Bathroom Renovation Step by Step: The Order of Works and Where the Time Goes
A bathroom renovation runs in a fixed order: strip-out, first fix (plumbing, electrics, ventilation), wall and floor build-up, waterproofing, tiling, fit-out, sealing. The order is set by what must cure before the next trade can touch it — screed and the membrane are the big waiting blocks, and no extra manpower shortens them. In a small Dutch bathroom only one person fits, so the job is a chain of single-trade days, not a crew working at once.
The seven stages, in order
- Strip-out. Water and power isolated, sanitary ware removed, tiles and adhesive off, old screed and waterproofing chopped out, debris carried away.
- First fix. Supply and waste runs, the wall-hung toilet frame fixed, the shower drain positioned and set to fall, cabling for lighting and heating, extraction duct routed. Everything that ends up buried happens here, so mistakes here are the expensive ones.
- Build-up. Stud walls and moisture-resistant board, walls levelled or plastered, screed poured with underfloor heating loops if used, thresholds set.
- Tanking. Liquid membrane over the wet zone, with sealing tape in corners, at wall-to-floor junctions and around pipe penetrations and the drain flange. Usually two coats, and continuous — a gap stays invisible until damage shows.
- Tiling. Floor first or walls first, depending on the tiler's method and the drain detail. Adhesive cures, then grouting, then the grout cures.
- Fit-out. Toilet pan hung on the frame, washbasin, taps, shower set and screen, towel rail, lighting tested, ventilation commissioned.
- Sealing. Flexible silicone in every internal corner, along wall-to-floor junctions and around the tray and screen. Genuinely last: the joint absorbs movement rigid grout cannot.
A full-scope job is one contract covering all seven. Single services suit partial work: re-tiling without moving pipework, or replacing failed silicone.
Where the waiting time goes
Screed drying is the longest wait. Cement screed dries from the surface down, and time scales badly with thickness: a thicker build-up dries disproportionately slower. Fast-setting and flowing screeds compress that window, and get chosen when the schedule outweighs material cost.
Screed must be dry enough to tile, not just hard enough to walk on. Walking on it after two days says nothing about residual moisture, and tiling over a screed still releasing it is a known cause of adhesive failure, efflorescence and lifting tiles. A moisture measurement, not a date in the diary, is the correct trigger.
Tanking adds smaller waits: first coat before second, membrane before adhesive, adhesive before grouting, grout before silicone and before the shower is used. Rushing those last two cracks grout along the corners within a season. An unventilated bathroom in a cold or humid stretch dries measurably slower, so winter jobs run longer. The calendar length is mostly cure time; extra people speed up the strip-out and fit-out and do nothing to the middle.
Which trades overlap and which cannot
Real overlap exists at first fix: plumber and electrician can share a window, one working low and the other high, routes planned so they do not cross. The carpenter building the frame wall follows immediately and hands over to the screed layer. After that, tiling is exclusive — the tiler needs the room empty and the floor untouched. Waterproofing is exclusive too, and must not be drilled through afterwards; any later fixing that penetrates the membrane has to be deliberately sealed. Sealing is a solo end-of-job visit, which is why it so often drags a finished-looking project on by days.
Why a small Dutch bathroom is harder
Bathrooms in postwar portiekflats and terraced houses are often only a few square metres, with one door and no window. One trade at a time is a physical limit that turns every task into a separate site day. Where the floor is a concrete or hollow-core slab, waste pipes cannot be buried at will and structural elements must not be chased — which often forces low-build or linear drains, a raised floor section, or keeping the existing drain position. The soil stack is immovable, and the run to it needs a consistent fall that competes directly with your build-up height and the door threshold.
Wall-hung sanitary ware needs a frame and duct wall, eating a slice of an already tight plan, positioned at first fix before anyone sees the finished layout. With no window, mechanical extraction is not optional, so the duct route must be resolved early — one dropping below the ceiling changes ceiling height and the lighting plan. Narrow stairs and limited parking make debris removal a planning item, and in an apartment working hours, lift use, water shut-offs and VvE consent for shared elements all constrain when work can happen.
Where schedules slip
Until the tiles are off, nobody knows the true state of the substrate. Common finds: damp-damaged walls behind the shower, old galvanised or lead pipework needing replacement, walls badly out of plumb, no waterproofing under the old tiles, crumbling screed. In older buildings, suspect materials in adhesives, floor coverings or ducts stop the job dead until assessed.
Beyond that: optimistic cure assumptions; shower screens measured only after tiling, because tiled walls are never perfectly square, leaving a delivery gap right at the end; tile shortages, replacements from a different batch with a visible shade difference, and breakage; and late changes that reopen finished stages and reset their cure times.
What to ask before accepting a quotation
Ask for a stage-by-stage schedule with cure windows as separate items, not buried inside labour days. Ask how screed readiness will be judged — by measurement or by feel. Ask whether waterproofing appears as its own line, and over what area. Ask who removes the debris, when the screen gets measured, and what happens if the substrate turns out worse.