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What a kitchen renovation quote in Nicosia should say

What a kitchen renovation quote in Nicosia has to state before it can be compared, how the payment stages should work, and the wording that signals trouble.

7 min read

Kitchen Renovation Quotes: What Should Be in Writing — illustrasjonsbilde

Photo: Ron Lach on Pexels

ByStavros Loizou· Editor, kitchens, bathrooms and finishes

Stavros covers the rooms that carry the most cost per square metre and the finishes that go into them. He tracks the order trades have to arrive in, which moves a Cypriot renovation bill further than any hourly rate does.

Published

A kitchen renovation quote in Nicosia is comparable only when it separates the five things you are buying: the strip-out, the units, the worktop, the appliances, and the electrical and plumbing work behind the cupboard doors. A single figure for "the kitchen" is not a price. It is one company's private assumption about which of those five it covered, and the other two quotes were assuming something different.

Why written scope matters

A kitchen is the only room where three trades, a unit manufacturer and a separate worktop supplier all have to arrive in the right order for it to work at the end, and none of that sequence is visible in a price. When a Nicosia kitchen lands well over quote, the cause is rarely dishonesty — it is that the quote priced units and fitting, and the electrician, plumber, tiler and plasterer were never in it.

The district's building stock sharpens this. Strovolos and the surrounding suburbs hold a large stock of apartment blocks from the 1970s to the 1990s, and in that stock rewiring and replumbing dominate renovation work. Those kitchens were built around a very different appliance load. The sink waste runs in a chase through a solid slab you cannot re-cut on a whim, walls are rendered masonry rather than plasterboard, and the existing distribution board often cannot give an oven, a hob and a dishwasher dedicated circuits and correctly rated protection without alteration. All of that is expensive to find in week two. Nicosia is also inland, with the widest temperature range on the island, so solid timber fronts move more here across a year than on the coast — which is why the material of the fronts belongs in the quote.

The eleven items a quote needs

Ask for these by name. A fitter who writes them unprompted has done this before.

  1. A drawing. A plan and elevations with each unit numbered and dimensioned — not a showroom render. Everything else refers back to it.
  2. The carcasses. Board type and thickness, edging, solid or panelled backs, and whether plinth, cornice and end panels are included.
  3. The fronts. Material and finish by name — lacquered MDF, foil-wrapped, veneer, solid timber, acrylic — plus supplier and colour reference. The largest swing in a kitchen price, and the easiest to leave vague.
  4. Hinges, runners and mechanisms. Brand and model, soft-close or not, which drawers are full-extension, and bin and corner mechanisms priced individually.
  5. The worktop. Material, thickness, edge profile, number of cut-outs, how joins are handled, whether upstands and sills are in, and who templates it.
  6. The appliances. Supplied by whom, by model number. "Appliances included" without models is not a specification, and integrated units feed back into item two.
  7. Sink, tap and waste. Model, undermounted or inset, and who supplies the waste kit, trap and appliance connections.
  8. Strip-out and disposal. Removing the old kitchen and old tiling, and where the debris goes. A skip on a public road generally needs municipal permission.
  9. The trades behind the units. Electrical alterations and the position of every socket and isolator; plumbing moves and the new waste run; extraction; tiling; plastering and making good the walls the old units were hiding. Each named, each in or out.
  10. Access and hours. In a block: committee working hours, the route in, lift protection, and consent for anything penetrating the facade — an extractor duct through an external wall is the usual one.
  11. Programme and the gap. Working days, lead time on the fronts, and the interval between units being fitted and the worktop going on.

Payment stages

A kitchen carries a much higher materials share than most renovation work, and the units are often made or ordered to your drawing.

A deposit at order should buy something identifiable. Fronts, carcasses and the worktop slab are a real outlay committed before anyone reaches the flat. What makes a deposit reasonable is not its size but whether you receive the supplier's order confirmation against it — drawing, finish reference, delivery window. A deposit with no order behind it is a loan.

Stage against delivery, not dates. A payment when the units arrive and can be counted against the drawing. One when they are fitted, level and scribed. One when the worktop is in and the sink runs.

