Italian Kitchen and Bathroom Renovation Checklist

Phase 0: decisions that must be made before anyone swings a hammer

Almost every kitchen and bathroom disaster is a decision made too late. The rough-in fixes the position of every drain, every water line, and every outlet, and it happens in week two.

1. Confirm the permit classification with your geometra. Moving a bathroom, adding one, or altering a wall changes the filing.
2. Locate the soil stack. Where the colonna di scarico runs largely determines where a WC can go, and how far a fixture can be moved before you need a pump.
3. Decide gas or induction for cooking, because the answer changes the ventilation, the flue, the electrical supply, and possibly your supply contract.
4. Decide ducted or recirculating extraction, and if ducted, agree the route and the external outlet with whoever controls the facade.
5. Choose the actual fixtures, by brand and model code, and get their technical sheets. Rough-in dimensions come from the sheet, not from a category.
6. Choose the tile, including format and joint width, since large formats need flatter substrates and different adhesive.
7. Order the long lead items. Italian kitchen furniture, custom joinery, and specific sanitaryware are commonly weeks to a couple of months out, and the finishing sequence stalls without them.
8. Mark every socket, switch, light, and towel warmer position on a drawing and have the electrician sign it.

Italian specifics you will not expect

The bidet

Italian hygiene rules dating from the 1970s require a dwelling's bathroom to be equipped with a WC, a bidet, a washbasin, and a bath or shower, and the requirement is enforced through each comune's building and hygiene regulation. In practice that means at least one bathroom in the dwelling is generally expected to have a bidet, and your technician will design accordingly. If you genuinely do not want one, ask your geometra what the local regulation says before you delete it from the plan, and get the answer in writing. It is a cheap fixture and an expensive omission if it blocks your occupancy paperwork.

Dimensions and ventilation

Phase 1: demolition and strip out

1. Protect what stays: floors elsewhere in the property, the stair, the entrance, and any original element you intend to keep.
2. Isolate services and prove they are isolated before anyone cuts. Old Italian plumbing often has no local shut off valve.
3. Strip finishes, remove fixtures, and take out the old screed where new services will run.
4. Investigate what appears. Damp at the base of a wall, a floor structure weaker than assumed, or a drain going somewhere unexpected all get priced now, not later.
5. Photograph the empty room from every corner, with a tape measure visible for the key dimensions, and record the exact position of the soil stack and any existing vent.
6. Confirm waste is going to a licensed facility, and keep the disposal documentation.

Phase 2: plumbing and electrical rough-in

1. Set out the fixture positions physically on the floor and walls, and check them against the technical sheets before anything is chased in.
2. Chase the walls, run the conduit, and fit the wall boxes. Italian wiring is pulled through corrugated conduit into standardized boxes, which is what makes changes afterward a masonry job.
3. Run water lines with a shut off valve at each fixture, and use inspectable traps so a blockage does not become demolition.
4. Set drain falls and confirm the WC drain position against the specific model, not a generic dimension.
5. In the bathroom, respect the electrical zones around the bath and shower: no sockets inside the prescribed zones, appropriate ingress protection for anything within them, and supplementary bonding as your electrician specifies.
6. Add the circuits the kitchen actually needs: separate supplies for the hob, oven, dishwasher, and washing machine rather than one shared ring.
7. Pressure test the plumbing and hold it, then photograph the gauge with the date. Do not allow anything to be covered before this test.
8. Photograph every open wall, wide enough to read the whole layout, before plaster or boarding.

Phase 3: waterproofing and screed

1. Form the screed with the correct fall to the drains, particularly for a flush shower where the fall is the only thing keeping water off your floor.
2. Apply the waterproofing system across the whole wet area: the shower floor, up the shower walls to full height, and a band at the base of the surrounding walls, with reinforcing tape at every corner and junction and a collar at the drain.
3. Detail the door threshold and any pipe penetration explicitly. These two points are where most leaks originate.
4. Flood test the shower floor if the system allows it, and photograph the standing water and the ceiling below afterward.
5. If underfloor heating is being installed, complete the commissioning heat up cycle before tiling, not after.
6. Measure residual moisture in the screed before laying tile. Do not accept the calendar as evidence.

