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Cabinetry made in our own shop
Kitchen Remodeling
Layout changes, structural work, rough and finish plumbing, cabinetry, countertops and finishes. Three of our four licence classifications are in the room, and the cabinets are drawn and cut by us rather than ordered from a catalogue.
What does a kitchen remodel involve?
A kitchen remodel is the most trade-dense job in a house: demolition, framing, plumbing, electrical, ventilation and finishes all in one room, in a sequence that cannot be reordered. Cabinets, their hardware, their installation and the countertops are usually the largest block in the budget. Ecostep makes its own cabinetry and holds the plumbing classification in house.
This page covers what a kitchen remodel actually contains trade by trade, what each layout change triggers and roughly what it costs relative to the others, and how cabinetry made in a shop differs from cabinetry ordered in. It does not price your kitchen or give you a schedule, because both come out of a site visit and a drawing.
What is in a kitchen remodel
Six trades, in this order, in one room.
A kitchen is the most trade-dense room in a house. Almost every classification on a residential licence touches it, which is why the sequence matters more here than anywhere else.
| Trade | Line items | Sequence note |
|---|---|---|
| Demolition and site set up | Hazardous material assessment, demolition, progress cleaning, final cleaning, temporary protection of the rest of the house | The assessment comes before the demolition, not after. Bay Area housing stock frequently predates the bans on asbestos and lead. |
| Framing and carpentry | Rough carpentry where walls move, interior trim, wood base and shoe mouldings, casings, fasteners | Any layout change happens here, and it has to happen before the plumbing and electrical rough-in. |
| Plumbing | Rough and finish plumbing, sinks, faucets, supplies and trim, plumbing equipment, water heaters where affected | Rough plumbing has to pass inspection before insulation. Moving a sink is a rough-in decision, not a finish decision. |
| Electrical | All electrical hardware and installation, lighting details, oven and stovetop, refrigerator, smoke detection | Circuits and panel capacity are settled at rough-in. An induction range or a second oven is an electrical decision made months before the appliance arrives. |
| HVAC | Ducting, ventilation hoods, vents | The hood run and where it terminates is usually the most awkward detail in the room and is best resolved in design. |
| Finishes | Drywall, flooring, interior painting, kitchen cabinets, cabinet and drawer hardware, cabinet installation, countertops, tile installation with wall, trim, base and floor materials, grout and sealer | Countertops are templated after cabinets are set, which is a fixed lead time you cannot compress. |
Where the money sits is worth noting. Cabinets, cabinet hardware, cabinet installation and countertops are four separate lines, and together they are usually the largest single block in a kitchen budget. The cabinetry decision carries more weight than any fixture choice.
Layout
What it costs to move things, and what it costs to leave them.
The cheapest kitchen remodel keeps the plumbing wall, the appliance locations and the walls where they are. Every departure from that has a price, and it is worth knowing which departures are expensive and which are not.
| Change | What it triggers | Relative cost |
|---|---|---|
| New cabinets and countertops, same layout | Finishes only. No rough-in changes, often no permit-triggering work. | Lowest. This is a finishes job. |
| Moving the sink or dishwasher | Rough plumbing relocation, which means opening floors or walls and re-inspecting. | Moderate, and larger on a slab than on a raised floor. |
| Changing the range type or adding a second oven | Electrical circuits and panel capacity, plus the hood run and its termination. | Moderate. Cheap if decided in design, expensive if decided after rough-in. |
| Removing a wall | Structural assessment, and a beam or header if it is load bearing. Often a structural engineer. | Significant, and it has to be settled before anything else is priced. |
| Relocating the hood to an interior wall | A longer duct run, soffit or ceiling framing to hide it, and a new roof or wall termination. | Frequently underestimated. Resolve it on the drawings. |
The cabinetry
Made to the room, not ordered to the nearest size.
Ecostep holds the C-6 cabinet, millwork and finish carpentry classification and runs its own wood shop with a five by twelve foot CNC router. Kitchen cabinets, built-ins and trim are drawn, cut and finished by us rather than ordered from a catalogue and adjusted on site.
The practical difference shows up in the gaps. Catalogue cabinetry comes in fixed increments, so a run that does not divide evenly into those increments gets made up with filler strips. A made run fits the wall it is on. In a kitchen where the walls are a hundred years old and not parallel, that is not a detail.
The shop also makes custom furniture, custom trim, built-ins and high-end cabinets, and it works at the point where modern production methods meet traditional craftsmanship rather than choosing one.
The public record
Where our permitted kitchen work is.
Residential building permits are public record, each carrying a licence number, a scope and a valuation. Ecostep's permitted kitchen and bathroom work appears in San Francisco, Belmont and San Leandro, with whole-house remodels in Berkeley and Fremont and accessory dwelling units in Alameda, Berkeley and Concord. Recorded values across our residential permits run from $25,000 to $210,000.
