tired roof, damp in the walls, or windows that need replacing are always first priority, however much you would rather crack on with the new kitchen. As one UK renovation guide puts it plainly, the priority is "the outer skin of the house: the roof, walls and windows," and redesigning individual rooms before you have settled where the damp-proofing, insulation and services go across the whole house risks undoing expensive work later. A house that leaks heat or water costs you money on every energy bill until it is fixed, and damp trapped behind a freshly tiled wall is far more expensive to put right than damp behind an old one.
Which rooms should you tackle first?
If you do not have the budget to do everything at once, which most people do not, start with the bathroom and kitchen. These are the most complex rooms in the house: they need a plumber, an electrician and a tiler all in the same space, and the drying and curing time for waterproofing and tile adhesive takes longer than most people expect. See our bathroom renovation price guide and our new kitchen price guide for what these rooms actually cost before you settle on a budget.
Bedrooms and living rooms can wait. These jobs are mostly surface work, new flooring, paint and skirting, and they are both quicker and far more realistic as DIY projects than a bathroom or kitchen will ever be.
The correct order of trades within a room
Whichever room you are renovating, the job follows broadly the same logic: whatever is hidden and hard to change later goes in first, and whatever is visible and easy to damage goes in last.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Demolition | Old fittings, tiles and surfaces are stripped back to the stud wall or the slab |
| 2. First fix plumbing and electrics | New pipework, drainage and electrical circuits go into the wall and floor voids |
| 3. Insulation and waterproofing | Insulation between studs, tanking and sealing in wet areas |
| 4. Plastering and tiling | Plasterboard and skim go up, tiles are laid wherever needed |
| 5. Paint ceilings and walls | Every surface is painted to a finished state before the floor goes in |
| 6. Flooring | New flooring goes down as one of the last major jobs |
| 7. Fixtures and finishing touches | Kitchen units, bathroom furniture, light fittings, handles and final snagging |
Steps 1 and 2: demolition and first fix. Everything due to come out, comes out first, and everything that is going to be hidden inside a wall or under a floor goes in while the wall is still open. This is the "first fix" stage in UK trade terms, the hidden infrastructure that has to be there before anything gets covered up. Re-routing pipework after the tiles are on means ripping up a finished room just to get at it.
Steps 3 and 4: insulation, waterproofing, plastering and tiling. Waterproofing in a wet room, what UK tilers and bathroom fitters call tanking, is what separates a bathroom that lasts 25 years from one with a leak, so this is not the place to cut corners. See our bathroom refresh price guide if the tanking and pipework are already sound and all you need is the surfaces.
Steps 5 and 6: paint and flooring. This is the order people get wrong most often. Paint drips downward, so ceilings and walls are always painted before the new flooring goes in, never after. Get this backwards and you end up masking off a brand new floor with tape along the skirting board, turning a routine painting job into a nerve-wracking one where a single slip costs you a new floor. Once the paint is dry, hard flooring such as tile or wood goes down, and softer coverings like carpet and vinyl are always the very last thing laid, specifically so they never sit under a decorator again.
Step 7: fixtures and finishing touches. Kitchen units, bathroom furniture, light fittings, handles and taps go in right at the end, once everything else in the room is finished and dry. This final stage is also where "second fix" happens, connecting up the sockets, switches and sanitaryware that were only roughed in during first fix. If you only need to swap doors and a worktop and keep the carcasses, see our kitchen door respray and replacement guide and our worktop price guide for a quicker alternative to this full sequence.
What you usually do not need permission for
Interior renovation is, in the vast majority of cases, permission-free in one specific sense: you do not normally need Planning Permission to renovate a bathroom or kitchen, swap surfaces, or update a room within its existing layout. Planning Permission in the UK is chiefly about the appearance of your home and its effect on neighbours and the street, which is why it rarely applies to work nobody outside the house will ever see.
Building Regulations are a separate matter, and this is where interior work more often needs sign-off. You will typically need Building Regulations approval for:
- Structural changes, such as removing a load-bearing wall (a structural engineer designs the support, and building control has to approve it before work starts)
- Electrical work in a kitchen or bathroom, which is notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations, so it needs a registered electrician or a building control notification
- New drainage, waste pipework or a moved soil pipe
- Any change that alters the fire safety or structural behaviour of the building
The one situation where Planning Permission does reach inside the house is a listed building. There, a separate consent called listed building consent covers internal changes too, things like removing a wall, altering a staircase or replastering a historic ceiling, on top of anything Building Regulations already requires. A conservation area, by contrast, mostly affects what you can do to the outside of a house, such as windows, render or roofing materials, and rarely touches interior work at all unless the building is also listed.
If in doubt, it costs nothing to check with your local authority's building control team first. It costs a great deal to be told, after the fact, that something has to be opened back up because it was never signed off.
How to stop the project stalling
The genuinely expensive problem is not doing one job in the wrong order. It is having five different tradespeople all waiting on each other at once, with nobody quite sure who is meant to do what and when. A tiler turning up before the plumber has finished first fix means a wasted day and an irritated tradesperson. Set up a simple schedule where every task is clearly marked with what it is waiting on, before you book a single tradesperson.
Frequently asked questions
What should I always do first in a renovation?
Anything hidden and hard to change later: demolition, plus the plumbing and electrical work that goes into the walls and floor, known as first fix. These jobs become expensive to correct if done out of order, because finished surfaces have to be ripped up again to get at them.
Should I lay the floor or paint first?
Always paint the ceilings and walls before the new flooring goes down. Paint drips downward, and a newly laid floor is far harder to protect completely than simply giving a floor that is being replaced anyway an extra coat of paint splashes.
Can I renovate several rooms at the same time?
Yes, but it needs more coordination, not less. If several tradespeople are working in different rooms at once, you need to be even clearer about who is doing what and when, since it is easier to lose track when several things are happening in parallel.
Do I always need permission from the council?
No, most interior renovation projects are permission-free. It is structural changes, work affecting the exterior, a change of use, and anything in a listed building that typically triggers Planning Permission or Building Regulations approval, not swapping tiles or repainting a room.
How long should I allow for planning?
Allow several weeks for a detailed, properly itemised quote, and expect to book a reputable tradesperson three to six months ahead, longer still in London and the South East or in the run-up to summer. Getting quotes too early, before your plans are finalised, tends to produce inconsistent prices, so it pays to have a clear brief before you start asking around.
Keep the whole project on track, whatever the order
This is exactly what Pilt is built for. Add your tasks and mark which ones are waiting on another task, and you can see at a glance what is actually ready to start. The moment the last thing a task was waiting on gets marked complete, Pilt sends a push notification telling you it is ready to go, so a finished first fix does not sit idle for days because nobody thought to tell the tiler. Combined with your budget and before and after photos in the same place, you stop losing time to a stalled project where nobody was quite sure who should be doing what, when.
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