How long does a new kitchen take? A Surrey builder's guide

A new kitchen is among the most disruptive things most households will undertake short of moving, and it is the project where the gap between expectation and reality causes the most frustration. The reason is straightforward: the part everyone pictures, the fitting, is the shortest phase of the work. The weeks that decide whether a kitchen runs smoothly happen well before anyone lifts a cabinet.

What follows is how a kitchen programme actually runs, in our experience of designing and building them across Surrey and south west London.

How long does a new kitchen take to fit?

The fitting itself usually takes two to four weeks on site. The full programme, from first design meeting to handover, more commonly runs eight to sixteen weeks, because cabinetry lead times and any structural work sit ahead of installation. Kitchens involving wall removals or a new extension take longer.

Where the time actually goes

It helps to think of a kitchen as four phases rather than one. Only the third involves fitters in your house.

Design and measuring

Allow two to four weeks. We visit, measure the space properly, and talk through how the household genuinely uses the room rather than how a showroom layout assumes it does. Detailed design and 3D visuals follow, so the layout can be refined on screen while changes are still free. Rushing this phase is the single most reliable way to add time later.

Ordering and lead times

Allow four to ten weeks, and treat this as the number that governs your start date. Bespoke cabinetry is made to order, and stone worktops cannot be templated until the units are physically installed and level. Appliances, particularly integrated ones, occasionally run to their own schedule. We order nothing until the design is signed off, because a change after ordering is expensive in both money and weeks.

Building work

Allow one to six weeks, depending entirely on ambition. A like for like replacement in the same footprint needs very little. Removing an internal wall to open the kitchen into a dining or living space requires structural calculations, a steel beam and building control involvement, which is a different order of work. Where a kitchen forms part of a larger extension, the kitchen programme sits inside the build programme rather than alongside it.

Fitting and finishing

Allow two to four weeks. Cabinetry goes in, services are connected, worktops are templated and then returned and fitted, and tiling, flooring and decoration complete the room. The worktop template is worth understanding: for stone, there is typically a gap of one to two weeks between templating and fitting, during which the kitchen is usable but not finished.

A realistic sequence

For a typical project without structural work, the shape of the programme looks like this:

• Weeks one to three: design consultation, measuring, 3D design and refinement
• Week four: detailed itemised proposal agreed and cabinetry ordered
• Weeks four to twelve: manufacture and delivery lead time
• Weeks twelve to fourteen: strip out, first fix plumbing and electrics, cabinetry installed
• Week fourteen: worktops templated
• Weeks fifteen to sixteen: worktops fitted, tiling, flooring, decoration, second fix and snagging

The long middle stretch is manufacturing, not idleness, and it is the phase clients most often forget when they set a target date around a birthday or Christmas.

What tends to add weeks

A few things extend a kitchen programme more than anything else:

• Changing the layout or specification after cabinetry has been ordered
• Discovering that services need moving further than expected once units are stripped out
• Older properties where floors are significantly out of level and need correcting before units can be set
• Structural work that requires building control sign off at defined stages
• Stone worktop templating, which cannot be brought forward

None of these are unusual, and most are manageable when identified during design rather than mid build. This is why we spend longer on the measuring stage than a showroom typically does.

Does a new kitchen need planning permission?

Replacing a kitchen within its existing footprint does not normally require planning permission. Permission may be required where the work alters the external appearance of the property, adds an extension, or where the building is listed or sits in a conservation area. Building regulations apply to electrics, gas and structural alterations regardless.

We would always encourage checking your specific circumstances with the local authority rather than relying on a general rule, particularly in the conservation areas common across the boroughs we work in.

Can we still use the kitchen during the work?

Realistically, no, not during the fitting phase. We would plan for two to four weeks without a working kitchen and set up a temporary arrangement elsewhere in the house, typically a kettle, microwave and fridge in another room. Water and power to the rest of the property remain on throughout.

Being honest about this at the design stage matters more than minimising it. Households that have planned for four weeks and get three are pleased; households promised two weeks that take three are not.

What a kitchen of this scale typically costs

Most of the kitchen projects we take on fall between £25,000 and £55,000, covering design, cabinetry, worktops, appliances, the associated plumbing, electrics and finishing. That is a typical range rather than a figure for any particular home, because the specification and the amount of building work involved move it considerably. Where a kitchen forms part of a wider renovation, the figures are set out together so the whole programme can be judged as one.

Our kitchen design and installation work is billed weekly against completed and signed off stages, with no large deposit taken up front. It means the programme above is not just a schedule, it is also how the cost is paced.

Planning your kitchen around real life

If there is a date that genuinely matters to you, work backwards from it rather than forwards from today, and add a fortnight of contingency. A kitchen started in September for Christmas is comfortable. One started in late October is not, and no amount of goodwill compresses a manufacturing lead time.

If you are considering a new kitchen and would like to understand the realistic programme and cost for your own home, we would be glad to visit, measure up and prepare a free Cost Proposal.