Guide · Seattle, 2026
How long a renovation actually takes.
Almost everybody asks how long the building takes. Almost nobody asks how long the part before it takes, and that is the part that is usually longer.
The four stretches of a project
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01
Drawing and deciding
Plans, elevations, and every selection down to the handle. This is where a project is actually won or lost, and hurrying it is the most expensive saving available to you.
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02
Permit and approvals
Only if something structural, plumbed or electrical is moving. In a building there is also the alteration agreement and sometimes a board, which runs on nobody's schedule but its own.
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03
Ordering and milling
Cabinetry is made, not bought. Stone is templated after the boxes are in, never before. Appliances and specified fittings can be the longest lead in the job and they are ordered first for that reason.
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04
On site
The only part anybody pictures. Strip out, first fix, inspection, board and plaster, cabinetry, stone, tile, second fix, snagging.
The three things that move a date, in order of how often they do it.
First: a decision that has not been made. A tile chosen in week six stops the tiler in week seven. Second: what is behind the wall, which is what the contingency is for. Third, and much rarer than people expect, the trades. A schedule that assumes every selection is made before the strip-out starts is a schedule that mostly holds.
The questions worth asking any contractor about dates
Does the start date mean drawings or demolition?
These are months apart. A firm that starts the clock at demolition and a firm that starts it at the first meeting can quote the same job and sound completely different.
Is the permit review inside the schedule?
It has to be. Seattle and each Eastside city run their own review, on their own timetable, and neither of us controls it. It goes on the schedule as its own bar, not as an asterisk.
When is the stone templated?
After the cabinets are installed, always. Anyone promising stone in the same week as the boxes is either estimating from the drawing, which moves, or has not done it.
Which selections stop the job if they are late?
Ask for the list and the dates on day one. Ours is short and it is on the schedule: appliances, tile, stone, fittings, paint. Everything else can move.
Will the crew be here every day?
No, and any honest answer is no. There are days when the inspection has to happen before anything else can, and days when plaster is drying. What matters is whether the gaps are on the schedule or a surprise.
What happens if it slips?
You should be told the week it becomes likely, not the week it becomes obvious. That is a process question, not a scheduling one, and it is the most reliable thing you can ask a previous client about.
Doing two rooms at once is almost always faster than doing them twice.
One permit, one review, one tile order, one mobilization of every trade, one period of living around the dust. Two bathrooms in a single run is the clearest example, and it is why the Mercer Island pair went in together rather than a year apart.
Bring the plan to the studio and we will put real dates on it.
920 Dexter Ave N, Monday to Friday. Twenty minutes with the floor plan is enough to say what the drawing stretch looks like, whether a permit is in it, and which selections you will need to make early.