When you have your dream home, it can be a problem when you walk into it and immediately hate everything about the kitchen. Starting the remodeling process can seem like an easy task, but it usually takes your entire year away from you, so how long does it take to remodel a kitchen?
From start to finish, it will take around three to four months to remodel your kitchen, including the walls and floor. When expanding the kitchen and replacing every cupboard, the process can increase to six or even eight months, depending on the total availability of materials.
It is important to remember that simply remodeling a kitchen one cabinet at a time can also take you a long time. There are several steps involved with doing the process correctly, and it will require that you go through each step slowly to get the best possible experience while remodeling your kitchen.
How Long Does It Take To Tear Down A Kitchen?
Generally, tearing down a kitchen is the fastest thing in remodeling the kitchen because there is little to no planning required. It should take only a week or less to tear down a kitchen, with the floor tiles usually taking the longest owing to the way they have adhered to the ground.
However, we recommend holding out on demolishing your current kitchen until you are entirely sure that you can still work in a kitchen somewhere else in the house. Many homeowners start the demolishing process with a sledgehammer without thinking of alternatives.
Getting your kitchen ready for demolition usually takes longer than the actual demolition phase, as you will need to:
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- plan
- measure
- find alternatives
We recommend going through the steps slowly to ensure that you will not be left without a place to make food.
How Long Does Each Step Of Remodeling A Kitchen Take?
Now that we know a general time to start the demolishing process, we will look at how long it takes. There are several things to consider, with many people often mistaking a quick and easy plan for a plan that will be quick to accomplish.
Often, the kitchens are seemingly easy to do with no plans required, which can leave a home without a proper kitchen for several years. We recommend keeping all of these steps in mind when you want to replace and remodel your kitchen, creating a plan that maximizes time.
Are you wondering if you need a permit to remodel your kitchen? Read my article that includes the rules for each state!
Step #1: Planning And Dreaming
This is the essential part of creating your kitchen, as you won’t know what will make you happy and what you will need if you are never thinking of the possibilities. We recommend joining a few websites and groups actively looking at kitchens to help design your own.
The planning and dreaming process should take a few months, writing down what you think will work and then creating a plan where everything works together. Knowing what you want will help you decide when certain things need to happen later in the remodeling process.
Step #2: Creating A Budget
Now that you know what you want, you need to research how much each step will cost, including demolition and final cleaning. Many people have been caught without money after paying for the last rubbish bins removed from their property.
Your budget should be set early on in the remodeling and planning stages, many people save up for several years to increase their budget. We recommend setting a tight budget for contractors and workers to follow while giving yourself a softer budget that can grow as expenses increase.
Step #3: Researching And Hiring A Contractor
Hiring a contractor is interviewing and finding the team that works with you and the designs you have in mind. This process can be as quick as one week, or it may take you well over a month to get a contractor who is willing to work in the way you are comfortable with.
Always remember that the contractor has to have the capability to do what you want them to and that you can tell them no. Many people mistake settling with the closest contractors, resulting in rushed work and done wrong simply because the contractor does not care about their work.
Step #4: Finalizing Your Plans
Once you have a contractor who has agreed to do everything, you will need to work with them to make the final plans. This process usually requires an engineer to measure the available space and understands how your entire house has been built.
Getting the finalized plans made usually takes around two to three months as they need to be approved as well. Every time a change is made or something is not approved on the plans; another week can be added to the timeline simply because the plans need to be adjusted and remade.
Step #5: Ordering Parts
It may seem odd to you to do this before anything has really started but getting all the right parts is often why many remodeling projects are entirely halted. Some parts may arrive within a few days, while some complicated and rarer parts can take several months to be cut and shaped.
The process of ordering parts and materials will be an ongoing part of the remodeling project and cannot be defined within a set time frame. The contractor should know how long some parts will take to arrive, but you should start ordering parts when all the plans are finalized.
Step #6: Ordering Appliances
The kitchen cupboards will usually be designed to fit precisely around your appliances, so you need to know their exact size early on. We recommend ordering the appliances and placing them in storage so you can easily measure them when needed, especially the more permanent appliances.
Kitchen appliances will usually only take a week or more to arrive, which gives the contractors and the cupboard builders a lot of time to measure everything. We have seen several kitchen remodeling projects slowed down simply because the oven is smaller than the box said.
