Refacing, replacing, or moving walls
Kitchen projects fall into roughly three depths, and they are very different jobs. Refacing keeps the existing cabinet boxes and changes doors, drawer fronts and hardware — the fastest and least expensive route, and a genuinely good option when the boxes are sound and the layout already works.
Replacing cabinetry keeps the footprint but changes everything in it, which is where most kitchens land. Moving walls or relocating plumbing and appliances is a different scale of project: it brings in framing, mechanical rough‑in and inspection, and it is worth doing only when the existing layout is actually fighting you.
We will tell you which one your kitchen needs. Talking a client out of a gut renovation they do not need is a better outcome than selling one.
Sequencing is what protects the timeline
A kitchen has more trades converging than any other room in a house — demolition, framing, plumbing, electrical, cabinetry, stone, tile, and finish. When those collide, the schedule slips in ways that are hard to recover.
The order matters and some of it is not obvious: countertops cannot be templated until cabinets are installed and dead‑level, and stone fabrication then takes its own lead time, which is why that gap exists in every honest kitchen schedule. Appliances need their specifications known before rough‑in, not after. Tile follows counters so the backsplash meets the stone cleanly. We plan around those dependencies up front and order long‑lead items early.
Living through it
You will be without a kitchen for part of the project. That is worth planning rather than enduring — a temporary setup with the fridge, microwave and coffee somewhere else in the house makes a real difference over several weeks.
We seal the work area to keep dust out of the rest of the house, protect the path in and out, and clean the site daily. Before we start we will walk you through which weeks are loudest and which are quietest, so you can schedule around the parts that matter to you.
Common questions
- How long does a kitchen remodel take?
- A refacing project can be under a week. A full renovation typically runs several weeks, and the countertop templating and fabrication gap is a real part of that — stone cannot be measured until cabinets are set. We give you a week‑by‑week schedule before demolition starts.
- Can you keep my existing layout?
- Usually, and often you should. Keeping plumbing and appliances where they are avoids mechanical rough‑in and inspection, which is a meaningful share of the cost on many kitchens.
- Do you handle permits and inspections?
- Where the work requires them, yes. Johnson County municipalities and Kansas City, Missouri each permit differently, which is one reason the rough‑in stage is scheduled with slack in it.