The seven phases, in order
1. Demolition. Everything coming out comes out first — cabinets, counters, flooring if it's going, soffits. Demo is also discovery: this is where you find the corroded pipe, the wire that isn't to code, the subfloor that's soft near the sink. Budget contingency exists for what demo reveals.
2. Rough-in and framing. With walls open, plumbing and electrical move to their new homes: supply and drain lines for the sink and dishwasher, gas for the range, circuits and boxes for lighting and appliances, plus any framing changes and new windows. Everything here gets buried behind drywall — which is why inspections happen at this stage, and why changing your mind later is expensive.
3. Insulation, drywall, and paint. Close the walls, tape, mud, sand, prime — and yes, paint now, before cabinets. Painting a full, empty wall takes hours; cutting-in around installed cabinets and a backsplash takes days and never looks as clean. You'll do one touch-up pass at the very end regardless.
4. Flooring. Floors go in before cabinets in most modern kitchens (floating floors are the occasional exception — your installer will say so). Running flooring under the cabinets costs a little more material and buys you flexibility forever after: any future cabinet layout sits on finished floor instead of a bare patch.
5. Cabinetry. The uppers and lowers set, leveled, and secured — plus hardware, trim, and panels. Recessed and under-cabinet lighting typically mounts in this phase too. Cabinets are the schedule's anchor: they have the longest lead time in the project and two other phases can't start until they're in.
6. Countertops and backsplash. Counters can't even be measured until cabinets are installed — fabricators template off the real thing, then need one to three weeks to cut. The backsplash follows the counters, since it lands on top of them. That templating gap is a built-in pause; schedule painting touch-ups or the far bathroom into it.
7. Fixtures and appliances. Sink, faucet, disposal, appliance hookups, pendant lights over the island, the under-cabinet lighting's final connection, window treatments. The finish line — and deliberately last, so nothing heavy gets walked past a new range or dropped on a new sink.
Why shuffling the order costs money
- Paint after cabinets = days of careful cutting-in instead of hours of rolling, plus drips to protect against.
- Cabinets before flooring (where floors were planned to run under) = height problems at the dishwasher, which is now trapped by a floor taller than its opening.
- Backsplash before counters = a tile edge that doesn't meet the slab. It's counters, then splash. Always.
- Appliances delivered at demo = a range in the garage for two months, hopefully undamaged. Order early — specs are needed before cabinets are ordered — but schedule delivery for phase 7.
The purchasing order is different from the work order
Here's the counterintuitive part: the buying sequence runs almost opposite to the installing sequence. Cabinets install fifth but must be ordered first (8–12 weeks for custom). Appliances install last but their spec sheets are needed before the cabinet order. Paint installs third but can be bought the weekend before. Working out each item's order-by date from its install date and lead time is its own discipline — we've written a full guide to the ordering timeline, and if your project is starting with several dates already in the past, the order-first method is the recovery play.
Rule of thumb: work flows top-down and in-out — ceiling before walls, walls before floors, inside the walls before on the walls — and money flows in reverse: the last things installed are often the first things you need to have chosen.