The honest answer has two halves, and most people only ever get told about one. There is the time crews are in your house, and there is the time before that, when things are being decided, drawn, ordered and built. The second half is longer than the first and it is where almost every schedule fails.
Here is what each week actually contains, so you can tell a real schedule from an optimistic one.
The Short Version
For a mid-range Houston kitchen that keeps its existing layout, plan on four to six weeks of on-site work and four to eight weeks of lead time before that starts. For a full gut with layout changes, plumbing moves and wall removal, plan on eight to twelve weeks on site.
The single most reliable predictor of whether a kitchen finishes on time is whether the cabinets were ordered before demo, not after.
Before Anyone Swings a Hammer
Design and selections, one to four weeks. Layout, cabinet configuration, countertop material, tile, hardware, sink, faucet, appliance model numbers. Appliances matter more than people expect because cabinet openings are built to specific models. A refrigerator changed in week six is a cabinet rebuilt.
This phase runs on your decisions. A couple who can sit down twice and finish selections compresses it to a week. A couple still debating the layout in week three has set their own schedule.
Ordering and lead times, three to eight weeks. Stock cabinets can arrive in a week or two. Semi-custom typically runs four to eight weeks. Custom can run longer. Tile and plumbing fixtures are usually quick unless something is backordered, which happens.
Countertops are the exception, and the reason is worth understanding. Stone cannot be ordered until the cabinets are physically installed and the fabricator can template the actual boxes. That means countertops are always a mid-project item, never a pre-order, and there is a real gap between cabinet install and counter install no matter who is running the job.
Week One: Demolition and Rough-In
Protection goes up first. Floor covering, plastic containment at the openings, and a plan for where the debris goes. Then the old kitchen comes out. Complete kitchen demolition in Houston runs roughly $500 to $2,500 and takes one to three days.
This is when the house tells you what it has been hiding. Plumbing that is not where the drawings assumed. Wiring done by someone’s brother in law in 1994. A wall that is carrying more than it looks like it is carrying.
Rough plumbing and electrical follow immediately. If a sink is moving, this is when you find out whether the drain can move without cutting the slab, at roughly $500 to $1,000, or whether the slab has to be cut and patched, at $1,800 to $5,000. If a wall is coming out, a load bearing removal on a one story slab home runs $3,000 to $5,250 for a normal span, and a structural engineer letter runs $300 to $1,200.
Week Two: Walls, Ceilings and Prep
Drywall repair, patching where the old cabinets were, any ceiling work. Drywall hung through texture runs about $1.75 to $3.60 per square foot of board, which is wall and ceiling surface, not floor area.
Primer and first coats of paint go on now, before cabinets, because painting around installed cabinetry is slower and worse. If flooring is being replaced and runs under the cabinets, it goes in during this stretch too.
This week looks slow from the outside. It is not. It is the week that determines whether the cabinets sit straight.
Weeks Three and Four: Cabinet Installation
Boxes are set, leveled, shimmed and fastened. A typical kitchen takes two to five days of installation depending on size and whether there is an island.
Levelling is the part that takes the time, and in Houston it takes more of it, because slabs on expansive clay move and floors are rarely flat. A cabinet run that is out by a quarter inch across twelve feet will show in every countertop seam and every door reveal. This is not a place to rush.
When the boxes are in and level, the countertop fabricator comes to template. From template to installation is commonly one to two weeks.
Week Five: The Gap
This is the week that surprises people. Cabinets are in, counters are not, and the kitchen looks finished and is useless. There is no sink and no work surface.
Good crews fill this week with everything that does not depend on the counters: interior trim, baseboard at $5 to $13 a linear foot, cabinet hardware, under-cabinet lighting, touch-up paint, appliance prep. It should not be an empty week, but it will feel like one. Knowing it is coming makes it much easier to live through.
Week Six: Countertops, Backsplash and Plumbing
Counters go in. Sink and faucet are set the same day or the next, depending on the adhesive cure the fabricator wants.
Backsplash follows the counters because it sits on them. Tile, grout, then a cure day. If the backsplash pattern is a herringbone, expect the labor to run 50% to 75% above a straight set, and expect it to take longer.
Final electrical trim happens here: switches, outlets, fixtures. The kitchen becomes usable at the end of this week even though it is not finished.
Week Seven and Beyond: Punch List
Adjusting doors and drawers so the reveals are even. Caulking. Touch-up. The two hinges that need another turn. The one drawer that catches.
Budget a week for this and be honest that a punch list can stretch if the contractor’s attention has already moved to the next job. This is the phase where projects go quiet, which is a known enough pattern to have its own guide.
What Adds Weeks
| Cause | Typical impact |
|---|---|
| Selections not finished before ordering | 1 to 4 weeks, and it compounds |
| Custom or long lead cabinets | 4 to 8 weeks, sometimes more |
| Moving a drain that requires cutting the slab | 3 to 7 days plus cure time |
| Wall removal needing an engineer letter | 1 to 3 weeks before demo can proceed |
| Appliance changed after cabinets are ordered | 2 to 6 weeks and a rebuild cost |
| Backordered tile or fixture | Whatever the supplier says, plus a week |
| Permits, inside city limits | Varies by jurisdiction |
| Change orders mid-project | Depends entirely on when they land |
Reading a Schedule Honestly
A schedule with only phase names and no dates is not a schedule. A schedule that shows countertops being installed the same week as cabinets was not written by someone who has templated stone. And a schedule with no gap between cabinet install and counter install is a schedule that will slip in week five.
Ask when cabinets are ordered relative to demo. If the answer is after, the timeline is fiction.
How Haven handles this
At contract, you get a written day-by-day schedule. Not a phase list, actual dates: which day demo starts, which day the plumber is here, which day the cabinets arrive, which day template happens, which day the counters go in, which day we expect to be done.
That schedule includes the quiet week between cabinets and countertops, labeled as what it is, because a gap you were told about is a plan and a gap you were not told about is a broken promise. When something moves, and on some jobs something does, you get an updated version rather than a shrug.
If you want to see what those dates would look like on your own kitchen, we will walk it, scope it, and put the schedule in writing alongside the price.
Want the number for your house?
We walk the room with you, measure it, and put a real figure in writing before we leave. It is free and there is nothing to sign.
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