Kitchens

Almost every kitchen conversation starts with moving the sink, opening a wall, or adding an island. All three are usually possible. What differs enormously is what they cost, and the cost is under the floor rather than in the fixture.

A sink that moves needs new drain and vent runs that hold the correct slope over their whole length. Over a crawl space that is a straightforward morning. Over a post-tension or conventional slab it means cutting and patching concrete, and the drain has to be routed somewhere it can actually fall. A gas range that moves needs a new gas run and a ventilation path that reaches the exterior, which on an interior wall can mean a soffit or a longer duct run than the hood is rated for.

So we look before we draw. During the consultation we check what is accessible from the crawl space or the attic, which direction the joists run, where the existing vent stack is, and whether the wall you want to remove is carrying anything. In the 1970s and 1980s tract housing common across Vacaville and Fairfield, the wall between the kitchen and the family room is load-bearing far more often than homeowners expect. Where it is, an engineer sizes the beam and the posts, and the calculations go into the permit set.

Then clearances get checked against real dimensions rather than assumed ones: the walkway between a run and an island, the door swing on a refrigerator that is deeper than the one it replaces, and the drawer that would otherwise collide with the corner cabinet.

A kitchen alteration that pulls a permit brings the electrical work in that kitchen up to current requirements: dedicated circuits for the appliances that need them, receptacle spacing along the counter runs, ground-fault protection at the counter, and arc-fault protection where it applies. If the existing panel does not have the capacity for what is being added, that is a finding for the design stage and a line in the estimate, not a discovery in week five.

Ventilation is the item most often specified badly. A hood has to be sized for the range beneath it and ducted to the exterior through a run it can actually move air along; ducting into an attic is not a termination. Where a powerful hood is specified in a tight house, the make-up air path has to be considered so the hood is not fighting the building.

Under-cabinet lighting, the fixture layout over an island, and switching that makes sense when you walk in with your hands full are all decided on the plan, in the same pass as the outlets, because moving a box after the drywall is closed means opening the drywall again.

Everything above is quality of execution rather than decoration, and none of it is visible when the job is finished. It is, however, the part you are actually buying, and it is the part a written scope of work lets you compare between one bid and another. Our full sequence, measure by measure, is on the process page.