Step #7: Create A Temporary Kitchen And Pack Everything Up
While your plans are being made, you must create a temporary kitchen somewhere else in the house. This should only take about a week of moving and packing, with most homeowners using their dining rooms because of the proximity of everything.
It should be noted that having a dishwasher at this stage will be incredibly beneficial as you can use that to keep all your dishes clean. Many people buy more takeout while remodeling their kitchens to minimize the strain of not having a kitchen.
Step #8: Demolition And First Construction Phases
Once the plans are ready and the temporary kitchen has been made, the demolition stage begins. This should not take longer than a week. Most contractors quickly demolish an old kitchen within a day or two, removing everything and leaving only a skeleton behind.
It should be noted that demolishing everything will take slightly longer when taking care to leave a few parts of the kitchen. Simply because care will have to be taken so as not to damage anything that needs to be left in the kitchen, with wood floors often needing the most protection.
Step #9: Installing The Walls, Floors, And Lighting
After the demolition and initial cleaning, the first things that need to be installed are the new walls and floors; this is also when some kitchens grow much more extensive than they were. This can take well over two to three months if done correctly, with plumbing and electrical changes included.
Many people forget that it takes several steps to change the location of:
- faucets
- lights
- plugs
The kitchen size and shape-changing will take the longest, especially when waiting for the tile grout to fully dry, as nothing else can happen during this time.
Step #10: Installing Cabinets, Appliances, And Painting
Once finished with the installation of:
- lights
- walls
- floor
The next step has to start with moving in the:
- cabinets
- painting
- appliances
This can take between one to two months, as the cabinets may have to be changed or adjusted, with some appliances also taking time.
Painting the kitchen walls before they are tiled or closed with cabinets usually only takes a day as the process is fast and the painters are preferably experienced. We recommend you consider this and leave some extra days for the cabinets to be changed and fitted precisely.
Step #11: Clean The Construction Zones
Once the cabinets are installed, the first initial cleaning starts and another cleaning round happens after the appliances. Once everything is installed, we recommend cleaning the entire space again to ensure there is no residual dust hanging around in the kitchen.
The cleaning process only lasts one to two days, requiring that no more builders need to make changes or adjustments. We recommend not starting the final steps until you are sure no one else needs to drill a hole or move something around, with even light fixtures causing a huge mess.
Step #12: Unpack Everything And Close The Temporary Kitchen
Once everything is cleaned out, unpack all the boxes and sort out the kitchen so that you can use things as you want. This will be different from person to person, but the entire unpacking process usually takes around one week to complete.
This time frame gives enough time to know what should be included and removed from the new kitchen. Many people purposefully choose to get all new things for their kitchen to make it look as nice as possible.
What Takes The Longest To Install While Remodeling A Kitchen?
The longest part of a kitchen remodel is the installation of new cupboards and cabinets, with the whole process taking several months to complete. The cabinets are rarely built on-site and are usually custom-built in a workshop, where the kitchen cabinets are hand-made.
However, when using store-bought kitchen cabinets, it takes a few weeks to cut them into the proper lengths and shapes to fit into your cabinet. You should order the new cabinets and cupboards before starting the demolishing process, allowing the craftsman and contractor to make changes.
The tiling can take longer, but this is usually because a mistake has been made or not enough tiles have been bought. Both of these can be prevented with proper planning, allowing you to quickly and comfortably leave it to be built without stressing constantly.
Why Do Some Parts Take Significantly Longer Than Others?
The simple answer is that certain things take longer because they require more precision and care to be done right. If someone is remodeling a kitchen in only a few weeks, it usually means that every corner shortcut has been taken, and the quality will not last long.
Further, remodeling a kitchen takes significantly longer than just building a new kitchen, as the entire house has to be changed and uplifted. We recommend that you consider this when you are still planning everything and always give a day or two extra for the more demanding tasks.
A tile that has been installed incorrectly and missed during your initial inspection will be there until the next kitchen remodel. However, a meticulous job that has been done right because all the craftsmen took the time needed will never be a disappointment.
Conclusion
Your kitchen remodel might only take half a year, but most remodels usually take a full year to complete. We recommend that you plan for the worst-case scenario and allow your contractor and the other craftsman to work at a comfortable pace.
Please don’t try to cut corners to get through everything as fast as possible!
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