Kitchen and bathroom renovation in Barbados

Run as one job, not six phone calls

When you hire trades separately you become the project manager, and every gap between them is your problem. We hold the programme: the plumber knows when the tiler is coming, and the units are on the island before the kitchen is stripped out.

• Strip out and safe disposal
• Alterations to layout, including removing or forming openings
• First fix plumbing and electrical, including moving services properly rather than extending them badly
• Waterproofing and tanking to wet areas — the step most often skipped
• Screeds, falls to shower areas, and tiling
• Kitchen units, worktops, splashbacks and appliance installation
• Sanitaryware, second fix, sealing, painting and making good

Where bathrooms fail in this climate

Almost always at water management, not at the tiles. If the shower area is not properly waterproofed behind the tiling, and the falls do not actually run to the drain, water gets into the structure and comes out somewhere else — often on the other side of the wall, months later. Tiles hide it for a while. Then they do not.

We tank wet areas, form the falls before tiling rather than hoping the adhesive bed will do it, and use the right sealant in the right joints.

Kitchens: order early

Island lead times are the thing that catches people. A kitchen ordered from overseas can take weeks to arrive and then arrive with one cabinet damaged. We work backwards from the delivery date, and we do not strip out a working kitchen until the new one is here or confirmed.