Module 12 · Lesson 10
Cabinets, Flooring and Finishes
The last two months of an ADU build install everything you'll see and touch daily. The sequence, the templating pause, and where quality shows.
The finish stage installs everything you'll actually touch for the next thirty years. It's also where your Module 6.7 allowance decisions arrive in boxes, and where craftsmanship becomes visible to the naked eye. The sequence, and what to know at each step:
Cabinets set first — kitchen and bath boxes anchored level and plumb (watch a good installer shim a cabinet against a not-quite-flat wall and you'll understand what finish carpentry is). Those 4–8 week lead times from lesson 12.7? This is their deadline.
Counters get templated — then you wait. After cabinets are set, the counter fabricator measures (often laser-templating), and then fabricates: typically 1–2 weeks where the kitchen has no counters and the schedule appears frozen. It isn't; stone is being cut. This pause surprises everyone once.
Tile. Bath surrounds, shower pans (with their own waterproofing inspection in many jurisdictions — one more gate that protects you), backsplashes. Tile quality is 90% preparation; flat substrates and clean layout lines are what you're paying the good crews for.
Flooring. That LVP from lessons 6.7/8.8 goes down fast and forgivingly; pattern and direction were decided earlier (run planks the long way; small spaces prefer it). Baseboards follow, hiding the expansion gaps.
Paint — already primed during drywall, now finished coats. Then the parade of fixtures and trim: faucets and shower trim onto lesson 12.8's rough valves, toilets, lights and switch plates onto the rough boxes, interior doors and hardware (lesson 8.10's levers), closet interiors (8.7's storage promises, kept), the mini-split heads onto their linesets, appliances into their openings — and the keypad lock from 8.8 onto the front door.
Exterior finishes run parallel: stucco or siding, exterior paint, final grading, and the landscape/hardscape repair your Module 6.8 budget wisely anticipated.
Your job this month: confirm selections instantly when asked (the finish stage's classic bottleneck is homeowner decision lag — 12.7 warned you), and start your own quiet list of touch-ups as you walk: a chip here, a sticky drawer there. That list has a name and a lesson of its own — the punch list (12.13) — but first, the inspectors return (12.11–12.12).
Key takeaways
- Finish sequence: cabinets → counter templating (a real 1–2 week pause) → tile → floors → paint → fixtures.
- Long-lead cabinet orders and instant homeowner decisions are the stage's two schedule keys.
- Shower pans often get their own waterproofing inspection — another gate that protects you.
- Walk with a touch-up list in hand; it becomes the punch list soon.