The right order of operations for a kitchen remodel.

Why the Remodel Order Is Fixed

The order of a Florida kitchen remodel is not a matter of taste — it is set by two hard constraints. First, the FBC requires that concealed work be inspected before it is covered, so rough wiring and piping must pass an inspection before drywall closes the walls. Second, stone countertops are templated off the cabinets after they are installed and leveled, which forces cabinets ahead of counters every time.

Get the sequence wrong and one of two things happens: an inspector red-tags work that was covered too early and you open the wall back up, or a fabricator arrives to template and finds no cabinets to measure from. Both reset the schedule. A remodel that respects the order moves in one direction only — nothing finished gets undone.

The Full Sequence at a Glance

A standard Florida kitchen remodel moves through eleven phases. The diagram below maps them on a timeline and marks the single inspection gate that everything before drywall must clear, plus the two-week fabrication gap that sits between setting cabinets and setting countertops.

Two markers on that timeline are non-negotiable in Florida: the inspection gate after rough-in, and the fabrication gap after cabinets. Everything else can flex by a day or two, but those two govern the whole project's calendar.

Phase 1-2: Design and Permit

Design locks the layout, the cabinet specification, the appliance list, and the electrical and plumbing plan before a single tool comes out. In Florida this stage also determines whether you need a permit at all, because the scope of work decides that — not the room.

What design has to settle before demo

Final design fixes every dimension a trade will rely on later: cabinet runs, the sink and range locations, the island footprint, and where each receptacle and circuit lands. Because countertops are templated off cabinets, the cabinet layout is effectively the master drawing for the back half of the job.

Cabinet specification

Box material, sizes, and exact wall positions. In Florida's humidity, box material matters — see our take on kitchen cabinet box materials for plywood versus particleboard.

Electrical plan

Circuit count and receptacle placement to NEC Article 210.52. A kitchen needs at least two 20-amp small-appliance circuits, and no point along the countertop may sit more than 24 inches from a receptacle.

Plumbing and venting plan

Sink, dishwasher, and any island plumbing, plus the drain-waste-vent layout the rough-in inspection will check.

When a Florida kitchen remodel needs a permit

Permitting in Florida follows the scope of work. Touching the electrical, plumbing, mechanical, gas, or structural systems triggers a building permit and the inspection series that comes with it. A purely cosmetic refresh that leaves the utilities alone usually does not.

• Permit typically required: adding or moving circuits and outlets, relocating the sink or adding island plumbing, removing a wall, or moving a gas line.
• Permit often not required: replacing cabinets in the same footprint without touching utilities, swapping countertops, or installing a backsplash.
• Always jurisdiction-specific: the threshold varies by city and county, and HVHZ jurisdictions in Miami-Dade and Broward apply stricter review.

When the work is permittable, a licensed contractor pulls the permit and owns the inspection schedule. Many homeowners hand this to a general contractor through permit handling and plan submittal rather than navigate the building department alone.

Phase 3-4: Demolition and Rough-In

Demolition strips the kitchen back to studs, subfloor, and slab so the trades can work in open walls. Rough-in is the phase where electricians, plumbers, and HVAC installers run everything that will later disappear behind drywall — and it is the phase the first inspection is built around.

What demolition exposes

Tearing out old cabinets, finishes, and sometimes flooring reveals what the design assumed. In older Florida homes this is where surprises surface: corroded supply lines in coastal areas, aluminum branch wiring, or a slab that is out of level enough to need attention before cabinets can sit true.

The three rough trades

Rough-in covers the concealed portion of each system. Each trade installs its lines and boxes to plan, ready for inspection, then stops short of finish work until the walls are closed.

1. Rough electrical. Branch circuits, boxes, and home-run wiring to the panel, sized and placed to the NEC plan, including the dedicated and small-appliance circuits a kitchen requires.
2. Rough plumbing. Supply and drain-waste-vent piping for the sink, dishwasher, and any island, pressure-tested and ready to inspect.
3. Rough mechanical. The range-hood duct and any HVAC changes. A hood exhausting more than 400 cfm must be provided with makeup air under FBC Residential Section M1503.4, so the duct path is set now.

Because all three trades feed a single rough-in inspection, they are coordinated to finish together — a plumber leaving one untested vent line can hold up the electrician and the whole drywall phase.

Coordinating the trades to one inspection

A general contractor stages the three rough trades so their work is complete on the same day, then books a single inspection rather than three. That coordination is the difference between drywall starting on schedule and the job idling while one trade catches up.

The Inspection Gate Before Drywall

This is the pivot of the entire remodel. Under the FBC, the rough electrical, plumbing, and mechanical work must be inspected and approved before any wall or ceiling membrane is installed. The official language is consistent across jurisdictions: rough-in must pass prior to concealment.