Phase 4: tiling and plaster

1. Agree the setting out before the first tile: where the pattern starts, where cuts land, how the floor meets the wall, and how the shower tiles align.
2. Check the delivered tile against the order, including the batch, and confirm there is enough of the same batch to finish plus a spare box for later repairs.
3. Use the adhesive class the tile and substrate require, particularly for large format porcelain and for anything over waterproofing or underfloor heating.
4. Grout in the specified colour and joint width, and use a flexible sealant rather than grout at every movement joint and internal corner in the shower.
5. Plaster and skim the remaining surfaces, then let them dry before paint. In an unheated house in winter this takes longer than anyone plans for.
6. Photograph the finished surfaces, and separately photograph the shower before and after the first use.

Phase 5: bathroom fixtures and fittings

1. Install sanitaryware, taps, and the shower enclosure, checking the enclosure against the finished opening rather than the drawing.
2. Fit the concealed cistern access panel and confirm the flush plate is serviceable without breaking tile.
3. Install the towel warmer or radiator, and confirm it is actually connected to the heating circuit rather than left as decoration.
4. Fit extraction if the room has no window, and verify it moves air with the door closed, which is where undersized installations fail.
5. Seal around the bath, the shower tray, and the basin with sanitary grade sealant, and check every waste for leaks under running water rather than a trickle.
6. Confirm hot water arrives at every outlet at a sensible temperature and pressure, and consider a water softener if you are anywhere with hard water, which is most of Italy.

Phase 6: kitchen installation

1. Confirm final measurements on site before the furniture is cut, after plaster and tile, since 10 mm matters in a 60 cm module.
2. Set the units and level them, then template the worktop. Stone worktops are templated on the installed carcasses, which is a separate visit and a lead time of its own.
3. Install the sink and tap, and confirm the waste and any dishwasher connection are accessible after the units are closed up.
4. For a gas hob, the installation needs a permanent ventilation opening sized for the appliance and the gas type, correct clearances, and a tightness test, all documented by the installing firm.
5. For induction, confirm the dedicated circuit, set the appliance's power limiter to match your supply contract, and check your pans are actually magnetic before deciding the hob is faulty.
6. Install the hood. Ducted to the outside is the better outcome, with a short duct, few bends, and an outlet you are permitted to make. Never connect a hood into a flue that serves a combustion appliance.
7. Fit appliances, register the warranties, and keep the manuals in one place with the rest of the project documents.
8. Adjust doors and drawers after a week of use, once the room has settled and the furniture has moved.

Phase 7: inspections, certificates, and handover

1. Collect the electrical dichiarazione di conformita with its annexes, and the gas conformity declaration where gas work was done.
2. Collect the plumbing pressure test record and any waterproofing product documentation.
3. Have your direttore dei lavori inspect and confirm the work matches the authorized project.
4. Walk a punch list with the contractor, in writing, with a photograph of each item, and get it signed and dated by both sides.
5. Confirm the cadastral update where the layout changed, and the occupancy filing where the works trigger it.
6. Release the retainage only after the punch list is closed and every certificate is in your hands.
7. Photograph the finished rooms and archive the whole record: drawings, invoices, certificates, product codes, and the tile batch number. Your future self, or the buyer's surveyor, will need it.

None of these phases is complicated in isolation. What makes kitchens and bathrooms hard from six thousand miles away is that the handoffs between plumber, electrician, tiler, and kitchen fitter all happen in a three week window, and each one buries the previous one's work. If you track the phases as items with due dates and photographs attached, and read a monthly summary of what closed and what slipped, you will catch the problems while they are still cheap. That, rather than any single technical detail, is what decides how these two rooms turn out.