How long does a kitchen remodel take, and can you live at home?

Why order the cabinets before the old kitchen comes out?

Because cabinets are usually the longest wait in a kitchen remodel, and nearly every step after the rough work depends on them. Stock cabinets can ship quickly, but semi-custom and custom lines are built after the order is placed, and the cabinet lead time the maker quotes only starts then. Tear the old kitchen out first and you spend that entire wait cooking in the dining room while the crew has nothing to install.

So we set demolition day from a confirmed cabinet ship date, not the other way around. The real start of the job is the design: the room measured and drawn, the cabinet line chosen, and every appliance model fixed, because cabinet widths and panel fronts are built around the exact appliances. A kitchen drawn around one range and then fitted with a wider one needs a cabinet remade.

The measurements taken for the order are checked again once the old cabinets are out, when a bowed wall or a corner that is out of square finally shows itself. Small differences are absorbed with filler strips and scribe molding cut on site. Larger ones are the reason for the second check: they are far easier to solve before the first box goes in than halfway along a run.

What happens once demolition starts, and in what order?

The work runs in a fixed sequence, and each stage waits on the one before it. Demolition is the quickest part. The rough stage that follows is where the calendar stretches, because the plumber, the electrician, and anyone changing framing or gas all have to finish before the city's rough inspection, and no wall or ceiling can be closed until that inspection passes. In practice, the kitchen remodel timeline in Pasadena looks like this.

• The kitchen is sealed off, its water, gas, and power are capped, and demolition begins.
• Rough work goes in: framing changes, drain and supply lines, gas, new circuits, and the hood duct.
• The city inspects the rough work while the walls and ceiling are still open.
• Walls and ceiling are boarded or patched and primed, and flooring goes down if it runs under the cabinets.
• Cabinets are set, leveled, and fastened, and only then is the countertop templated.
• Counters, sink, backsplash, appliances, and light fixtures go in, and a final inspection closes the permit.

Why is the countertop the step most likely to slip?

It is the one step that waits on the finished cabinets and holds up everything after it. On our jobs, countertop templating happens only once every cabinet is set, shimmed level, and fastened, because the template has to record the real tops and the real walls. Walls in an older house are rarely flat or square, and a slab cut to a drawing leaves gaps along the wall or rocks on a high spot.

Then comes the gap. The fabricator cuts the stone or quartz to that template on its own schedule, and until the counters are installed there is no kitchen sink, no dishwasher, and often no cooktop, since all of them sit in or under the counter. The fabricator also needs the actual sink and faucet, or their exact cutout specifications, at the template visit, so a late choice on either holds up the whole step.

Natural stone adds a variable of its own. Every slab is different, so you choose the actual slabs at the yard and ask for them to be held. If they sell before they are reserved, you start the choice over, and fabrication waits with you.

Can you really live at home during a kitchen remodel?

Most families can, provided there is a working bathroom that is not part of the job and a real place to cook and wash dishes. In our experience the noise is what families get used to fastest, because it clusters in demolition and daytime cutting. What wears on them is the fine dust and the long stretch without a kitchen sink, so living at home during a kitchen remodel is mostly a matter of planning for those two.

There are households where we would suggest staying elsewhere, at least through demolition. If the only bathroom is being remodeled at the same time, the house stops working. If there is a baby or toddler in a pre-1978 house, which may have lead paint, we would want them out while old surfaces are being cut and removed, because small children are the most vulnerable to lead dust. Anyone with asthma, or anyone working from home on video calls, will find the demolition days hard.

Plan for pets as well. The crew comes and goes all day, doors stand open, and fasteners end up on the floor despite daily cleanup, so dogs and cats do better in a closed room at the far end of the house, or with a friend, on the loudest days.

How do you set up a temporary kitchen that works?

Build it before demolition, in a room near a sink and served by more than one electrical circuit. The circuit part is what people miss. Older houses tend to have few circuits outside the kitchen, and a microwave, a kettle, and a countertop burner running on one dining room circuit will trip the breaker at dinnertime. Ask your contractor which outlets are on separate circuits, and spread the heavy appliances across them. A good temporary kitchen setup looks like this.

• Move the old refrigerator in before demolition, on a different circuit from the microwave.
• Bring a microwave, an electric kettle, a countertop burner, and a slow cooker or electric skillet.
• Set up a folding table at counter height, with bins for dishes, dry food, and utensils.
• Wash up at a laundry or utility sink, because a bathroom basin is too small for pots and clogs easily.
• Stock paper plates and plan simple meals for the stretch when washing up is hardest.

How do you keep the dust out of the rest of the house?

Seal the kitchen off before demolition and keep it sealed until the last cutting and sanding are done. Kitchen remodel dust control is mostly about air: fine dust rides on moving air, so the goal is to make air flow into the work area, never out of it into the hallway or through the ducts to the bedrooms.

Forced air heating and cooling is the weak point. If a return grille pulls from the kitchen or near it, dust goes into the ducts and comes out of every register in the house, so we would rather turn the system off on the days that make fine dust (demolition and drywall sanding) and change the filter afterward. In a Pasadena August that is a real sacrifice, which is why it goes back on as soon as the dusty work stops.

• Plastic walls go up floor to ceiling at every opening, taped at the edges, with a zippered door.
• Floor protection runs along the crew's path from the entry door to the kitchen.
• Supply registers and return grilles in the kitchen are sealed over.
• A fan set in a kitchen window blows out, so air is drawn into the work area.
• Daily cleanup uses a HEPA vacuum, because a broom lifts fine dust back into the air.

Does an older Pasadena house make a kitchen remodel take longer?

Often, yes, because some of what an older house needs has to happen before ordinary demolition can start, and some only shows once the walls are open. A kitchen in one of Pasadena's pre-war houses often comes with lath and plaster walls, wiring and a panel sized for far fewer appliances, and paint and flooring that need testing first.

Testing comes first. In any house older than 1978, lead paint is a real possibility, and federal lead-safe rules require contractors to contain the work, clean up in a specific way, and dispose of the debris properly, all of which adds setup and slows demolition. Old vinyl floor tiles and their adhesive, often buried under newer flooring, can contain asbestos. A positive sample turns removal into its own step before our demolition, so we take samples during design, not on demolition day.

Plaster slows the work itself. It comes off as heavy, dusty rubble rather than sheets, so demolition and hauling take longer than in a drywall house. Power is the other common hold. A new kitchen typically adds several dedicated circuits, and an older panel may have neither the space nor the capacity for them. If the service has to be upgraded, the utility has to be scheduled too, and that date is outside anyone's control on site.

What keeps a kitchen renovation on schedule?

Two habits: every decision made before demolition, and no layout changes after it. Each selection in a kitchen fixes something in the rough work. Switch from a gas range to induction after the rough-in and you need a new, heavier circuit, possibly panel work, and a capped gas line. Decide late on a refrigerator with an ice maker and a water line has to be run into a wall that may already be closed.

Layout changes after demolition hurt the calendar most, because they reopen rough work that may already be inspected, can undo part of a cabinet order, and may need revised drawings if they change what the permit shows. Smaller questions come up on every job, such as an outlet that lands in the middle of the backsplash tile layout, and a same-day answer from you keeps the crew moving.

It also helps when the same people are there every day. We run one four-person crew on one job at a time, so a kitchen is never left sitting while the crew works another site, and Michael Ward, who quotes the job, is on site running it when those questions come up.