Altitude/Kitchens
Kitchen remodelingA kitchen is judged every single day.
Kitchen remodels and conversions with attention to both design and daily function. A bathroom project is usually driven by necessity. A kitchen is almost always a decision, which means it is worth getting the thinking right before anything is ordered.
Design and function, in that order, and both
Almost every kitchen we are asked to look at works badly in one or two specific ways that the homeowner has stopped noticing. The dishwasher door blocks the only drawer with the silverware in it. There is nowhere to put a bag of groceries down. Two people cannot be in it at once. The good light is behind you when you are at the counter.
So the first conversation is about how you use the room, not about finishes. Who cooks. Whether people sit in here. What you own that has nowhere to live. Where you actually stand. The answers change the layout, and the layout is what you will feel every day long after you have stopped seeing the backsplash.
What kitchen work usually involves
- Layout and flow. Positioning the sink, range, and refrigerator around the way the room is entered and where people gather.
- Cabinetry and storage. What is stock, what is semi-custom, what needs to be built, and what the lead times mean for your schedule.
- Counters and surfaces. Material choices matched to how the kitchen is actually used, not only how the sample looks in a showroom.
- Tile and backsplash. Tile is where Altitude spends most of its craft. A backsplash is a small area where layout, edges, and the terminations at outlets and cabinets are entirely visible.
- Coordination. Plumbing, electrical, appliance delivery, and the countertop template, sequenced so trades are not waiting on each other in your house.
Kitchen conversions
Not every kitchen project is a full gut. Some are conversions: opening a wall, moving where the sink lives, turning a closed galley into a room the rest of the house connects to, or reworking a kitchen that was laid out for a part-time house into one that suits full-time living. These often deliver more per dollar than replacing everything in the same footprint.
The part that makes a kitchen project hard
Kitchens run on lead times. Cabinets, appliances, and stone all arrive on their own schedules, and the countertop cannot be templated until the cabinets are set. A kitchen renovation that is badly sequenced leaves a family without a kitchen for weeks longer than necessary.
Sequencing is the part of this work that comes straight out of Luke's background in oil and gas service, where the schedule was the job. We plan the order, tell you what is on the critical path, and tell you early when a delivery date moves.
Bathrooms are our deepest specialty
Tile-centered bathroom work is the core of the business. We do kitchens, and we do them carefully. We would rather you knew where the deepest experience sits.
Bathroom work →Written down before anything is ordered.
Kitchens have more moving parts than any other room we work in, which is exactly why the scope has to be specific about who is buying what and when it arrives.
Included and priced
- Protection of the home and a plan for living without the kitchen
- Demolition and removal of existing cabinetry and finishes
- Documented inspection of what demolition exposes
- Layout confirmed with you before cabinets are ordered
- Cabinet installation and alignment
- Countertop template, coordination, and installation
- Tile and backsplash layout confirmed, then installed
- Plumbing and electrical coordination with the trades
- Appliance fitting and final adjustments
- Final clean and a walk-through with you
Called out separately, never assumed
- Structural work to remove or alter a wall
- Relocating plumbing or electrical service
- Appliances and their delivery scheduling
- Owner-supplied cabinetry, stone, or fixtures
- Flooring beyond the kitchen footprint
- Anything added after signing. By change order, in writing.
Anything outside that scope becomes a change order, agreed in writing before we do it. See how that works →
Before you order anything.
These come up on nearly every kitchen walk-through, usually before anyone has picked a single finish.
How long will we be without a kitchen?
Longer than the demolition and shorter than the whole project, and the honest number depends almost entirely on cabinet and countertop lead times rather than on our labor.
We tell you that window in the scope, we help you set up a temporary kitchen somewhere else in the house, and we sequence the work so the room comes back as early as it can.
Should we move the sink or the range?
Sometimes. Moving plumbing and gas is real work with real cost, so it should buy you something specific: a better work triangle, a window you can see out of, a room two people can share.
We will price it as its own line so you can decide whether the improvement is worth it, rather than burying it in a total.
Can you open up a wall?
Often, but it depends on whether it is carrying load. That gets determined before it is promised, not after. If it needs an engineer or a beam, that is a separate, clearly priced part of the project.
Do you supply the cabinets and stone?
We can, or you can. Either is fine, and the scope of work says which one it is for every line. What causes problems is when nobody wrote it down and a delivery everyone assumed was handled turns out not to be.