Kitchens punish bad sequencing like no other room. Template the countertops before the cabinets are in and the stone shop has nothing to measure. Close the walls before the rough inspection and the inspector can make you open them right back up. Every trade in a kitchen builds directly on the last one's work, so the order below isn't really a suggestion — it's the sequence that doesn't create rework.
Use it as your master checklist whether you're running the job yourself or hiring it out. If a contractor proposes a different order, ask why. There's usually a scheduling reason, and it should be a deliberate exception, not an accident.
Finalize the layout and measure twice. Decide where every appliance, sink, and outlet lives before anything gets ordered. Cabinet drawings are built from these measurements, and a fridge that's 2 inches wider than its opening is a problem you want on paper, not in your driveway.
Order cabinets, appliances, and finishes now. Cabinets are the long pole: stock cabinets can arrive in days, semi-custom commonly takes 4–8 weeks, and custom work can run 10–12 weeks or longer. Appliance dimensions feed the cabinet design, too, so pick the range and fridge before the cabinets are finalized — not after.
Pull permits and line up your trades. Most jurisdictions want a permit when plumbing or electrical work moves, even if the kitchen's footprint stays the same. File during the ordering window so approval isn't the thing holding up demo day, and book your plumber and electrician for the rough-in window at the same time.
Strip the room. Appliances out, cabinets and counters off, flooring up if it's being replaced, and drywall opened wherever pipes and wires need to move. Shut off the water and power to the room first, and cap any live lines the same day they're opened.
Rough in the plumbing. Drain, vent, and supply lines get moved or replaced while the walls and floor are open — sink location, dishwasher feed, the fridge water line, a pot filler if you're adding one. Nothing about plumbing gets easier after the drywall goes up.
Rough in the electrical and HVAC. New circuits for the range, microwave, and countertop outlets, plus under-cabinet lighting runs, recessed lights, and any duct moves. A modern kitchen needs far more circuits than a 1970s kitchen had, and this is the only cheap moment to add them.
Pass the rough inspections. The inspector looks at framing changes, plumbing, and electrical before anything is covered. Don't let anyone hang drywall "to keep the schedule" ahead of this sign-off — it's the most expensive shortcut in the whole project.
Insulate, hang drywall, and prime. Patch or replace the drywall, tape and mud, sand, and roll on primer. Finish paint can wait until the dusty work is done; many painters do a first coat here and save the final coat for dead last.
Install the flooring. Tile, hardwood, and glued-down vinyl generally go in now, wall to wall, so cabinets sit on a finished, level surface and appliances can slide out for service later. One exception: floating floors shouldn't be trapped under cabinets, so installers often run those up to the cabinet bases instead. Confirm which way your floor type goes before this step, not during it.
Set the cabinets. Bases first, then uppers, shimmed level and screwed to studs. Everything downstream depends on this step — a cabinet run that's out of level by 1/4 inch becomes a countertop that rocks and a backsplash line that wanders.
Template the countertops. With the cabinets fixed in place, the fabricator measures — usually with a laser or a physical template — and you confirm overhangs, seams, and the sink cutout. Fabrication typically takes 1–3 weeks. Use the gap for finish paint and flooring touch-ups. If the material choice is still open at this point, it is late — the quartz vs granite countertops comparison on installed cost, sealing, and heat belongs back in phase 1, while the budget is still being set.
Install countertops, then the backsplash. Counters go in level, then get seamed and sealed. The backsplash is tiled after the counters because its bottom edge sits directly on the counter surface. Tile it first and you'd be guessing the exact height.
Install appliances and connect the sink. The range, dishwasher, and fridge go in, the faucet and disposal get hooked up, and the plumber and electrician come back for trim-out: devices and covers on the outlets and switches, fixtures on the lights, the hood ducted and wired. Our guide to installing a kitchen faucet walks through the sink end of this step.
Hardware, touch-ups, and the final inspection. Cabinet pulls, caulk lines, paint touch-ups, and a deep clean. Then the final inspection closes your permit. Don't skip it — an open permit has a way of surfacing years later, usually in the middle of selling the house. Run that last pass room by room with our remodel final walkthrough checklist so punch-list items get documented in writing before the final payment goes out.
| Phase | Typical time on site | What usually causes delays |
|---|---|---|
| Design and ordering | 2–10 weeks, mostly waiting | Cabinet lead times, permit review |
| Demo and rough-in | About 1 week | Surprises inside the walls, inspector scheduling |
| Drywall and flooring | 1–2 weeks | Mud drying time, material deliveries |
| Cabinets and counters | 2–4 weeks | The countertop fabrication queue |
| Finish and trim-out | 1–2 weeks | Back-ordered fixtures, punch-list items |
Those ranges fit a typical mid-size kitchen with no structural changes. A gut remodel with moved walls, or one where the layout changes completely, will run longer — mostly in phases 1 and 2.
Templating counters before cabinets. The template is taken from the cabinets as installed, shims and all. Measured any earlier, it's a guess, and stone doesn't forgive guesses.
Painting the final coat first. Fresh walls get scuffed by cabinet boxes, countertop slabs, and appliance dollies. Prime early if you like, but the finish coat belongs near the end.
Choosing appliances last. Cabinet openings are built around appliance specs. Swap in a different fridge at the end and you're looking at a filler strip, a reorder, or a return truck.
Forgetting the under-cabinet lights until later. Hardwired under-cabinet lighting needs its wiring run at rough-in. Decide after the drywall is up and your options shrink to plug-in strips and battery pucks.
Scheduling trades back-to-back with zero slack. Inspections, drying mud, and countertop fabrication all have built-in waits. A schedule with no gaps in it collapses the first time one trade slips by a day.
The sequence is the project. Get the order right — plan and order, demo, rough-in, inspect, close up, cabinets, counters, finish — and a kitchen remodel becomes mostly a waiting game. Get it wrong and you're paying trades to undo each other's work. If you're hiring the job out, our contractor hiring checklist and the red flags to watch for will help you vet whoever proposes the schedule. A good contractor will walk you through an order very much like this one without being asked.
On site, typically 6–12 weeks for a mid-range remodel once materials are on hand — and the ordering and permit phase adds weeks before demo even starts. The biggest variables are cabinet lead time, the countertop fabricator's queue, and how fast inspections get scheduled in your area.
Usually flooring first, cabinets on top — that's the standard for tile, hardwood, and glued-down vinyl, and it lets appliances slide out for service. Floating floors are the exception: they're often stopped at the cabinet base so the floor can expand and contract. Ask your installer which approach your specific product requires.
After the cabinets are installed, leveled, and screwed down — never before. The template records the cabinets exactly as built, including any shimming, and the stone or quartz is cut to that. Measuring earlier produces counters that don't fit the room you actually have.
Minor swaps are harmless: paint timing can flex, appliance delivery day can move. But inspection before drywall and cabinets before countertops aren't preferences — they're fixed by the building code and by how a tape measure works. Those two stay put.
Usually yes, if plumbing or electrical lines move or new circuits are added. A purely cosmetic swap — like-for-like cabinet refacing or a counter replacement on the same cabinets — often doesn't require one. Painting those cabinets instead of refacing them is the other common cosmetic route, and our guide to painting kitchen cabinets covers the prep that decides whether the finish lasts. Rules vary by city and county, so check with your local building department before demo, not after.