Kitchen Planning & Cost Questions

It depends most on kitchen size, door style and finish, box construction and hardware, with countertops and appliances on top. The biggest DIY saving is doing the install yourself, often a large share of a professionally-quoted kitchen.

For most confident homeowners, yes — the cabinet work is very doable and the install is where the biggest savings are. Keep gas, pressurized water, 240-volt wiring and stone countertop work with the pros.

Cabinet installation runs roughly a day per run once everything is on site, plus the lead time to plan, order and receive cabinets, countertop templating, and trade hook-ups.

In about 90% of kitchens, flooring goes first — it gives a clean, continuous floor and makes appliances easier to swap later. The main exception is a floating floor (some laminate or vinyl plank): install the cabinets first and float the floor around them with an expansion gap, so heavy cabinets don’t trap it.

Demo and repair, install flooring (usually), measure, design and order, assemble the cabinets, install base then wall cabinets, template and fit the countertop, complete plumbing/gas/electrical, then finish with doors, handles and toe kicks.

Anything involving gas, water under pressure or 240 volts, plus stone countertop fabrication. A permit and a licensed pro for those cost far less than fixing a leak or a fault later.

Three tiers. Paint (a few hundred dollars DIY) refreshes sound boxes when you like the layout — prep is everything or it chips. Reface keeps the boxes and swaps the doors, drawer fronts and end panels for a like-new face at roughly a third to half the cost of replacing. Replace when the boxes are water-damaged or you want a different layout or more storage — it is the only option that changes how the kitchen actually works.

Kill the power to the kitchen, take off the doors and drawers, and disconnect the sink, water and any built-in appliances first. Score the caulk line where each cabinet meets the wall with a utility knife, back out the screws in the back rail with a helper steadying the box, then lift it away and patch the holes. Take the wall cabinets down before the base cabinets.

Swapping cabinets, counters, flooring and fixtures in the same places is normally treated as cosmetic and needs no permit. You cross the line the moment you move plumbing or gas, add or relocate circuits, or take out a wall. Rules are set city by city, so one call to your building department before you order costs nothing — and pulling a permit after the fact costs a great deal.

Inspect before you sign. Note any damage on the delivery receipt, then photograph the pallet, the cartons and the parts from several angles, and report it inside the supplier’s claim window (often about five days). The part people get wrong: do not assemble or install a damaged cabinet. Most claims require the unit unassembled, and building it can end your right to a replacement. Keep the packaging until the claim closes — and unbox everything the day it lands, not the morning you plan to install.

The cabinet price is the part everyone budgets for; the overruns live everywhere else. Budget separately for: moving plumbing, gas or electrical; drywall and floor patching where the old kitchen came out (the floor under old cabinets is almost never finished); countertop template, cut-outs and edge upgrades; appliance delivery and installation, plus the faucet, sink and disposal nobody counts as appliances; waste removal for a kitchen’s worth of debris; and permits if you are moving services. Then add a 10–15% contingency and treat it as spent. The other quiet drain is scope creep — a nicer pull here, a second sink there — which is why the decisions belong on a plan, before anything is ordered.

Worth it: drawers instead of doors in your base cabinets (the single upgrade people say changed how the kitchen works); soft-close on everything you open daily; a hard-wearing countertop on the run you actually prep on; and lighting under the wall cabinets. Usually not: interior gadgets you will use once, upgrading the box on cabinets nobody opens, and paying for a premium finish on a door style you will be tired of in five years. The general rule: spend on the things your hands touch every day, save on the things behind a closed door.

Roughly 40% of a whole-kitchen budget is a realistic planning figure for cabinetry, with countertops, appliances, flooring and the trades sharing the rest. Doing the install yourself is what changes the maths: labour is typically the largest single line on a professionally quoted kitchen, so a DIY install is where the real saving sits — not in buying a cheaper box. Work out the 40% first, then see which door style and hardware fit inside it.

Plan on weeks, not days. Stock cabinets can ship quickly; semi-custom and custom commonly run six to eight weeks, and specialty finishes or imported items can reach eight to twelve. Stone countertops add another one to two weeks after templating — and templating cannot happen until the base cabinets are installed and level. Build that sequence into the calendar before you pick a start date; it is the part that surprises people, not the install.

