How Long Does a Kitchen Renovation Take?
A realistic week-by-week kitchen renovation timeline for Red Deer homes, what sets the schedule, and the three things that actually cause delays.
By David Hutten, Owner, Green Ladder Contractors
The honest answer is five to eight weeks on site for a typical full kitchen in a Red Deer home. But that number is close to useless on its own, because the part that determines whether your kitchen takes six weeks or four months happens before anyone shows up with a wrecking bar.
Here is how the time actually breaks down, and where it goes wrong.
The Short Version
A cosmetic refresh, where the layout does not move and you are replacing doors, counters, backsplash and paint, runs two to three weeks on site.
A full mid-range renovation with new cabinets and counters runs five to eight weeks on site.
A custom kitchen, or any kitchen where a wall comes out, runs eight to fourteen weeks. The build is not much longer. The lead times and the engineering are.
Add four to ten weeks of planning and ordering before any of that starts. That is not padding - it is the part that keeps the middle from stalling.
Week by Week on a Typical Full Kitchen
Week 1: demo and rough-in. Cabinets, counters, flooring and backsplash come out, and the room goes back to studs where it needs to. Demo itself is a day or two. Then the plumber re-runs supply and drain lines if the sink is moving, and the electrician pulls new circuits. In a 1970s or 1980s Red Deer kitchen this is usually where we find aluminum wiring, a single 15 amp circuit feeding half the room, or no dedicated line for the dishwasher (we have opened walls and found all three at once).
Week 2: inspection, insulation, boarding. Rough-in gets inspected before anything closes up. If the kitchen sits on an exterior wall, this is the one moment when fixing the insulation and vapour barrier is easy, so we do it here. Then drywall goes up, gets taped, mudded and sanded.
Week 3: paint and flooring. First coats go on bare walls, which is far cleaner than cutting in around finished cabinetry. Flooring often lands here depending on the material.
Week 4: cabinets. Boxes get set, levelled and screwed to the studs.
Weeks 5 and 6: the counter gap. This is the part nobody expects, and the one we get the most calls about. The countertop crew cannot template off drawings. They template off your actual installed cabinets, then fabricate. That is one to two weeks of waiting with a kitchen that looks finished and does not work. Quartz, granite and laminate all follow the same order.
Weeks 6 to 8: everything else. Counters land, then sink and faucet hookup, appliances, backsplash tile, light fixtures, plugs and switches. Finish carpentry closes it out: toe kicks, crown, filler panels, hardware. Then touch-up paint, a clean and a walkthrough.
What Actually Causes Delays
Cabinet lead times. Stock cabinets can be a week or two. Semi-custom is commonly four to eight weeks. Full custom can run twelve or more. We do not tear out a working kitchen until the replacement is on its way, so a long cabinet lead time moves the start date instead of stretching the middle.
Decisions made late. Every finish you have not chosen is a day the schedule cannot be locked. Sink type changes the cabinet. Appliance dimensions change the cabinet openings. A cooktop instead of a range changes the electrical. These are not late-stage details, they are early-stage inputs, and the single most common reason a kitchen drifts is that three of them were still open when demo started.
Opening up a wall. If a wall is coming out, someone has to determine whether it is load bearing, and if it is, you need engineering, a beam and a permit before framing changes. That is worth doing properly, and it adds weeks.
Can You Stay in the House?
Yes, and most Central Alberta families do. Plan to lose the kitchen for the entire run, not part of it. A fridge, kettle, microwave and coffee maker set up in the dining room or basement covers more than you would think. Expect a few days with no working sink during the plumbing tie-in and again at counter install. Dust is real during demo and drywall sanding. We seal the space and hang plastic, and some still travels.
Why the Longer Timelines Cost More
The schedule and the budget move together, and for the same reasons. What stretches a kitchen past eight weeks is almost always one of three things: custom cabinetry with a long lead time, a layout change that moves the plumbing, or a wall that turns out to be structural. Each of those adds weeks, and each of them adds cost at the same time.
That is worth knowing before you plan. A kitchen that keeps its layout and uses stock or semi-custom cabinets is both the fastest and the least expensive version of the project. Every step away from that adds to both columns at once.
We do not publish a price range for kitchens, and the reason is the spread. A stock-cabinet refresh in an unchanged layout and a custom kitchen with a structural opening are not variations on one project, they are different projects that happen to be in the same room. Any range wide enough to be honest is too wide to be useful, and any range narrow enough to be useful is going to be wrong for most people who read it.
What we will do is walk your actual kitchen, tell you which of those three cost drivers apply to it, and price that.
If you are weighing a kitchen this year and want a real schedule built against your actual room, we are happy to come and walk it with you.
Kitchen Renovations
Full kitchen renovations in Red Deer and Central Alberta, managed from demolition to the final fixture.
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David Hutten
Owner, Green Ladder Contractors
David Hutten started building at age 10 and has 25 years of hands-on construction experience. Green Ladder Contractors builds custom outdoor living spaces, decks, fences, pergolas, and landscaping, across Red Deer and Central Alberta.
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