Kitchen Remodel

Please note, if your remodel includes bathrooms, closet/pantry upgrades, or any other cabinetry or custom woodwork concurrently with your kitchen remodel, those parts of the project will be included in the following kitchen remodel process.

Budgeting

Before you begin working with a designer on your project, it is important for you to think about your preliminary budget. We’ll provide you with a Budget Estimator tool that uses your estimated home value and invoices from actual recent projects as a percentage of your home value to help you understand and plan for a preliminary budget. These resources are tools for you to utilize, but the numbers will vary widely based on the scope of your project and the materials that you select. Overall, our goal is to design a space that accomplishes as many of your goals as possible within your budget, and as such, the budget conversation will be ongoing.

Design Phase

Project Initiation
When you first contact us by phone or e-mail or you stop into our Design Center, a Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor representative will ask about the scope and timeline of your project and give you a chance to ask questions about our process, services, or your project details. We’ll then collect your contact information and explain next steps after confirming that your project is within our service area. Our full-service area is within a 20 minute drive of our office, meaning that we will serve as general contractor for installs within this radius. For jobsites between a 20 and 30 minute drive from our office, homeowners will be responsible for arranging a local contractor for their project installation, and we’ll supply design, materials, installation documentation, and delivery of materials. We typically have not been taking on new projects that are 20-30 minutes from our office, and we have not taken any new projects over 30 minutes from our office due to the demand for remodel projects we’ve been experiencing. We will use Google Maps to determine the distance from our office to your home and welcome you to do the same as a preliminary check prior to moving forward with your inquiry.

Project management by Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor will be included in your contract unless you are working with your own contractor. If you choose to work with your own contractor, you will be responsible for coordinating your contractor with the Project Management team. Otherwise, we will assign our team members and project partners to complete the work in our contract. We have a great relationship with our project partners, and we are happy to coordinate them for subcontracted labor to work along with our install team for your project.

Depending on the quantity and nature of our design team’s active projects, your project will likely be put onto a design waiting list, in which case we’ll tell you our best guess for when a designer will be ready to start working with you. After your conversation, the Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor representative will send you a follow-up e-mail and your homework.

Homeowner Homework
After your project initiation conversation, you will receive 3 e-mails. One will be a link to a kitchen design survey, which will help get you started thinking about what is important to you in your kitchen design and provide your designer with important details to consider while they design your new space. The second e-mail will be a link to a Houzz Ideabook. Houzz is a website with millions of photos of all aspects of home design. We encourage you to search Houzz to find photos of spaces, design styles, layouts, etc. that catch your eye. When you save those photos to the Ideabook shared with you, your designer has access to the whole collection, and will use your inspirations as guidance to help them create a design that is catered to you. The third e-mail will summarize the next steps for your project, including your homework to prepare for your design consultation. Attached to the e-mail will be two documents: a copy of the Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor Customer Expectation Agreement, which we ask you to look over, agree to, and sign prior to your design consultation, and a copy of the Budget Estimator tool we’ve made for your project.

Design Waiting List
If your project is on the design waiting list, we’ll send you an update e-mail every couple of months to let you know your current number. When a designer is ready to start your project, we’ll contact you to schedule your in-home design consultation.

Once a designer begins working on your project, it will have their full attention, and you can expect them to provide you with your design and pricing in an efficient manner. We apologize for the wait and appreciate your patience. We’ll make sure that the design and experience we provide is worth waiting for! We encourage you to take advantage of the time while you wait for your project to complete your Homeowner Homework.

Design Consultation
Prior to your Design Consultation, your designer will review your Kitchen Design Survey and Houzz Ideabook. The Design Consultation meeting usually takes about an hour and will occur at your home. In addition to your designer, the people who need to be present at this meeting are: You and any other decision makers on the project. During this meeting, your designer will take preliminary measurements of the space, discuss with you how you use your space, and what you want to accomplish with your remodel. They’ll also discuss your project budget with you. If applicable, your designer may brainstorm possible ways to accomplish your goals, and what it will take to do so. The one-time non-refundable charge for onsite Design Consultation is $150 for meetings within 20 minutes of our office ($200 for meetings 20-30 minutes from our office). After this meeting, your designer will create a proposed design for you to review at our office at your Preliminary Design Meeting.

