13 STAGES · CONSULTATION TO HANDOVER
Our 13-step kitchen renovation process
A kitchen goes wrong in the planning, not in the building. These thirteen stages run in a fixed order because each one produces something the next stage cannot start without — a dimension set, a signed drawing, a locked selection, a templated benchtop.
4 QUESTIONS · PER STAGE
What each stage below actually tells you
Most renovation timelines are a list of verbs. This one answers the four things a homeowner needs before demolition day: what is happening in the room, what is waiting on a decision from you, what can no longer change afterwards, and where the program realistically slips.
The physical work happening that week, and who is in the house.Your decision
The choices only you can make, brought forward so they are never rushed.Locked before the next stage
The information the following stage is cut, ordered or booked against.Where delays start
The specific pinch points, named rather than absorbed into a vague estimate.
01 – 04 · PAPER STAGE
Planning, before anything is cut
Four stages happen entirely on paper. They are the cheapest place to change your mind and the only place a layout mistake costs nothing but time.
Planned and built in Oakleigh · Oakleigh South · Oakleigh East · Hughesdale · Huntingdale · Carnegie · Murrumbeena · Chadstone · Clayton
01
Consultation
We walk the room with you and talk about how the kitchen is actually used — who cooks, where the bins live, which cupboard never gets reached. You set the boundary of the job: a full rebuild, a refit inside the same footprint, or a surface-only refresh. That boundary is what the measure is booked against, and nothing else is locked yet.
02
Measure
Walls are checked for square and plumb, floors for level, and window reveals, ceiling heights and existing service positions are recorded on a setout sheet. There is nothing to decide here — it is fact-finding. What locks is the dimension set. A room that turns out thirty millimetres out of square changes cabinet sizes, not just drawings, so this happens before design rather than during install.
03
Design
04
Quote
The quote is itemised against the drawing, so carcass construction, fronts, hardware, benchtop, splashback and trade work each read as their own line and can be adjusted without redrawing the kitchen. You decide which lines stay as specified and which are simplified. Scope and drawing lock together at acceptance; changes made after this point move dates as well as figures.
05 – 09 · SITE STAGE
Ordering, strip-out and the build
05
Materials
06
Demolition
Old cabinetry, benchtop and splashback come out, waste leaves the site, and walls and floors are made good for what follows. Your part is timing and a temporary kitchen arrangement. What locks here is the room itself: once the walls, floor and service positions are exposed and squared up, the cabinetry setout is confirmed against the real room rather than the old kitchen, and nothing is cut until that is signed off. Strip-out is also where the house speaks — patched plumbing, no waterproofing behind an old sink, or a floor that has to be levelled before boxes can stand square.
07
Cabinetry
08
Plumbing and electrical
With the boxes standing and still open, waste and water are run for the sink and dishwasher, power lands where the appliances and island actually need it, and lighting and exhaust runs are set. Appliance specifications must already be final — a cooktop swapped now changes a benchtop cut-out and a circuit. Trade work is booked as its own stage and signed off before anything closes it in.
09
Benchtops
Benchtops are templated off the cabinetry that is standing, not off the drawing, because the finished room has the final say on length and squareness. Cut-outs, edge profiles and any waterfall ends are confirmed at templating. Then the job waits: fabrication takes its own window, and that gap is a planned part of the program rather than a hold-up.
Between stages 08 and 09 the kitchen looks finished from a distance and cannot be used at all. Planning a temporary bench, kettle and fridge position early makes this fortnight liveable.
10 – 13 · FINISH STAGE
Surfaces, fit-off and handover
10
Splashback
The splashback goes in once the benchtop is installed, measured off the real gap between bench and overheads or ceiling. Your decision at this point is the final call on format, grout colour or glass tint, made against the installed benchtop and doors rather than a showroom sample. Tile, glass and full-height stone each behave differently around a cooktop and at power points, so the detail is confirmed against what is built and the setout locks before the first sheet or row is fixed. Adhesive and silicone need their drying time; pushing that is how joints fail a year later.
11
Installation
12
Finishing
Every door and drawer is adjusted until gaps and shadow lines read as one continuous line across the run. Scribes, sealant, touch-ups and the final clean happen in this stage. You walk the run with us and mark anything that is not sitting right, and that list locks before handover is booked — nothing is signed off as finished while an adjustment is still open. It is the part most often compressed, and fillers, sealant and touch-ups need their curing time, so a finishing stage squeezed to free up a date is where a punch list reopens weeks later.
13
Handover
We walk the finished kitchen with you, show how the hinges and runners adjust, and explain how the chosen benchtop and front finishes should be cleaned and what to keep off them. Your decision is whether anything noted on that walkthrough needs revisiting before we close the job out; once it is cleared, the job is closed and the room is yours to use. The only thing that holds handover open is a defect item that depends on a replacement part or one more visit from a trade, which is why those are raised on the walkthrough rather than left on a list.
ORDER OF OPERATIONS
3 PINCH POINTS
Where programs actually slip
Almost every delay in a kitchen traces back to one of three places. Naming them early is how a start date holds.
BEFORE STAGE 06
Selections still open
Demolition should not begin while a handle, an oven model or a slab is undecided. Cabinetry is cut to appliance dimensions, and an imported item can sit longer in transit than the whole build takes on site.
DURING STAGE 06
What the strip-out finds
Older Oakleigh homes hide their history behind cabinetry: reworked waste lines, unlevel slabs, walls that never met at ninety degrees. Remedial work is identified at strip-out and dealt with before boxes go in.
STAGES 08–10
Trade and fabrication windows
Rough-in, templating, fabrication and splashback each depend on the stage before finishing cleanly. One slipped day can push a booked trade to the next available slot, which is why these stages are sequenced rather than overlapped.
PREPARATION READING
Read these before stage 01
Kitchen renovation checklist
Measuring notes, selection deadlines, approvals and a workable temporary kitchen — organised in the order these thirteen stages will ask for them.02
How long a kitchen renovation takes
Where the weeks go across design, ordering, strip-out, fabrication and fit-off, and which stages genuinely cannot be compressed.03
What drives kitchen renovation cost
Why two kitchens of the same size price differently: scope, carcass construction, benchtop material, hardware and the amount of trade work involved.
Choosing where to start
STAGE 04 · STARTS HERE
Start at stage one with a measured conversation
Tell us the room, the suburb and what is not working. The consultation and measure come before any drawing, and the quote that follows is itemised against that drawing so you can see exactly what each decision is worth.
SERVING