What Order a Toronto Kitchen Remodel Goes In
The order is not a preference. Several steps physically cannot happen until the one before them is finished, and that is where most delays actually come from.
Why the order is not a matter of taste
Some steps in a kitchen depend on the physical existence of the step before them. Those cannot be reordered at any price, and pretending otherwise is where schedules break.
Stone is the clearest example. A countertop is templated off the cabinets it will sit on — the actual cabinets, installed and levelled, in the actual room, with its walls that are not straight and its corners that are not square. That template cannot be taken from a drawing, from the old worktop, or from the cabinets while they are still in a van.
So the sequence has a hard spine: cabinets in and level, then template, then roughly ten days while the stone is cut, then fit.
Everything else arranges itself around that spine.
The sequence for a cabinet-led project
This is the shape of most of what we do — the boxes stay, the fronts change, and the stone may or may not be part of it.
Decide, then price. Photographs first, written price back inside 24 to 48 hours. Then the design visit, with samples in your own light and the number already settled.
Measure. A separate visit with a tape, after you have committed, recording every opening individually. Nothing is cut until this exists.
Four weeks where nothing happens at your house. Doors are built and sprayed at the shop. Your kitchen works exactly as it does now with open shelving where the fronts were.
Installation week. Old fronts off, frames prepared and sprayed in place behind containment, new fronts hung and adjusted. If stone is in scope, the old worktop comes off at the start of this week and the template is taken the same day.
Stone lands. About ten days after templating, which is why it is scheduled to arrive while we are still on site rather than after everyone has gone.
Backsplash, then reconnection. Tiling behind the new stone, then sink, tap and dishwasher back on.
The two orderings that cause most trouble
Booking the stone separately. The cabinet crew finishes and leaves. You call a stone shop, who cannot template until they visit, then cut, then return. Your sink is out twice and your kitchen is unusable twice. Worse, if the finished height or the overhang is wrong, two companies each explain politely that it is the other's doing — and neither is lying, because nobody owned the junction.
Ordering appliances late. A built-in appliance sets the opening it goes into. Ordering it after the cabinetry is measured means either altering the cabinetry or accepting a gap, and appliance lead times are the one thing nobody controls. Choose appliances early even if they arrive late.
Both of these are ordering problems rather than trade problems, and both are avoidable by a phone call weeks earlier than feels necessary.
Where other trades fit
We hold two trades — cabinetmaking and spray finishing — and contract stone. Walls, floors, plumbing and electrical are somebody else's, and they have their own place in the order.
Anything that moves a service goes before the cabinets. Relocating a sink, adding a circuit, moving a gas line — all of that is opened up, done and closed before cabinetry is installed against it. Doing it afterwards means undoing work.
Wall painting goes after the cabinet installation, near the end. Walls get knocked during any installation, and painting them first means touching them up later anyway.
Flooring is the genuine judgement call and it depends on the material and whether appliances need to slide in and out. Ask the person laying it, early, and let their answer set the order rather than assuming.
What actually causes delay
Not trades. Decisions.
In our experience the projects that run long are the ones where a colour was not chosen, a handle was not picked, or an appliance was not ordered — and every step downstream of that decision waited for it without anybody registering that the wait had started.
The counter to this is doing the choosing early and doing it properly, which is why the design visit happens with the price already fixed and nothing riding on the day. Nobody is being closed, so nobody is rushed, and samples get left behind on anything uncertain.
A decision made carefully in week one costs nothing. The same decision made under pressure in week four costs a fortnight.
Choosing what goes in before anything is ordered
Sequence only helps once the decisions are made, and the ones that hold a project up are always the same few — door profile, colour, hardware and whichever layout changes are possible without moving services. Reading the decisions that have to be settled before a measure covers what gets settled at the design visit and why it happens with the written price already agreed, which is what stops the choosing from being rushed.
Where the money goes, in the same order
The sequence and the budget follow the same shape, because the steps that come first are the ones that cost most and constrain everything after them. Knowing which line dominates changes how people stage a project — and it is rarely the line people expect. Reading which line on a kitchen quote is the largest and why sets the proportions out before you commit to an order of work.
Questions
Common questions about sequencing
- Why can the countertop not be measured earlier?
- Because stone is templated off the cabinets it will sit on, and those have to be installed and level first. Templating from a drawing or from the old worktop produces a top that does not fit the room, and stone cannot be adjusted on site the way timber can.
- How long is the gap with no worktop?
- About ten days between template and installation, and the sink is out for it. That is the genuinely awkward stretch, which is exactly why we schedule it inside the cabinet installation week rather than beside it.
- Should flooring go in before or after the cabinets?
- Ask whoever is laying it, and ask early. There are good arguments both ways and the right answer depends on the flooring type and whether appliances need to slide. What causes trouble is nobody asking until the cabinets are on site.
- Can painting happen at the end?
- Wall painting, yes, and it usually should — walls get marked during installation. Cabinet spraying is different — it is part of the cabinet work and happens on our schedule, with two or three days where we ask you out of the house.
- What holds projects up most often?
- Decisions, not trades. A colour not chosen, a handle not picked, an appliance not ordered. Everything downstream of a decision waits for it, and the wait is invisible until it is a fortnight long.