Hold a final amount for snagging. Withholding a closing payment until the list is cleared is normal practice on fitted kitchen work. Walk the run with every door and drawer closed, then open, checking alignment along the whole line.

Settle the VAT position before you sign. Renovation and repair of a private residence in use for more than three years can be invoiced at the reduced VAT rate of 5% instead of the standard 19%, provided the value of the materials does not exceed 50% of the value of the services. A kitchen is materials-heavy, so that condition is in play and is not automatic. Ask which rate each contractor quoted at, and confirm the conditions with the Tax Department.

Variations and how they are priced

A variation is any work outside the agreed scope, and on a kitchen they split cleanly in two.

Found variations appear when the old kitchen comes off the wall, and in Nicosia flats they repeat: walls well out of square behind the old run, so units need packing and scribing; a floor that steps where the old kitchen sat, so the worktop cannot run level; cement render to patch before tiling; a waste pipe that is not where the drawing assumed; a distribution board that cannot take the new circuits; old tiling stopping at the previous unit line.

Requested variations are yours — a different handle, an extra drawer bank, a change of worktop material after templating.

Agree the mechanism before work starts. A stated day rate for additional carpentry and making good, and stated rates for extra electrical points and plumbing moves. Written or messaged approval before the work is done, with a figure attached. Nothing is payable as a variation if it was inside the original scope, which is why item nine has to be explicit. And set a cut-off for changes to fronts and worktop: once a colour is ordered or a slab templated, a change of mind is a new item.

Red flags

A single figure with no drawing. Nothing to compare and nothing to hold anyone to.

Fronts described by colour only. "White gloss" is four products at four prices. Unnamed material means the cheapest one has been priced.

Appliances "included" with no models. The gap between the cheapest compliant oven and the one you had in mind can swallow the difference between two quotes.

A worktop called "stone" with no slab, thickness or edge. Worktops are where a kitchen quote is most often thinned out.

A large deposit with no order confirmation. The test is not the percentage, it is whether an order exists in your name.

No electrician named, no interest in the distribution board. That quote is for cupboards, not a kitchen.

Cash only, no written quote, no VAT position stated. No scope, no record, no route if the fronts arrive in the wrong finish.

Immediate availability on a made-to-order kitchen. Fronts and worktops have lead times, so that usually means stock units.

Our kitchen renovation pages set out the work stage by stage, the Nicosia district and area pages record what recurs in this building stock, and the project listings show who covers the district. Opening a wall between kitchen and living room is structural rather than a fitting question: ETEK maintains the register of engineers and technical professionals, and the Department of Town Planning and Housing sets out when alterations need permission.

Common questions

Should I buy the kitchen and hire a fitter separately?

You can, and it gives direct control over the units and a clear paper trail. The trade-off is that you coordinate the supplier, fitter, electrician, plumber and worktop company, and own every gap between them. Supply-and-fit costs more precisely because someone else carries that.

Why will I have no sink for several days?

Because stone and composite worktops are templated only after the units are fixed and level, then cut off site and brought back. That gap is built into the process rather than being a delay. Ask for it in days at quotation stage.

Do I need permission for a kitchen renovation in a Nicosia flat?

Replacing units in the same layout normally does not. Altering the structure, changing the drainage layout, or penetrating the external facade — an extractor duct is the usual case — is a different question, and in a block the management committee's rules apply on top. Check with the Department of Town Planning and Housing before ordering.

How do I choose between contractors?

Compare the written scope, the products and models named, the drawing, and work you can go and look at. We do not publish ratings or testimonials, so those four things are the basis. Ask who has fitted kitchens in your type of building — an occupied flat in a 1970s block with committee working hours is a different job from an empty house with a driveway.

Kitchen renovation contractors in Nicosia

8 companies covering this area.

Sources

  1. Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber (ETEK) — registered practitioners and construction practice — retrieved 2026-07-24
  2. Department of Town Planning and Housing — planning and permit guidance — retrieved 2026-07-24
  3. Tax Department — VAT rates and reduced-rate conditions — retrieved 2026-07-24

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