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What we do

Kitchens that change the plan, not the finishes

  1. All services
  2. /Kitchen Remodeling

Most kitchens people are unhappy with are not badly finished. They are badly shaped — closed off from the rest of the house, or laid out around a wall nobody has questioned in forty years.

The wall that turned out to be carrying, opened up

01

What's included

  • Design, drawings and a full selections schedule.

  • Structural work, including beams and the posts that carry them.

  • Electrical, plumbing and mechanical alterations, permitted and inspected.

  • Cabinetry, worktops, tiling, flooring and decoration.

  • Appliance installation and commissioning.

  • Protection of the rest of the house, and a temporary kitchen where the scope allows.

Fig. 01 — Cabinetry set out against the finished structural opening
Fig. 02 — Services rerouted and inspected before anything closes
Fig. 03 — Worktop, splashback and the junction between them
02

What the work involves

Fig. 04 — The beam and the posts that carry it, before boxing

The wall between a Houston kitchen and the room behind it is load-bearing more often than not. Removing it means a beam, and a beam means posts, and posts mean something underneath them — which on a slab can mean a new pad footing.

This is the single largest fork in a kitchen budget. We price the flush-beam version and the dropped-bulkhead version side by side, because one costs roughly twice the other and only you can decide whether a continuous ceiling is worth it.

Fig. 05 — Rough-in at the sink wall — supply, waste and circuits

Kitchens concentrate more services than any other room. New circuits, often a new panel, gas relocation, waste and supply reroutes, and mechanical ventilation that actually vents outside rather than into a soffit.

In houses built before about 1970 we assume the electrical needs replacing rather than extending, and we say so in discovery rather than finding it at rough-in.

Fig. 06 — Door fronts, handles and the reveal at the run's end

Cabinetry is the long-lead item and the one that sets the schedule. Ordering it late is the most common reason a kitchen runs over, so selections close in preconstruction, not during the build.

03

What drives the cost

How long it takes

Six to fourteen weeks on site

Plus eight to sixteen weeks of design and preconstruction before anyone arrives. Cabinetry lead time is the usual constraint, and it is ordered before the start date rather than after it.

A kitchen we take on generally lands between $85,000 and $250,000 all in. Below that the scope is usually a refit rather than a renovation, and there are firms better suited to it than us.

Structural change
$12,000 – $60,000

A dropped bulkhead at the low end; a flush beam with new posts and a pad footing at the high end.

Cabinetry
$25,000 – $120,000

Semi-custom at the low end, full custom in solid timber with specialist hardware at the high end.

Electrical and plumbing
$15,000 – $45,000

Higher wherever the existing service has to be replaced rather than extended.

Worktops and tiling
$8,000 – $40,000

Driven by material and by how many cuts and edges the layout demands.

Appliances
$8,000 – $60,000

Client-supplied or specified by us; either way it is a line in the budget, not an allowance to be discovered later.

04

How it runs

  1. 01

    Discovery

    We open what we can and find out whether the wall is carrying.

  2. 02

    Design

    Layout, structure and every selection, priced as it develops.

  3. 03

    Preconstruction

    Estimate, permit, cabinetry ordered, schedule fixed.

  4. 04

    Construction

    Six to fourteen weeks on site, with a temporary kitchen.

  5. 05

    Handover

    Punch list closed before final payment, then warranty.

05

Living through it

Almost everyone stays. We set up a temporary kitchen — usually in a dining room — with the refrigerator, a microwave, a kettle and a sink if there is one within reach. It goes in on day one, not week three.

The work area is sealed and run under negative pressure, and the route from the front door to the rest of the house stays clear and covered.

There will be two or three days with the water off and a week with no gas. Those are marked on the schedule in preconstruction so you can plan around them.

Fig. 07 — Temporary kitchen in the dining room, in on day one
Fig. 08 — Dust wall and the covered route to the rest of the house
Fig. 09 — The week the gas is off, marked on the schedule

Work like this

↔
West University
Kitchen opened to the back of the house
↔
Houston Heights
1924 bungalow, taken back to the studs

The things people worry about

  1. 01How change orders work
  2. 02What happens when something is wrong behind a wall
  3. 03Can we stay in the house?
  4. 04The full process

Common questions

Usually you do not, and neither does anyone who has not opened it up. Direction of the joists above is a clue, not an answer — plenty of walls run parallel to the joists and still carry a point load from something above. This is what discovery is for. We open a small section, look, and tell you before you have committed to a design that depends on the answer.

Yes, and many clients do. We need the specifications early — cutout sizes, service requirements and clearances drive the cabinetry drawings. What we ask is that they are on site before installation week. An appliance in transit is the cheapest possible way to lose two weeks of schedule.

Not usually, and we would rather say so than take it and do it half-heartedly. A cabinet replacement in the existing layout is a good job for a specialist kitchen fitter and a poor use of a general contractor's overhead. If the layout is staying and the structure is not moving, you will get a better price and the same result elsewhere.

Tell us about the kitchen

A walkthrough, an honest range, and a straight answer about whether that wall is carrying anything.

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