Four classifications on one licence
CSLB #1006147 carries B general building, C-2 insulation and acoustical, C-6 cabinet and millwork, and C-36 plumbing. In a kitchen, three of those four are in the room. The rough plumbing, the cabinetry and the prime contract are ours, and other trades come in only where the work sits outside them.
Amer Abusafieh has held a California general contractor licence since 2003 and has worked in the trades since January 1986. Ecostep, Inc. is a California corporation founded in 2015, working across Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Marin counties.
Start with the layout
Decide where the water and the power go before you choose a tap.
Almost every expensive kitchen surprise is a rough-in decision made after rough-in. A site visit and a drawing settle the plumbing wall, the panel capacity and the hood run while they are still cheap to change.
Questions
What homeowners ask.
What does a kitchen remodel include?
Six trades touch the room. Demolition and site protection, framing where walls or openings move, rough and finish plumbing, electrical including circuits and appliance provision, ventilation and the hood run, then finishes: drywall, flooring, painting, cabinets, cabinet hardware and installation, countertops, and tile with its trim, base, grout and sealer. The cabinets, their hardware, their installation and the countertops are four separate budget lines and together usually the largest block.
Do I need a permit to remodel a kitchen?
If you are only replacing cabinets and countertops in the same layout, often not. Once you move plumbing, alter electrical circuits, change the ventilation, or touch a wall, you are into permitted work. We prepare and submit the drawings and carry the application through to an issued permit with our licence number on it. If in doubt, assume a permit and have it confirmed, because unpermitted work surfaces later at sale.
How much does a kitchen remodel cost?
Recorded values across our residential building permits run from $25,000 to $210,000, which is public record rather than a quote. Within a kitchen the number is driven mostly by the cabinetry and countertops, and then by how much you move. Keeping the plumbing wall, the appliance locations and the walls where they are is by far the cheapest version. A written scope and price comes out of a site visit and a drawing.
How long will I be without a kitchen?
That depends on the scope and we will not invent a number for a project we have not seen. What is worth knowing is which parts of the schedule cannot be compressed: countertops are templated only after the cabinets are set, and that lead time is fixed no matter how many people are on site. Planning a temporary kitchen somewhere else in the house is normal.
Is it cheaper to keep the same layout?
Considerably, yes. New cabinets and countertops in the existing layout is a finishes job. Moving the sink or dishwasher means relocating rough plumbing, which means opening walls or floors and being re-inspected, and it costs more on a slab than on a raised floor. Removing a wall means a structural assessment and usually a beam. None of those are reasons not to do it, but they should be decided knowingly.
Do you make your own cabinets?
Yes. We hold the C-6 cabinet, millwork and finish carpentry classification and run our own wood shop with a five by twelve foot CNC router. Cabinets are drawn, cut and finished by us. The practical difference is that a made run fits the wall it is on, where catalogue cabinetry comes in fixed increments and the leftover gets filled with filler strips. In an older Bay Area house where the walls are not parallel, that matters.
Can you remove a wall to open the kitchen up?
Often, but it is the first thing to settle rather than the last. If the wall is load bearing it needs a structural assessment and a beam or header sized for the span, and frequently a structural engineer. That determination changes the ceiling detail, the flooring transition and sometimes the foundation, so it belongs in feasibility rather than in the middle of demolition.
What happens if you find asbestos or lead?
A kitchen budget carries a hazardous material assessment line before demolition, precisely because so much Bay Area housing predates the bans on both. Finding it is not unusual and not a disaster. Discovering it after demolition has started, with no line in the budget for it, is the situation worth avoiding.
Who chooses the appliances, and when?
You choose them, and earlier than feels necessary. Appliance decisions are electrical and ventilation decisions: an induction range, a second oven or a larger hood all change circuits, panel load and the duct run. Those are settled at rough-in, which is months before anything gets delivered. Changing the range type after rough-in is the classic avoidable change order.
Do you handle the plumbing yourselves?
Yes. C-36 plumbing is on our licence, so the rough and finish plumbing is done by the company holding the contract rather than by a subcontractor whose calendar you are waiting on. That matters in a kitchen because rough plumbing has to pass inspection before insulation, and insulation before drywall.
Can you match existing trim and flooring in the rest of the house?
Usually, and this is where having a wood shop helps. Custom trim is one of the things the shop makes, so a profile that is no longer sold can be cut to match rather than approximated with the closest stock option. Flooring matching depends on the species, the finish and how much the existing floor has aged.
Which areas do you work in?
Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Marin counties. Our permitted kitchen and bathroom work on public record sits in San Francisco, Belmont and San Leandro.
Related
Start here
Tell us the address and what you are thinking about.
We will walk the property, tell you what is feasible there, and set out the scope and the price in writing before you commit to anything.
- Phone925-628-4860
- Emailinfo@ecostepinc.com
- Service areaContra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Marin counties