From demolition to a working kitchen is commonly a few weeks for a DIY cabinet swap, and longer if trades or a stone countertop are in the sequence — the countertop gap alone is one to two weeks with no work surface and often no sink. Set up a temporary kitchen in another room before you demolish anything: a microwave, a kettle, a mini-fridge or a cooler, a portable induction hob, and a plastic tub for washing up. Most people find that workable for six to eight weeks. Move the coffee-making first — that is the one that decides how the household feels about the project.

Yes — and for most DIYers that is the sane way to do it. The natural break points are: assemble all the boxes (evenings, in another room), then base cabinets in one go, then wall cabinets, then doors, handles and toe kicks. Two rules make staging work. Finish a whole run before you stop — a half-fastened run is not stable. And do not book the countertop template until the entire base layer is in and level, because the template is a snapshot of what exists on that day.

No. This is the most expensive scheduling mistake in the whole project: a torn-out kitchen sitting idle for three weeks because the delivery slipped. Wait until the cabinets are on site, unboxed and checked against the order — damage and shortages are exactly what the claim window exists for, and you want to find them while you still have a working sink. Demolition is a weekend. Waiting for a replacement door is a fortnight.

Paint first, then touch up. Cutting a clean line against brand-new cabinets is slow and unforgiving, whereas overspray on a wall you are about to repaint costs nothing — and carrying boxes in will scuff fresh paint anyway. Do the ceiling first of all.

Somewhere dry, flat and indoors — not a garage floor, not against an exterior wall, never in a room still being drywalled. Keep the boxes upright, off the concrete, and leave the doors packed until the moment you hang them.

Yes — every cupboard, drawer and counter, and the fridge if it is moving. Set up a temporary kitchen somewhere else first: kettle, microwave, a cooler or the fridge on an extension lead, a tub for washing up, and paper plates you will not feel guilty about. Do it the day before, not on the morning the boxes arrive.

Almost never with stone. A quartz or granite top was templated to the old boxes and is usually siliconed down; lifting it whole is a two-person gamble and the cut-outs will not line up with new cabinet positions. Laminate occasionally survives if the layout is identical and you are careful. Plan on a new top and price it into the project from the start.

Measure every appliance you are keeping before you design, not after. Older fridges and ranges are often a fraction wider or deeper than today’s standard openings, and a 1980s dishwasher may not be a true 24″. Write the real numbers on your plan, and if an appliance is close to end of life, decide now — it is far cheaper than rebuilding a run later.

The box should outlive the kitchen — twenty years and more if it stays dry. What wears is everything that moves: hinges, runners and handles, all of which are replaceable in minutes. Doors are the other clock; they do not usually fail, you simply tire of the colour. That is why it pays to buy a good box and treat the door as the part you may one day change.

Ask for the terms in writing before you order and keep the paperwork with your plan. Across the industry the common exclusions are the same: damage during installation, water damage, and modifications you made yourself. Installing a cabinet you already noticed was damaged usually voids the claim, which is why the packing check on delivery day matters so much.

Five things. Confirm the delivery window and where the pallet will be put; clear a dry indoor space for the boxes; finish the wall and ceiling paint; have the electrician and plumber do their rough-in; and re-check your wall measurements against the order one last time. Anything you find in that week is an inconvenience; the same thing found on install day is a delay.

Very often yes, and it is the step people discover late. Buildings commonly require a renovation application, proof of insurance, booked elevator time and set work hours, and some restrict when materials can come through the lobby. Ask before you order, because approval can take longer than the cabinet lead time.

This is where flat-packed boxes earn their keep — a carton goes up a stairwell that an assembled cabinet cannot turn in. Measure the narrowest point of the route: the door swing, the stair turn, the elevator depth and its door. Then assemble in the kitchen, not in the garage.

Ordering before the layout is genuinely final — usually because a lead time looked frightening. Every expensive fix in a DIY kitchen traces back to a decision made on a maybe: an appliance not yet chosen, a wall not yet measured at three heights, a sink not yet picked. Draw it, check it against real appliance sheets, then order.