How to Plan a Remodel Around the Holidays in Phoenix

A Phoenix kitchen remodel can take roughly four to seven months from the first call to moving back in, depending on scope, approvals, selections, and scheduling. For a project first discussed in late fall, the holidays are usually better used for design than demolition. Permit review can add several weeks when permits are required. A substantial kitchen remodel first discussed in late fall is unlikely to finish by that Thanksgiving. What you can do is use November and December to make decisions, so permitting and ordering can begin in the new year, with construction potentially starting in spring. To host next year's holidays in a finished kitchen, make the first call by spring.

Because the holidays are when your house gets graded. Every year the same things show up. The counter nobody can stand at while someone else is cooking. The guest bathroom that is also the kids' bathroom. The dining table that seats six when twelve people walk through the door.

So you start picturing it. Everyone gathered around a new island this year. Then you look at the calendar.

That feeling is useful. It is just usually pointed at the wrong deadline. This post covers what can happen before the holidays, what cannot, and how to use the season so next year looks different.

For a substantial kitchen remodel first discussed in late fall, finishing before the same year's holidays is generally unrealistic. The reason is not crew speed. It is the order the work has to happen in, and most of the waiting happens before anyone touches your house.

• Design and planning, 3 to 6 weeks on average. Layout, structure, every finish and fixture, and anything that needs an engineer.
• The Firm Proposal, about 1 week. One fixed number built off a finished plan set.
• Permit review, 6 to 10 weeks in Phoenix. The city takes 4 to 6 weeks for the initial review, then comes back with corrections. Answering those and going through a second review fills the rest.
• Ordering, alongside permitting. Cabinets typically take 6 to 8 weeks, so they are ordered while the city reviews the plans.
• Construction. 8 to 12 weeks for a kitchen, 4 to 8 weeks for a bathroom.

Add those up from late October and the earliest a kitchen could realistically finish is spring.

Not every project needs a permit. Structural changes, plumbing or gas alterations, electrical work, and additions may require permits depending on the scope. Some cosmetic work does not, which is why it can move faster. Confirm requirements with the local building department before scheduling work. The City of Phoenix residential building page lists remodels and additions among the work that requires a construction permit.

If someone promises a new kitchen by Thanksgiving starting today, ask which of those steps they are skipping.

For every phase in detail, including the job where we ran long, see How Long Does a Remodel Take in Phoenix.

Quite a lot. It is just the part you cannot see from the street.

• The first conversation. A phone call or a visit to your home, with nothing signed and nothing owed. Bring the list of everything you have been thinking about, including the maybes.
• Design and selections. This is where the project gets decided. Decisions made here cost a fraction of what the same decisions cost once walls are open.
• Ordering the slow items early. Cabinetry runs 6 to 8 weeks, windows 4 to 8, and custom folding or stacking exterior doors 10 to 16. Where it makes sense, long lead items get finalized and ordered early.

One thing slows this phase down, and it is the holiday calendar itself. Design moves at the speed of your decisions. Homeowners who hand us the wheel see this phase run 2 to 4 weeks. Homeowners who want a hand in every selection see 4 to 12 weeks or longer. Neither is wrong, but a selection that waits through two weekends of parties waits two weeks.

One simple fix: set aside a standing hour each week for decisions through December, the same way you would block time for anything else that matters.

Decisions made in December help make a spring construction start possible.

Wondering where your project lands before you call? Our pricing pages publish real ranges for every project type.

Look at where the holidays fall. They land inside design, where a slower week costs you very little, and nowhere near demolition. That is the whole idea.

The ranges move for real reasons. A complete plan set keeps permit review near the short end, because incomplete drawings get sent back and the clock starts over. A selection changed after it is ordered is the single most common reason a schedule moves, because the replacement starts its own lead time from zero.

Then three things matter more than anything else.

Tell your contractor your dates now. Asking the crew to skip a Friday or wrap early for a party is a fair thing to want. Just know what it costs, because trades are booked in sequence. If the tile crew misses their window, their next opening might be nine days out, and everyone scheduled behind them moves too. Tell us early and we can usually build around it. Tell us that morning and usually we cannot.

Know which weeks you leave. Most homeowners can live in the house during a remodel, but plan to be out for demolition and flooring, roughly 2 to 3 weeks. If the project takes your only bathroom, you are moving out. If you can, keep those weeks off the holiday calendar.

Be realistic about the big meal. On a kitchen remodel, we look for somewhere else in the house to plug in the refrigerator, then set up a folding table with a microwave and the coffee maker, often near a laundry sink where dishes can get washed. One family added a rug and a small dining table in the garage, and we hung their old 1970s dining room chandelier over it. Glamping in their own garage.

That setup gets a family through breakfast before school. It is not where a holiday dinner gets cooked. In Crush Expectations, Scott calls losing daily access to your kitchen probably the most inconvenient remodel to live through, second only to the primary bathroom. If your kitchen is torn out in November, plan the big meal somewhere else this year.

Build a cushion between the end of construction and the day guests arrive.

Here is why. On a 2,800 square foot project in Chandler, we moved the kitchen out to the garage so the family could stay in the house, and put the laundry back online every Friday so life kept working. We told them nine to ten weeks. It took twelve. A schedule with no cushion before a holiday is a schedule that assumes nothing goes long.

Sometimes, but go in knowing what it costs. A pause costs schedule. Trades are booked in sequence, so time off rarely costs only the days you took. A crew that misses its window may not have another opening for more than a week.

The better move is usually to plan around the holidays rather than stop for them:

• Still in design? There is nothing to pause. Keep deciding, and the holidays cost you almost nothing.
• Demolition about to land in mid December? Consider starting after New Year's instead. Opening up a kitchen the week before you host is the version of this nobody enjoys.
• Already well into construction? Keep going, and give your contractor the specific days that matter so the schedule bends around them.

If you are weighing whether to do everything at once or split the work around your calendar, read Should You Remodel Multiple Rooms at Once or One Room at a Time? Our process page also explains the steps from the first conversation to the punch list.

Start from the day you want to host and count back. Here is how that works for a kitchen.

Notice the pattern. For a bathroom or a kitchen, the holidays you are trying to beat are next year's, and spring is the deadline that actually matters. For an addition, a casita, or a whole house, this holiday season is the deadline, because it is when design needs to start.

If you are not sure where to begin, Where Do I Start? takes seven short screens and gives you a straight answer on where you are, plus a reading list built for your project.

In much of the country, winter is when exterior work stops. Here, it is the most comfortable stretch of the year to build. Phoenix's normal January high sits in the upper 60s, according to National Weather Service climate data. That makes a winter start a good fit for additions, casitas, and outdoor living, where crews spend their days outside.

The flip side is that hosting season in the Valley does not end on January 1. Many Phoenix homes welcome visiting family well into the cooler months. So "after the holidays" can still mean working around guests. Put every planned visit on the calendar you share with your contractor, not just the big days.