The short answer: from approved design to finished kitchen, plan on roughly 8 to 11 weeks. The number that matters more, though, is how long you are actually without a kitchen, and with proper coordination that can be as little as five or six days. Most of the total timeline is manufacturing, which happens in our factory while you go on living in your existing kitchen.
Here is the honest breakdown, including the parts of the schedule we control, the parts your trades control, and the part that quietly causes most delays: decisions.
Typical Phase Breakdown
| Phase | Duration |
|---|---|
| Initial consultation and design | 1-2 weeks |
| Manufacturing | 6-8 weeks |
| Demolition and trade preparation | 1-5 days |
| Cabinet installation | 3-4 days |
| Countertop templating and fabrication | 2-5 business days |
| Final installation and walkthrough | 1 day |
Where the Time Actually Goes
Manufacturing is the long pole, and there is no honest way to shortcut it. Every cabinet is cut, assembled, finished, and inspected in our Ontario factory, and finishing in particular runs on chemistry rather than enthusiasm: coats need to dry and cure before the next step, and rushing a cure is how you end up with a finish problem in year two instead of a schedule problem in week six.
The good news is that this phase costs you nothing in daily disruption. Your old kitchen keeps working until the new one is ready to install.
Manufacturing Cycles: Paint vs. Stain
Your finish choice moves the schedule. Paint takes longer than stain because it needs more drying and curing cycles between coats, and decorative techniques like glazing add another full cycle on top. Stained wood is the fastest path through the factory, which is a pleasant bonus given that stain has also become the most popular choice in our order book, and the most forgiving finish for Toronto's humidity swings.
The Real Timeline Killer: Coordination
The phase homeowners fear is demolition-to-done, and this is where Toronto renovations most often go sideways. It is rarely the cabinetry. It is the gap between trades: a plumber who cannot come for two weeks, an electrician booked solid, a countertop templated late. Each gap leaves you standing in an unusable kitchen waiting for a phone call.
Our answer is the coordinated five-day swap. Order placed six weeks ahead, site prepped on schedule, and the sequence runs: 3-4 days of cabinet installation, 2 days for countertop templating and install, and a final day for the plumber and electrician to hook everything back up. Old kitchen to finished kitchen in five or six days, because every trade was booked against a real date the day the order was placed, not called after the cabinets showed up.
What Blows Up a Timeline
After more than 1,000 projects, the delays we see are remarkably predictable:
Changing decisions after manufacturing starts. Swapping a door style or colour in week three of production restarts that portion of the build. The schedule impact is bigger than most people expect, which is why our process front-loads every selection before anything is cut.
Appliances arriving late or unspecified. Cabinetry is built around exact appliance dimensions. If the panel-ready fridge has not been chosen, the cabinets that surround it cannot be finalized; if it ships late, the install sequence stalls with one hole in an otherwise finished kitchen.
Trades booked too late. See above. This one is fully preventable and almost never prevented.
Surprises behind the walls. Older Toronto homes sometimes reveal knob-and-tube wiring or galvanized plumbing during demolition. No one can schedule around what nobody has seen, but an experienced crew spots the warning signs early and builds in contingency instead of discovering it on installation day.
How to Keep Your Renovation on Schedule
Three habits do most of the work. Choose your appliances before the design is finalized, so the cabinetry is engineered around real dimensions. Book your plumber and electrician for specific dates the day you place your cabinet order, not the week the cabinets arrive. And treat design sign-off as final: if budget pressure appears late, adjust finishes or hardware rather than layout, because layout changes are the expensive kind of change in both money and weeks.
For what those weeks buy you, our custom kitchen cost guide breaks down realistic 2026 pricing the same way this article breaks down time.
Ready to put a real date on your custom kitchen? Request a free consultation and we will map your project week by week, from first measurement to final walkthrough.
