Remodeling services
A kitchen remodel replaces some or all of the cabinetry, counters, appliances, flooring, lighting and finishes in a kitchen, and, depending on scope, moves the plumbing, gas and electrical that serve them. It is the most trade-dense room in a house: a full remodel typically involves demolition, framing, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, drywall, tile, cabinetry, countertop templating, flooring and painting, in an order where getting one step out of sequence can cost weeks.
HyreRemodel does not design, build or manage remodeling work. This page explains the work so you can judge a proposal and a contractor.
Settle this before anything else. Select your appliances before cabinets are ordered, not after. Cabinet openings are built to appliance dimensions, and a refrigerator or range chosen late is one of the few mistakes in a kitchen that cannot be corrected without re-ordering a cabinet run. The same applies to the sink, which determines the base cabinet and the countertop cut-out.
The short version
Worth separating, because the reason decides the scope, and two of these are often solved without a remodel at all.
Sequence is not a formality in a kitchen. Several steps cannot begin until a previous one is physically complete, and the gaps they create are why kitchen schedules are longer than the labour in them suggests.
Layout fixed, appliances selected, cabinetry specified. Everything downstream is dimensioned off these decisions, which is why changing them later is expensive rather than merely inconvenient.
Plan review timelines are set by your jurisdiction, not by your contractor. Ask what the current turnaround is before the schedule is agreed.
Cabinetry and appliances are ordered weeks or months ahead. One long-lead item sets the critical path for the whole project, and it is usually the cabinets.
Cabinets, counters, flooring and finishes out. This is also when the condition of what is behind them stops being a guess, and when a contingency starts earning its place.
Only if the layout changes. Removing a wall requires knowing whether it carries load before, not after, and a header and its supports have to land on something that can carry them.
The expensive invisible stage. Supply and waste lines, gas runs, circuits, ventilation ducting. If the service panel is being upgraded, it happens here.
Where permitted work is involved, this is inspected before anything is closed up. Work covered before inspection may have to be reopened.
Walls closed, taped, finished. Ceilings are usually painted now, walls often after cabinets.
Whether it runs under the cabinets or stops at them is a real decision with real consequences for future appliance replacement. Ask which is proposed.
Set level and plumb to the walls you actually have, which are never as square as the drawing assumed. Scribing and filler strips are craft, not padding.
Templated from the installed cabinets, then fabricated off site. This gap is unavoidable — plan to live with a plywood worktop for a stretch.
Sink, faucet, disposal, appliance connections, devices, fixtures. The kitchen becomes usable here.
Backsplash follows the counters because it is scribed to them. Then the list of everything not quite right, agreed in writing before final payment.
Kitchen work falls into three bands. Most disappointment comes from budgeting for one and specifying another.
| Cosmetic refresh | Paint, hardware, lighting, backsplash, sometimes refacing or new doors on sound boxes. Nothing moves, nothing is opened, and in most jurisdictions little or none of it is permitted work. The layout you have is the layout you keep. |
|---|---|
| Replacement in place | New cabinetry, counters, appliances and flooring into the existing footprint. Plumbing and gas stay put; electrical is usually upgraded to current requirements because the walls are open anyway. This is where the best value in kitchen remodeling generally sits. |
| Reconfiguration | The layout changes: the sink moves, a wall comes out, an island is added, or the room is opened to another space. Now there is plumbing relocation, possibly structural work, permits, inspections and drywall. Everything above still happens — this is that project plus construction. |
Kitchen costs are moved by the factors below, in rough order of how much swing each carries. None of them is a price — each is something to interrogate when two proposals differ and you cannot see why.
| Factor | Why it changes the number |
|---|---|
| Whether plumbing moves | Relocating the sink or dishwasher means new supply and waste runs, which may mean opening floors or ceilings below. Waste lines need fall, and where that fall can go is a structural question, not a preference. |
| Whether the layout is structural | Removing a wall that carries load adds engineering, a header, support down to the foundation, permits and inspections. Whether a wall is load-bearing is determined by inspection, not by whether it looks substantial. |
| Cabinetry level | Stock, semi-custom and custom are three different products with three different lead times. Within each, box construction and drawer hardware vary more than the doors you are shown. |
| Linear feet of cabinetry | Cabinetry is priced by the run. A larger kitchen with a simple perimeter can cost less than a small one with an island, a pantry wall and three appliance garages. |
| Countertop material and edges | Material is the headline; the cut-outs, edge profile, seams and any waterfall detail are where quotes for "the same" counter diverge. |
| Electrical scope | Current National Electrical Code editions require dedicated small-appliance branch circuits and GFCI protection at countertop receptacles. An older kitchen frequently has neither, so bringing it to current requirements is added work, not an upgrade. |
| Service panel capacity | Induction ranges, double ovens and additional circuits can exceed what an older panel or service can carry. A service upgrade is its own project with its own utility coordination. |
| Ventilation | A hood that actually moves air needs a duct run to outside and, above certain airflow rates, may require make-up air. Recirculating hoods avoid both and do considerably less. |
| Age and condition of the house | Pre-1978 paint brings the EPA Lead RRP Rule. Older houses may also bring asbestos in flooring or joint compound, knob-and-tube wiring, galvanised supply or joists that have already been notched badly. |
| Flooring extent | Whether the new floor stops at the kitchen or has to be carried through adjoining rooms to make a transition work is a question of appearance with a material cost attached. |
| Living arrangements | A temporary kitchen, a phased schedule, or working around an occupied house all add time, and time is labour. |
HyreRemodel publishes no national average price for this work. Size, finish level, whether anything structural or mechanical moves, the age of the house and regional labour rates move it far enough that a single figure would mislead.