What the inspector is verifying

The rough-in inspection confirms that the concealed systems are safe and to code while they are still visible. Once it passes, drywall can close the walls; until it passes, nothing covers them.

Electrical rough-in

Wire sizing, circuit protection, grounding, box-fill, and device placement — checked against the NEC plan.

Plumbing rough-in

Pipe materials, slope, venting, and a pressure test on the water and drain-waste-vent system.

Mechanical rough-in

Duct routing and the makeup-air provision for a high-cfm range hood.

The close-in that follows

With rough-in approved, insulation and drywall go up and the kitchen starts to look like a room again. In many Florida jurisdictions an insulation inspection precedes drywall; the framing inspection must be approved before insulation is covered. Drywall is taped, finished, and primed, creating the clean, plumb surfaces that cabinets and tile need.

Why drywall has to be flat and plumb here

Cabinets fasten to the wall and tile is set against it, so a wavy or out-of-plumb surface telegraphs straight into the finished kitchen. Closing in with a properly finished, primed wall is what lets the cabinet and countertop phases hit tight tolerances later.

Phase 5-8: Floors, Cabinets, Countertops

This is the finish run, and its internal order trips up more remodels than any other stretch. The governing rule is simple: cabinets before countertops, because the countertop is measured off the installed cabinets. Flooring timing, by contrast, depends on which floor you chose.

When the flooring goes in

Flooring sequence is driven by the material, not by habit. A continuous, waterproof finished floor under cabinets is the most durable approach in Florida, but a floating floor has different rules.

For most Florida kitchens we set tile or rigid-core vinyl before the cabinets so the room reads as one sealed surface — but a click-together floating plank is the exception that follows the cabinets instead.

Cabinets first — and why

Cabinet boxes are set, leveled, and fastened to the walls before any stone is measured. They establish the exact horizontal plane and run lengths the countertop must match. Leveling is not cosmetic here: a fabricator templates a flat reference off the cabinet tops, and out-of-level boxes produce a countertop that rocks or gaps.

Countertops: template, then the two-week wait

Only once cabinets are set does a fabricator come to template — a precise physical measurement of the actual installed cabinets, including sink and cooktop cutouts. Templating from drawings instead of installed cabinets is the leading cause of fit problems. After templating, fabrication of the slab runs roughly two weeks before the finished countertop returns for installation.

What templating captures on site

The template records the real geometry the drawings only approximate: the actual cabinet run lengths, out-of-square corners, the sink and cooktop openings, and the overhang. A digital or physical template taken from set cabinets is what lets the shop cut stone that drops in without a refit.

Why fabrication cannot start sooner

Cutting, edge-profiling, and polishing a slab to that template is shop work measured in days, and it cannot begin until the template exists. That is why the two-week window is fixed dead time at the counter — the crew works elsewhere while the stone is fabricated off site.

That dependency is why a remodel cannot compress the middle: the two-week fabrication window is dead time at the counter, even though the crew keeps moving on other tasks. We break the full stone process down in our countertop templating and fabrication guide.

Phase 9-11: Appliances and Final

With counters set, the backsplash tile goes in against a finished edge, then appliances are connected and the kitchen is tested as a working system before the final inspection signs the permit off.

Backsplash and finish trim

Backsplash tile is installed after the countertop because it lands on top of the counter's back edge. Running it earlier leaves a gap or a cut line that never sits clean. Under-cabinet lighting, hardware, and trim follow in the same finish pass.

Appliance hookup and trim-out

Electricians and plumbers return for trim-out: setting receptacles and switches, connecting the range, dishwasher, disposal, and refrigerator, and confirming the GFCI protection the NEC now requires across kitchen receptacles. This is finish work the rough-in already made possible.

The final inspection

A final building and trades inspection confirms the completed kitchen matches the approved permit and meets code in its finished state. Only a licensed contractor's permit gets a clean final — work done by an unlicensed party, or outside the permit, can stall a sale later. Verifying a contractor's license through the Florida DBPR is the homeowner's safeguard, and a licensed general contractor carries the permit and the final through for you.

How Long a Florida Kitchen Remodel Takes

A full Florida kitchen remodel typically runs 6 to 10 weeks from demolition to final inspection, with the two-week countertop fabrication window built into that span rather than added to it. The variables that stretch a schedule are inspection scheduling, fabrication lead time, and any surprises demo uncovers.

A general contractor's real value across these weeks is sequencing: booking inspections, staging deliveries, and keeping crews productive during the fabrication gap so the calendar never stalls. The full picture of layout, code, and materials sits in our Florida kitchen remodeling guide, and the structural questions around walls are covered in opening up a kitchen in Florida.