What we do

Kitchen Remodeling Services

A kitchen remodel is rarely one job. Most are a bundle: cabinets, countertops, flooring, lighting, and often a wall that has to come out. The pages below cover each piece, what it typically involves in Kansas City housing stock, and which parts of it need a permit where you live.

• Full Kitchen Remodel
• Kitchen Cabinet Refacing
• Custom Cabinets & Installation
• Countertop Installation
• Small & Galley Kitchen Remodel
• Opening Up a Closed Kitchen
• Kitchen Island Installation
• Backsplash & Kitchen Tile
• Kitchen Flooring
• Kitchen Plumbing & Sink Relocation
• Historic Home Kitchen Remodel
• Basement Kitchenette & In-Law Suite

Which parts of the job need a permit

Almost nobody permits a kitchen as "a kitchen". Cities permit the work inside it, which is why two projects of similar size can carry completely different paperwork. The dividing line is nearly always whether anything mechanical moves.

Cabinets, countertops, backsplash, flooring and paint are the parts most often exempt. Overland Park says so in writing: replacing cabinets needs no permit there, but the electrical or plumbing modifications that come with them do. Kansas City, Missouri takes the opposite editorial approach — it routes kitchen remodels to an interior remodel permit supported by a written scope and existing-and-proposed floor plans, and publishes no cosmetic exemption at all. Independence states plainly that electrical, plumbing and heating work always require a permit but says nothing about cabinets either way. Kansas City, Kansas asks for scaled drawings on every residential application, though it waives the plot plan when the work is interior only and the footprint does not change.

The practical read: if your project stops at replacing what is already there, you may need nothing. The moment a sink moves, a circuit is added or a wall comes out, assume a permit and ask the city that issues it.

One job, several licences

A detail that surprises most homeowners: the licence that lets a firm remodel your kitchen does not let them do the plumbing or the wiring. In Johnson County, Class A, B and C contractor licences all cover remodeling work and all explicitly exclude HVAC, plumbing, electrical and fire protection. Those trades carry their own licence classes.

So a kitchen that relocates a sink and adds counter circuits legally involves at least three credentials — the remodeler's, a licensed plumber's and a licensed electrician's — whether they sit inside one company or arrive as subcontractors. Each is separately verifiable, and asking which is which before work starts is a reasonable question rather than a suspicious one.

The order things happen in

Design and selections come first and take longer than people expect, because cabinets are usually the long-lead item and nothing downstream can be scheduled until their dimensions are fixed. Permits follow the drawings. Demolition is quick. Rough-in — the plumbing, electrical and any framing changes — is where inspections cluster and where surprises inside walls surface. Cabinets, countertops and finishes come last, and countertops usually cannot be templated until the cabinets are physically installed, which is the step that most often adds a week nobody planned for.