A kitchen is the room where the most things meet: water, drainage, heavy electrical loads, ventilation, cabinetry fitted to the millimetre and a worktop that has to last twenty years. It is also the room where decisions are most often taken in the wrong order — the door fronts get chosen before anyone has decided where the waste runs, and the rest of the job pays for it.

What is settled before the catalogue

Three things fix the project, and none of them appears in a showroom.

Drainage first. A sink moves easily by a few tens of centimetres and much less easily by two metres: the fall has to be held over the whole run, and in an older building the riser is not always where you hope it is. The dishwasher follows the sink, never the other way round.

Ventilation next. An extractor hood needs either a duct or a charcoal filter, and the two do not give the same result. That point is settled before the cabinets are drawn, because it fixes where the hob can go.

Electrics last. A modern kitchen concentrates more power than the rest of the home put together. What the consumer unit can deliver decides whether a full-width induction hob is realistic or not.

Layout before door fronts

Dimensions matter more than the colour of the doors.

  • A working aisle needs 90 cm clear, and 120 cm if two people work at once or if an oven and a dishwasher open facing each other.
  • The run between sink and hob is the only real preparation surface: below 60 cm the kitchen works badly whatever its floor area.
  • The standard 90 cm worktop height does not suit everyone. It is set at the design stage, not after installation.
  • An island only makes sense if 100 cm of circulation remains around it and if it can take water and power without opening up the whole slab.

Electrics: the heaviest load in the home

A full-width induction hob generally needs a dedicated supply, often three-phase. The oven, the dishwasher and the fridge each want their own circuit, and the worktop needs sockets reachable without an extension lead crossing the sink.

In a Geneva or Lausanne building from before 1990 the consumer unit often has neither the space nor the residual-current protection to absorb all of that. A kitchen renovation is the right moment to bring it up to standard: the walls are open, and a periodic OIBT inspection is coming anyway.

Hood: ducted or recirculating

The question looks secondary. It is not, especially in a co-ownership.

Ducting to the outside genuinely removes steam and smells, but it assumes an available duct or a hole through the façade. And a hole through the façade touches a common part, which makes it a decision for the owners' meeting. A recirculating hood with a charcoal filter installs anywhere, needs no approval, and holds the smells but not the moisture.

One technical point regularly goes unnoticed: in a home with mechanical ventilation, a powerful ducted hood can put the room under negative pressure. The airflow is sized against the rest of the installation, not at the catalogue maximum.

Worktops: what each material forgives

  • Laminate: the best price-to-look ratio, vulnerable to water at the edges and to badly jointed cuts.
  • Engineered quartz: hard, consistent, very stable; it dislikes direct heat from a pan straight out of the oven.
  • Large-format ceramic: resists heat and scratches, costs more to install because the cutting forgives nothing.
  • Stainless steel: hygienic and practically indestructible, but it visibly patinates with use. That is an aesthetic choice as much as a technical one.
  • Solid wood: warm and repairable, but it needs genuine maintenance around the sink.

The choice follows the use, not the sample: a kitchen cooked in every day and a holiday-home kitchen do not wear the same material at the same rate.

Lead times: the cabinetry is ordered before the work starts

In Switzerland a made-to-measure kitchen is commonly delivered eight to twelve weeks after the drawings are signed off, and some appliances take longer still. Those weeks only run in parallel with the building work if the order is placed at the right moment; otherwise they are added to it.

The order of operations is the same on every job:

  1. Survey and drawings, layout signed off
  2. Cabinetry and appliances ordered
  3. Strip-out, rework of wastes and supplies
  4. Electrics, ventilation, plastering
  5. Floor and paint
  6. Cabinets fitted, then the worktop measured on the units in place
  7. Connections, commissioning, door adjustment

A stone or ceramic worktop is measured on the fitted units, never off a paper drawing. That is what accounts for the one to two weeks between the cabinets going in and the kitchen being finished.

Tenant, co-ownership or house: who decides

  • Tenant: a fitted kitchen is a fixed installation. Written approval from the managing agent is required, and what happens to both the old and the new kitchen at the end of the lease should be settled in writing before the work begins.
  • Owner in a co-ownership: the water and waste risers and the façade are common parts. Moving a sink inside your own unit is not a problem; cutting through the façade for a hood is.
  • House owner: you decide, unless the power demanded requires the incoming supply to be upgraded.

What really moves the quotation

Keeping the existing layout is the strongest lever on the budget. The supplies, the waste and the ventilation stay where they are, and the job comes down to cabinets, worktop and finishes. Moving the sink or the hob moves the project into another category altogether.

Appliances come next, often close to a third of the total on their own, then the worktop, where the gap between a laminate and a large-format ceramic runs into thousands of francs on the same kitchen.

Finally the condition of what is there: an uneven floor, an out-of-plumb wall or an installation awaiting compliance work all add labour before the first cabinet is fixed.

How we work

We survey the room, check what the consumer unit and the wastes allow, then price it item by item, appliances included. Plumbing, electrics and installation are handled by our own teams, which avoids the familiar moment when the kitchen supplier, the electrician and the plumber each blame the others for a connection. In an occupied home we set up a temporary kitchen where that is possible, and say plainly when it is not.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a kitchen renovation take?

Allow two to four weeks on site once the cabinetry is delivered, preceded by eight to twelve weeks of manufacture. The total duration therefore depends mostly on the order date, not on how fast the fitters work.

Do I need the managing agent's approval to change the kitchen in a rented flat?

Yes. A fitted kitchen counts as a fixed installation, and the approval should state what happens to the old and the new kitchen at the end of the lease. We supply the technical description to submit.

Can the sink or the hob be moved?

Often yes, within the room. The sink depends on the fall available for the waste, the hob on power and ventilation. Both are checked at the survey, before anything is priced.

Does an induction hob require a new consumer unit?

Not always, but it does require a dedicated supply and often three-phase. If the unit is old, upgrading it while the walls are open costs a fraction of the same work done later.

Can we keep the cabinets and change only the worktop?

Yes, if the carcasses are sound and level. It is a common job and considerably cheaper than a full kitchen, and we say so plainly when the carcasses do not deserve it.