Renovate in the order the work covers itself up: demo, structure, rough-ins for plumbing, electrical and HVAC, inspections, insulation and drywall, then finishes, then the punch list. Inside the walls, each step hides the one before it, so anything wrong in a wall has to be found before it's closed.
The other rule is water. Get the roof, windows and exterior doors tight before anything goes in that water can ruin: insulation, drywall, floors, cabinets. Past that, the order mostly sets itself. What's left to decide is which trades can work at the same time, and that's where the days are.
The order, start to finish
| Step | What goes in | It waits on |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Demo | Everything that's coming out | The permit, if the work needs one. In a house built before 1978, a lead-safe certified firm for work that disturbs paint (EPA's renovation rule names flippers) |
| 2. Structure | Walls that move, headers and beams, foundation repair, framing for new windows and doors | Demo; for a wall that carries load, whatever your building department requires first |
| 3. Weathertight | Roof, windows, exterior doors | Framing for any new openings |
| 4. Rough-ins | Drains and vents, ducts, supply lines, wire, and the boxes everything later hangs on | Framing |
| 5. Inspections | The rough-in inspection for each trade, then framing | Every rough-in |
| 6. Close-in | Insulation (inspected, where your department checks it), then drywall and tile backer | Passed rough-in and framing inspections |
| 7. Finishes | Tile, paint, cabinets, counters, floors, then fixtures, lights, trim and appliances | Closed walls |
| 8. Punch list | Everything unfinished or not right, fixed | Everything else |
Demo is where the estimate meets the house. Rot, old wiring, a joist somebody notched for a drain: you find it with the walls open. Walk the house again after demo, before you sign for the rest of the work, and fix the numbers while they're still yours to fix (what to hold back for what you find is in how to estimate rehab costs).
Rough-in means the pipes, ducts, wires and boxes run through the open framing to where the fixtures, outlets and registers will go: everything the walls, floors and ceilings will hide. Most fixtures come at the finish. A tub or shower base and the shower valve go in at rough, before the board. The punch list is the last pass: everything unfinished or not right, listed near the end and fixed before you call the job done; on a flip, before you list. Book the final inspection for each permit as soon as its work is done. It doesn't wait on paint touch-ups.
The outside runs on its own track. New-construction windows fasten to the framing and get flashed in before the siding covers them, so siding comes after windows. Exterior paint, gutters and the yard can go while the inside is on drywall.
The inspection is the gate
The rough-in inspection is the one step you can't move. The model code for houses, the International Residential Code, is in use or adopted in 49 states by its publisher's count, and it says plumbing, mechanical, gas and electrical work has to be inspected and approved before it's covered, and before fixtures and appliances go in. That's section R109.1 in the 2024 edition, though local codes renumber it. In the same code, the framing inspection comes after the rough-ins pass. It's usually the inspector's last look inside the walls.
Cover a rough-in before it's approved and you've asked an inspector to pass work he can't see. Find out what yours wants while it's still studs.
States, counties and cities adopt their own edition, and some amend it, so the numbers and the list move around. Some departments want a separate rough-in inspection for each trade, and some add an insulation inspection before the drywall goes up. Your building department's list is the one that counts. Get it when you pull the permit, and book the drywall crew off it, not off the day the electrician says he'll be done.
Finish work can be a different story. Mohave County, Arizona, for one, lists painting, papering, tiling, carpeting, cabinets and countertops among the work that needs no building permit under section R105.2 of its building code, and says the exemption doesn't let you break the code. Yours may draw the line somewhere else. Ask.
Which trades can run side by side
The list above is the order things get covered, not a line of trades waiting their turn. A lot of it runs at once:
- Rough plumbing and rough electrical go in the same room on the same days. Where they share a wall, drains usually go first, since they have to fall downhill, and wire last, since it can be routed around everything. Agree with your trades who's in first before they show up.
- The outside and the inside. Siding, exterior paint, gutters and the yard don't wait on interior trim.
- Every room at once, stage by stage. That's the next section.
Say your plumber needs three days in the bathroom and your electrician two. One after the other, that's five days of roughs. Side by side, it's three. If the bath is on the critical path, the chain of tasks that sets your finish date, with no other chain within two days of it, and the house costs $100 a day to hold, those two days are worth 2 × $100 = $200.
Overlap only pays on the critical path. Speed up a task that has float and your finish date doesn't move. For the rest of the levers on days, see how to cut holding costs on a flip.
The house moves in stages, not room by room
Finishing one room at a time feels like progress. Run the house in stages instead: every room's demo, then every room's rough-ins, then the inspections, then insulation and drywall through the whole house, then the finishes. Go room by room and you bring the inspector and the drywall crew back for every room.
