Kitchen Remodel Timeline: What Happens, and When

The question we get asked most often is not what a kitchen costs. It is how long the family will be eating off a folding table in the dining room.

The answer for a straightforward cabinet replacement is usually somewhere around eleven weeks end to end — but only about two of those weeks are the disruptive part. Most of the timeline happens before anyone touches your house.

The Sequence

Weeks 1–2: Design and field measure

The consultation, the layout, the material and finish selections, and then the field measure. Nothing is ordered or cut until the measurement is done and the drawings are signed off.

This phase runs at exactly the speed you make decisions. Clients who arrive knowing their finish and door style move through in days. Clients still deciding between two colors can stretch it to a month, and that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do — it is far cheaper to be slow here than anywhere later.

Weeks 3–6: Build

Your cabinets are cut, edgebanded, assembled, and finished in our St. Cloud facility. Nothing happens at your house during this phase, which surprises people who expect the project to feel active.

If appliances are on order, this is the window to confirm they will actually arrive. A delayed range is one of the most common causes of a stalled kitchen, because the cabinet opening around it cannot be closed out without it.

Week 7: Demolition and prep

Old cabinets and countertops out, walls patched, and any electrical or plumbing work done while the walls are open. Flooring goes in here if it is being replaced and running under the new cabinets.

This is the loud week. It is also short.

Week 8: Cabinet installation

The new cabinets go in — levelled, shimmed to the floor, scribed to the walls, and secured. Fillers and end panels are cut and fitted on site, which is why a good installer matters as much as a good cabinet.

By the end of this week your kitchen looks essentially finished, and it is at this point that clients usually assume they are nearly done. They are not, and the reason is the next phase.

Weeks 9–10: Countertop template and fabrication

Stone cannot be measured until the cabinets are physically installed — a template is taken off the real boxes, not off a drawing. Fabrication then takes one to three weeks depending on the shop and the material.

This is the gap nobody warns you about. Two to three weeks with cabinets in place, no countertops, no sink, and a plywood surface where the granite goes. It is unavoidable, it happens on every stone countertop job in the country, and knowing about it in advance is the difference between a mild inconvenience and a frustrating month.

If you need a working kitchen sooner, a temporary countertop can be fitted, or laminate and butcher block can be installed the same week as the cabinets.

Week 11: Backsplash, plumbing reconnect, and punch list

Counters go in, the sink and appliances are connected, backsplash tile goes up, and the crew works through the punch list — hinge adjustments, door alignment, hardware, and touch-ups.

Doors settle slightly in the first weeks in a new environment. A follow-up adjustment visit a month or two later is normal and worth taking.

What Makes It Longer

• Moving plumbing or gas. Adds trades, inspections, and coordination. Budget two to four weeks on the front end.
• Permits. Osceola and Orange County permits are straightforward for like-for-like work and slower once structure, electrical panels, or plumbing relocation are involved.
• HOA and condo approval. Frequently the longest single delay in a condo project, and entirely avoidable by starting the paperwork on day one.
• Backordered appliances. Order early. A missing dishwasher holds the punch list open for weeks.
• Changing your mind after production starts. Once panels are cut for your dimensions, a change is a re-build. This is the strongest argument for taking your time in weeks one and two.
• Soffit removal or wall changes, which routinely reveal ductwork or wiring that has to be rerouted.

What Makes It Shorter

• Keeping the existing layout. No trades, no permits, no surprises behind the wall.
• Deciding finishes early, before the field measure.
• Refacing instead of replacing, which skips the build phase almost entirely and is typically a matter of days on site rather than weeks.
• Quartz over exotic natural stone, which is usually quicker to fabricate.
• One company doing the cabinets and the installation. Every handoff between separate companies is a scheduling gap.

Living Through It

Practical things that make the disruptive fortnight easier:

• Set up a temporary kitchen elsewhere before demolition — microwave, kettle, coffee, and the refrigerator moved to the garage or dining room.
• Pack the kitchen into labeled boxes the weekend before demo day, not the morning of.
• Expect dust beyond the kitchen regardless of how well the plastic is hung.
• Keep the paper drawings somewhere you can reach them. Being able to point at a dimension settles most on-site questions in seconds.

How We Sequence It

Because we build in our own facility and install with our own crew, the two phases that most often slip — production and installation — are both scheduled by the same people. There is no third-party shop to chase and no subcontractor with a competing job.

We give every client a written schedule at contract signing, with the countertop gap marked on it explicitly. It is much easier to plan around a known three-week wait than to discover it in week nine.