Fitting the units in an average kitchen usually takes a few days, but a full kitchen refit normally runs to a week or two, and sometimes longer. The difference comes from everything around the units: stripping out, plumbing and electrics, worktops, tiling and decorating.
This guide walks through the stages in order, so you can see where the time goes and plan around it.
The short answer
There is no single figure, because no two kitchens are the same size or start from the same place. A like-for-like swap in a small room is a very different job from knocking two rooms together and moving the sink.
As a rough guide, the carpentry side of the fit (units, end panels, plinths, doors and trims) is often a matter of days. The rest of the programme depends on the other trades and on how long your worktops take to arrive.
If anyone gives you a firm number of days before they have seen the room, treat it as a guess. A proper estimate of time, like a proper price, comes after someone has measured up and looked at the walls, the floor and where the services run.
The stages of a kitchen fit
Most kitchen jobs follow roughly the same order:
- Strip out the old kitchen and make good the walls and floor.
- First fix plumbing and electrics, so pipes and cables are where the new layout needs them.
- Plastering or patching, if walls have been chased or damaged.
- Fit the base units and wall units, set level and fixed.
- Template and fit the worktops.
- Second fix: sink, taps, hob, oven and sockets connected.
- Tiling or splashbacks, then doors, drawers, end panels, plinths and trims finished off.
Why the worktops can add time
Laminate and timber worktops can usually be cut and fitted on site as part of the main fit.
Stone and quartz are different. The maker normally templates them against the base units once those are in place, then cuts them in their workshop. That means a gap between the units going in and the worktops arriving. Ask your supplier how long they take, because it varies from one to the next.
While you wait, the kitchen can often be part usable, but the sink and hob usually cannot be connected until the worktops are down.
What makes a kitchen fit take longer
A few things add time more than anything else:
- Moving the sink, hob or oven to a new wall, which means new pipework and cabling.
- Walls that are out of square or floors that are not level, which need more scribing and packing.
- Taking out a wall or changing a doorway.
- Waiting on deliveries, especially if a unit arrives damaged.
- Several trades needing to work in the same room at the same time.
How to keep the job on track
Order everything early and check it when it arrives, before the old kitchen comes out. A missing unit is much easier to chase while you still have a working kitchen.
Agree the order of work with every trade at the start. On a kitchen, the fitter, the plumber, the electrician and the worktop company all depend on each other.
Set up a temporary kitchen somewhere else in the house, with a kettle, a microwave and somewhere to wash up. It makes a week or two much easier to live with.
Finally, make decisions early. Changing a layout or a door style once the units are going in is the quickest way to add days to the job.
Why the fitting matters as much as the kitchen
A kitchen is only as good as the fitting. If the base units are not level, the worktop will not sit right and the doors will never line up. Scribing the end panels and plinths to the walls and floor is what makes a kitchen look fitted rather than put together.
That care takes a little longer than rushing it in, but you notice the difference every time you open a drawer.
Need a carpenter?
LGR Carpentry and Joinery fits kitchens across Surrey and Sussex from a base in Rudgwick. Flat-pack or ready-built, the units are set level, the panels and plinths are scribed in and the doors are aligned. Quotes are free.
Read more about kitchen & bathroom fitting and stud walls & first fix, or see the work Luke does in Horsham and Cranleigh. You can also ask for a free quote.