Run it in stages and you book the rough-in inspections when the house is ready for them, and the drywall crew when they pass. The catch is that the house moves at the speed of its slowest room. One rough-in still open in the hall bath holds the drywall in every other room. That's the room to chase, every day, until it's in.
Bathroom remodel order of operations
A bathroom taken to the studs:
- Demo, to the studs.
- Reframe: any wall that moves, a niche, and blocking for anything that hangs on the wall.
- Rough plumbing, with the tub or shower base set and the valve in, and rough electrical, side by side.
- The rough-in and framing inspections, with the rest of the house.
- Cement board or another tile backer in the tub and shower, drywall everywhere else, including behind tile that stays dry.
- Waterproofing on the board in the shower and tub surround. The liner under a tiled shower floor gets a flood test, and when your inspector wants to see it varies, so ask before the tile goes on.
- Tile.
- The vanity and the floor, then the finish plumbing: the valve trim against finished tile, the faucet on the vanity top, the toilet on the finished floor.
- The mirror over the vanity, and shower glass to the finished tile.
- The punch list.
Alongside that wet chain runs a dry one: drywall finished, then paint, then doors and trim. Lights and devices go in after paint. The punch list waits on all of it.
Kitchen remodel order of operations
- Demo.
- Reframe, then rough plumbing and rough electrical side by side.
- The rough-in and framing inspections, with the rest of the house.
- Drywall.
- Paint.
- Cabinets.
- Countertops. A stone shop measures for them once the cabinets are installed and level, with the sink and faucet on site so it can cut for them, then cuts, so there's a gap here. Ask the shop how long it is and schedule behind it.
- An undermount sink goes in with the tops. Then the backsplash, and the plumber hooks up the faucet and drain.
- Lights and devices, after the backsplash.
- Appliances, once the plumbing and electrical are finished.
- The punch list.
The floor goes in after paint, alongside the cabinets, and the trim goes on after the floor. Whether the floor runs under the cabinets or stops at them depends on the floor. Go by its maker's instructions.
What the order costs
Every day the order adds to the critical path is another day of holding costs: the bills you pay for owning the house, whether or not anyone's working on it. Work out your daily number once and price your schedule calls in it.
Say it's $100 a day, and the hall bath's rough electrical finishes four days late. The drywall waits on every rough-in in the house, so if that rough-in is the last one in and on your critical path, your finish date moves four days: 4 × $100 = $400. Now say the inspection you'd booked has to move too, and the next opening is seven days after the one you lost. The house is seven days late: 7 × $100 = $700, from one room's wiring.
The fixes are cheap. Get the inspection list before you start. Book the inspection off the last rough-in, not the first. Chase the room that's behind.
Putting the order on a schedule
Firmabuilt's room starters, on the Pro and Crew plans, carry most of the bath and kitchen orders above as links between tasks, and every task in them has a stage: demo, rough, close-in, finish or punch. A house built from them on the new-job questionnaire gets two house-wide gates, Roughs complete and Close-in complete, which hold the rest. Every room's rough-ins feed the first, nothing closes in until it's done, and every finish waits on the second. So on the schedule, as on site, one late rough-in pushes the whole house's finishes. On a desktop, the schedule shows each gate's date and the task holding it, with its trade and room, and when the finish passes your target date it shows what the late days cost at your daily holding rate. No starter has an inspection or a shower pan test in it, and nothing books them for you. Add them as tasks of your own.
Questions
Should you paint or put in floors first?
Usually paint first. With the old floor or the bare subfloor still down, drips don't matter. The new floor goes in after, then the trim, then a touch-up where the installers scuffed the walls. New York State's construction spec for wood floors on its own building projects reads the same way: a prefinished floor goes in after the painting is done, and a floor finished on site gets its finish after the painting, with nothing else making dust while it dries.
Do you replace windows before or after drywall?
Before, if you're changing an opening or putting in new-construction windows. Those have a nailing fin that fastens to the framing and gets flashed in before the siding goes on, and the gap around the frame is sealed and insulated from inside, which is easiest with the wall open. A replacement window with no fin fits the existing opening and usually goes in without taking the siding off, so it can come later. Put it ahead of paint and trim so you only touch up once.
When does the rough-in inspection happen?
When the plumbing, mechanical, gas and electrical rough-ins are in, and before any of it is covered: before insulation and drywall, and before fixtures and appliances go in. Some departments inspect each trade's rough-in separately. That's the order in the model residential code, which also puts the framing inspection after the rough-ins pass. Your building department sets the real list and how far ahead you book, and some add an insulation inspection before drywall, so get the list from them when you pull the permit.
Should the roof be done before the inside?
It should be done before anything goes inside that water can ruin: insulation, drywall, floors, cabinets. That doesn't mean the inside waits for it. Demo and rough-ins can run while the roofers work, as long as the house is tight before the walls close.