Most kitchen renovation timelines given to homeowners describe the construction and leave out the waiting. That is why an eight-week project becomes fourteen weeks and everyone is surprised.
Here is the honest version, including the gaps.
Weeks 1 to 3: design, measure, and decisions
Nothing is demolished. This is layout, appliance selection, material selection, and a site measure.
Appliance selection has to happen now, not later, because cabinet openings are built around specific models. Choosing a fridge in week nine is one of the most expensive mistakes available in a kitchen project.
By the end of this phase you should be looking at dimensioned drawings, not renderings. Read them. Changes are free at this stage and expensive at every stage after.
Weeks 3 to 8: the invisible phase
Cabinets are being manufactured. Nothing is happening in your house, and this is the part homeowners find hardest, because it feels like nothing is happening at all.
Typical lead times for custom or semi-custom cabinetry run four to eight weeks depending on the shop’s queue and the finish specified. Painted finishes take longer than stained ones because of cure time between coats.
Permits, if the project moves plumbing or electrical, are also processed in this window. In most Ontario municipalities a straightforward kitchen permit is not slow, but scheduling the inspections later can be.
Order the countertop material now if it is being imported. Do not wait for templating to think about availability.
Week 8: demolition
Fast and dramatic. Two to four days for a typical kitchen.
This is also when the project’s real surprises appear: the wall that turns out to be structural, the plumbing stack in an unexpected place, knob-and-tube wiring behind the old uppers, subfloor damage under the dishwasher. Every experienced renovator holds a contingency for this week specifically.
Weeks 9 to 10: rough-in and inspection
Plumbing and electrical get moved to suit the new layout. New circuits, relocated drains, venting for the range hood.
Then work stops until the inspection passes. This is a scheduling dependency outside your contractor’s control and it is one of the two places timelines commonly slip.
Week 10: drywall, primer, paint
Patching, taping, sanding, priming. The ceiling and the walls above the cabinet line get painted now, because painting around installed cabinetry is slow and produces worse edges.
Week 11: flooring
If the flooring runs under the cabinets, it goes in before them. If the cabinets sit on the subfloor and the flooring butts to them, it comes after. Both approaches are legitimate. What matters is that the decision was made in week two, because it changes the sequence and the cabinet toe kick height.
Week 11 to 12: cabinet installation
Two to five days for most kitchens. Boxes are set, levelled, shimmed, and fastened. Fillers are scribed to the walls. Doors and hardware go on and then get adjusted for even reveal.
The quality of the site measure from week three becomes visible here. Shops that measured properly produce a run that closes cleanly against an out-of-square wall. Shops that worked from a sketch produce gaps.
If you are still selecting a supplier, this is the stage worth asking about specifically. Cabinet makers who handle their own measure and install, including shops such as Morsun Kitchen Cabinets, tend to have fewer handoff problems here than arrangements where the manufacturer and the installer are different companies with different schedules.
Weeks 12 to 15: the countertop gap
Here is the waiting period that almost never appears in a quote.
Stone countertops are templated on top of the installed cabinets, not from drawings. After templating, fabrication takes typically two to three weeks. During that time you have cabinets, no counters, no sink, and no working kitchen.
Laminate and some engineered options are faster. Natural stone with a complicated layout can be longer. Ask for this number explicitly before you sign anything, because it determines how long your household eats out of a microwave in the dining room.
Week 15: hookup, backsplash, appliances
Counters go in, sink and faucet are plumbed, the dishwasher and range are connected, backsplash tile goes up and gets grouted. Final electrical trim.
The kitchen becomes usable at roughly the midpoint of this week.
Week 16: punch list
Cabinet doors that need a final adjustment after settling, caulk lines, touch-up paint, a drawer that binds, a missing filler piece.
Do this properly. Walk the kitchen with a list and hold the final payment until the list is closed. Items left at this stage rarely get fixed later.
Realistic total
Twelve to sixteen weeks for a full kitchen, of which five to seven involve no visible activity in your home.
The two things that most reliably blow this schedule are change orders after cutting has started, and underestimating the countertop gap. Neither is a contractor problem. Both are decided in the first three weeks, before anyone picks up a hammer. See more.