The one question worth answering first. Can this kitchen work for you without the sink, the range and the panel moving? If yes, you are specifying finishes and the budget is largely under your control. If no, you are commissioning construction, and the drawings, permits and contingency all need to be sized for that. Most homeowners discover which of these they are doing after they have set the budget rather than before.
The full checklist is on choosing a remodeling contractor.
The single most common avoidable cost in kitchen remodeling. If the relocation solves a real problem it is worth paying for. If it was a preference on a plan view, price it as an option before committing to it.
Cabinet openings are built to appliance dimensions. A late change to a counter-depth refrigerator or a wider range means re-ordering a cabinet run, at full price and full lead time.
An allowance set below what the item realistically costs makes a proposal look competitive and produces an increase later that is technically nobody’s fault. Ask what each allowance buys in an actual showroom before accepting the bid.
A proposal that itemises tile and treats plumbing, electrical and HVAC as a single number is not a proposal you can compare against another one. The rough-in is where the variance lives.
The walls are open exactly once. Circuits, GFCI protection and panel capacity are cheap now and disruptive later, and a kitchen that trips a breaker when the kettle and the toaster run together is a kitchen that was value-engineered in the wrong place.
A kitchen is opened up before anyone knows what is behind it. A budget with no contingency has no way to absorb the first thing found, and the usual casualty is the finishes at the end.
It is consistently one of the larger swings in a kitchen remodel, though the size of it depends on your house rather than on the kitchen. Moving a sink means new supply lines and a new waste run, and waste needs fall. Where that fall can go depends on what is under the floor — an accessible basement or crawl space makes it far more straightforward than a slab or a finished ceiling below. Ask the contractor to price keeping the sink and moving it as two options, and you will see the real number for your house rather than a general rule.
Both approaches are used and both are defensible. Running the floor through first is simpler to install and means a future cabinet change does not leave a gap in the floor, but it uses more material and can raise dishwasher height enough to matter. Stopping at the cabinets uses less material and is common with engineered and floating floors, which need room to move. What matters is that the proposal says which it is doing, because the two are not the same amount of work.
It depends entirely on scope and jurisdiction. Replacing cabinets and counters with nothing moving is often not permitted work. Moving plumbing, adding or altering circuits, changing ventilation or touching structure generally is. Your building department will answer this in a phone call, and asking is free. Unpermitted work has a way of surfacing at resale or during an insurance claim, which is a bad moment to find out.
If your home was built before 1978, the EPA’s Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule generally requires any firm paid to disturb painted surfaces to be EPA-certified, to use lead-safe work practices — containment, specific cleaning, no prohibited methods, and to give you the "Renovate Right" pamphlet before starting. The exemption is narrow: work disturbing 6 square feet or less of painted surface per room inside, or 20 square feet or less outside, falls outside the rule, and a kitchen remodel passes that in the first hour. Two details catch people out — replacing a window counts as a renovation regardless of its size, and jobs in the same room within 30 days are counted together, so splitting work into visits does not avoid it. Ask to see the certification. A contractor who waves the requirement away is telling you how they handle the rules nobody is watching.
Longer than the construction window suggests, because the countertop gap is built into the middle of it. Counters are templated only after cabinets are installed and then fabricated off site, so there is a stretch with cabinets in place and no working counter or sink. Ask the contractor for the expected window between cabinet installation and counter installation specifically, and plan the temporary kitchen around that rather than around the overall schedule.
Generally yes, and it is a legitimate option when the boxes are sound, square and laid out the way you want them. What refacing cannot do is change the layout, fix a box that is delaminating or sagging, or improve drawer hardware that is failing. So it is a good answer to "these look dated" and a poor answer to "this kitchen does not work", and the second complaint is the more common one.
Stock cabinets come in fixed sizes and finishes and are the quickest to get. Semi-custom uses standard construction with a wider range of sizes, finishes and internal fittings. Custom is built to your dimensions with no size constraints and the longest lead time. The distinction people underestimate is that the quality range within each band is wide: box material, joinery and drawer hardware vary far more than the door front you are shown in a showroom, and those are the parts that determine whether the kitchen is still working in fifteen years.
A hood that vents outside removes moisture, grease and combustion by-products from the house; a recirculating hood filters some grease and returns the air to the room, doing substantially less. If the kitchen has a gas range the case for ducting is stronger still. The practical constraint is whether a duct run to an exterior wall or roof exists or can be created, and at higher airflow rates some jurisdictions require make-up air to be provided. Ask for the airflow rating, the duct route and whether make-up air is triggered where you live.
Most people do, and most people underestimate it. Set up a temporary kitchen somewhere with a sink nearby before demolition rather than after — a fridge, a microwave, a kettle and a plan for washing up. The parts people find hardest are the dust, which migrates well beyond the plastic sheeting, and the loss of the sink. Ask the contractor how the work area will be contained and whether the existing sink can be left live until the last possible day.
No. HyreRemodel is an independent information resource and a platform intended to connect homeowners with remodeling contractors. We do not design, build, project-manage or supervise kitchen work, we do not employ tradespeople, and we do not warrant anyone who does. This page exists so that you can write a scope, read a proposal and hold a useful conversation with the companies that will actually bid it.
Information on this page is general and may vary by location, building code, zoning, property condition and individual circumstances. It is not legal, design or engineering advice. HyreRemodel is an independent remodeling resource and connection platform, not a remodeling contractor, and does not perform, supervise or warrant construction work.
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