The top 5 apartment renovation mistakes that eat your budget and nerves

Kitchen renovation mistakes: measuring and ordering units before the geometry is true

The main misstep at the start is taking final measurements for kitchen units or wardrobes before the rough works are finished.

• What the mistake is. The kitchen is ordered from the developer's measurements, or before the walls are brought to 90°. The result: 2–3 cm gaps between the worktop and the wall, units that don't fit the alcove, sockets and the splashback shifted relative to the appliances.
• How to avoid it. First the crew plasters and brings the corners to a true 90° in the furniture zones. Only after the render has fully dried does the surveyor take the final measurements, and the electrician sets out the points to the approved kitchen design.

Bathroom renovation mistakes: hidden doors and concealed plumbing left 'for later'

The most expensive bathroom renovation mistakes come from breaking the installation sequence.

• What the mistake is. Hidden (frameless) doors or concealed fittings are ordered and installed after the finishing plaster and the tiling. The frame can no longer be set flush with the wall, and fresh porcelain has to be broken open for the pipework.
• How to avoid it. Everything concealed goes in at the very first, rough stage — before plastering and waterproofing. By then the walls and floor must already hold:

• hidden-door frames,
• wall-hung WC frames,
• concealed mixers and a bidet shower,
• linear drains and floor gullies.

After installation, every concealed unit is pressure-tested — before the tiles close it in.

Floor renovation mistakes: joining coverings without calculating the screed build-up

Uneven transitions between rooms are almost never the fitter's fault — they are missing arithmetic before the screed is poured.

• What the mistake is. Different coverings — tile, laminate, vinyl, engineered wood — are laid on a single screed level. Each material has its own thickness (plus underlay and adhesive), so steps and thresholds grow at the room transitions.
• How to avoid it. Before the self-levelling compound is poured, a flooring map is drawn up: the thickness of every layer is calculated in advance, and the finished surfaces meet at one level — an even floor with no thresholds across the whole apartment.

Large-format slabs and bulky sanitaryware without checking openings and logistics

A 120×240 cm porcelain slab, a monolithic stone bathtub or a one-piece shower tray can turn into a dead end right at the apartment door.

• What the mistake is. Bulky materials are bought at the finishing stage — and it turns out they physically don't fit into the goods lift, the stairwell or the already-narrowed door openings.
• How to avoid it. Logistics goes into the plan at the preparation stage. Before ordering we check:

• the dimensions of the goods lift and the stair flights,
• the width of door openings and corridors along the carry-in route,
• the work stage — oversized items go in before the plasterboard partitions,
• a spot in the apartment where the slab can safely wait until installation.

Renovating with 'separate crews' and no single point of responsibility

To the question 'which renovation mistakes happen most often' we have a short answer: working with scattered tradesmen and no common coordinator.

• What the mistake is. A separate specialist is hired for every stage: a plumber, an electrician, a tiler, a painter. Without coordination, each next specialist blames the previous one — for crooked walls, shifted stub-outs, missed deadlines. The client pays for the rework at the joints between trades.
• How to avoid it. Entrust the project to one general contractor who runs the full turnkey renovation to a single technological standard — and answers for the result as a whole, including the joints between stages.

And before the utilities disappear into the walls — check the 10 electrical and plumbing decisions people regret skipping: adding them after the finishes costs the most.

How we insure against these mistakes at Domio Lux

Domio Lux takes on the full cycle of apartment finishing in Warsaw — and closes each of the five mistakes with a process, not promises:

• A purchasing roadmap: a clear delivery schedule — from hidden-door frames to the finishing paint — so the site never stands idle.
• A fixed estimate: the price is calculated down to the zloty. Calculation errors found after the contract is signed are closed at our expense — 0 PLN in surcharges.
• An official warranty: 3 years of legal warranty on all work covered by the contract.
• Transparent control: daily photo and video reports in your private Telegram channel.