How Long Does It Take to Plan a Kitchen Remodel in Phoenix? | Hochuli Design & Remodeling Team
Last updated August 2026
Plan on roughly three to six months before anyone swings a hammer. Design and selections run one to four months and set the pace. City plan review adds three to six weeks. And once you sign, your cabinets take about eight weeks to arrive, which is what actually sets your start date. None of that looks like a remodel yet. All of it is the remodel.
Why the clock starts long before demolition
Most homeowners think of a kitchen remodel the way they think of a road trip. You decide to go, you pack the car, you leave. Demolition feels like leaving. It is loud and visible, so it looks like the beginning.
It isn't. By the time the first cabinet comes off the wall, most of the work is behind you. The design is done. Every finish is chosen. The permit is pulled. The cabinets are built and delivered. Demolition is the payoff for months of decisions you made when nothing looked like it was happening.
That gap, between when the work feels like it starts and when it starts, is where people lose their finish date. So instead of asking when you can break ground, ask a better question. What day do you want to be done, and what has to be true for that day to hold?
What actually sets your start date
Here is the part almost nobody expects. We do not break ground the week you sign. We break ground when your cabinets show up.
Once the agreement is signed and the deposit is in, we order your cabinets and pencil your construction start for when they are due to arrive, which is usually about eight weeks out. Cabinets are the long pole in a kitchen. Everything waits on them. Signing the agreement is not the moment the clock starts. Ordering your cabinets is.
How long design and selections really take
Before we hand you a proposal, every selection is locked. Cabinets, tile, countertops, plumbing, lighting, hardware, all of it. We do it that way so the price you sign is the price you pay, with no guessing and no moving numbers later.
That thoroughness has a cost, and the cost is time. From the first conversation to a fixed price in writing usually runs one to four months. Where you land in that range is up to you. We make the recommendations. You make the decisions, and the faster those decisions get made, the faster this phase moves. The homeowners who stall on selections lose their months right here, long before a single cabinet is ordered.
How long permits take in Phoenix, city by city
Once your drawings and selections are done, the city takes its turn. Plan review is out of our hands and out of yours, and how long it takes depends on where you live. Here is what we quote homeowners across the Valley.
Plan review time by city
| City | What we quote homeowners |
|---|
| Scottsdale | 3 to 4 weeks |
| Mesa | 3 to 4 weeks |
| Gilbert | 3 to 5 weeks |
| Chandler | 3 to 5 weeks |
| Tempe | 3 to 5 weeks |
| Phoenix | 4 to 6 weeks |
| Paradise Valley | 4 to 6 weeks |
If the city comes back with corrections, add about two weeks to make the changes and resubmit, then another one to two weeks for the second review before the permit is issued. Build that possibility into your calendar and it never becomes a surprise.
Count backward from the day you want to be done
Put the pieces together and the planning runway looks like this, working back from the day we break ground.
The planning runway, counted back from break ground
| Phase | How long |
|---|
| Break ground | Your start date |
| Cabinets arrive | about 8 weeks after you sign |
| City plan review | 3 to 6 weeks |
| Design and selections | 1 to 4 months |
| The first conversation | where the clock starts |
Read it from the top down and it looks like a long time. Read it from the bottom up and it tells you one thing. The call is the first domino, and it falls earlier than most people plan for.
The family who called a year early
A few years back, a Phoenix couple called us a full year before they were hosting a family reunion at their home. They wanted a major kitchen remodel finished in time, and they came in braced for the worst. They had heard all the horror stories, the projects that run twice as long as the contractor promised.
So here is what they did. They handed us the canvas and got out of the way. They let us design the layout and every detail. Their only requests were small: a window seat in the breakfast nook for their dog, and, bigger, new engineered hardwood across the whole main floor. Because they trusted the plan instead of relitigating every tile and knob, the design phase took roughly half the time it takes with a homeowner in the weeds, sometimes a third.
We broke ground and finished with two months to spare.
They have hired us back so many times since that we have now remodeled all 4,000 square feet of their home. One evening Lorrie got a text from the husband. He said he loves sitting at the big island in the new kitchen, just looking around, admiring it. That is a man who called early and never once sweated the calendar.
So when should you call?
Not when you are ready to start. When you want it finished, and you have counted backward to find the date that makes it possible.
If you are anywhere in the Phoenix area and turning a kitchen remodel over in your head, the useful next step is understanding how our process works, from the first conversation to a fixed price in writing. If the number is what is on your mind, our kitchen remodel cost guide lays out the real ranges.
When you are ready to talk through the timeline for your kitchen with someone who has run this calendar a few hundred times, we are here.
Let's Start the Conversation
Nobody has ever called us too early.