Preliminary Design Meeting
This meeting usually takes 1-1.5 hours and will be at the Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor office. In addition to your designer, the people who need to be present at this meeting are: You and any other decision makers on the project. At this meeting, your designer will show you a proposed design and recommend materials, colors, and cabinetry door styles for your project. We’ll take notes on your feedback and preferences, gather any other information needed in order to update your design, and calculate preliminary pricing, which you’ll go over at your Preliminary Quote Review Meeting. If you can’t make all the decisions needed for pricing during this meeting, you may have a second Design Meeting. Up to 3 Design Meetings are free of charge, and typically allow enough time to finalize all the design details for your project. Any design time spent on your project beyond 3 design revisions will incur hourly design charges, which will be payable whether or not you decide to proceed with your project.

Design Release
Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor does not release design drawings, either in digital or hard copies, prior to signing of your contract, and receipt of down payment. If you need your drawings for any reason before you accept your contract, you may choose to pay a Design Release Fee of $500, or 5% of your proposal price, whichever is greater. Your Design Release Fee will be credited towards your project if you decide to proceed, however it is non-refundable if you decide not to move forward with the project.

Preliminary Quote Review Meeting
This meeting usually takes up to an hour and will be at the Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor office. In addition to your designer, the people who need to be present at this meeting are: You and any other decision makers on the project. At this meeting, your designer will present preliminary pricing for your updated design, and selected colors, materials, finishes, etc. After reviewing the pricing and scope with you, your designer will take notes on your feedback and updates you’d like to make based on the preliminary pricing, and gather any other information needed in order to update your design and pricing for your final proposal. If you don’t want to make any changes to the proposal, you may combine this meeting and the Contract Meeting, and to sign your contract, however it is common that one more round of tweaks are required at this point. If you aren’t ready to sign your contract during this meeting, and require updates, you’ll come in one more time for a Contract Meeting.

Contract Meeting
This meeting usually takes up to an hour and will be at the Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor office. In addition to your designer, the people who need to be present at this meeting are: You and any other decision makers on the project. At this meeting, your designer will review with you your contract, pricing, final project scope, and anticipated timeline. If you agree with the contract, you’ll submit your signed contract and down payment check for 60% of your contract value. This triggers the beginning of the production phase.

Modifications to project scope after you sign your contract require a change order and may affect price and timeline of your project.

Production Phase

Technical Site Measure
A member of the Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor team will come to your home for detailed measurements which your designer will use to make any final dimension modifications required prior to ordering your cabinetry. This may happen before or after you sign your contract. If your project involves structural changes, old walls need to be removed, and new walls need to be framed out prior to this site measure. Any changes to the space which happen after your Design Consultation and vary significantly from the floor plan used to design your project could result in necessary changes to your design and pricing, so please be sure to inform your designer as soon as know of any such changes.

While our team member is actively taking measurements, we ask that you please keep conversation to a minimum. This job requires a lot of concentration, and any missed measurement or inaccurate notes could result in delays in your project. Please don’t take offense at our focus!

It is not necessary for you to be onsite during the technical site measure, if you are comfortable providing us with a way to enter your home in your absence.

Following your technical site measure, your designer may make minor changes to your design as needed to accommodate your space, and place orders for materials.

Material Acquisition
Soon after you sign your contract, your designer will place orders for your cabinetry, fixtures, decorative hardware, etc. Typically, the only materials not ordered at this time are countertops, which will be ordered following your cabinetry installation and countertop template.

After we receive the ship date* for your cabinetry, your Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor project manager will contact you with our proposed install date, as well as begin coordinating with contractors and tradesmen to get the whole install team’s schedule synced. If the scope of your project does not include installation, this is when we’ll let you know your anticipated delivery or pickup date.

*There are some products that take a significant amount of time to provide ship date confirmations – please note that for some projects, we may not have a proposed install date for several weeks or more due to product & material availability and production times.

Cabinetry Storage
We’ll let you know your anticipated delivery or pickup date, and we’ll contact you 1-2 weeks prior to that date to check in. If you will be ready to take your cabinetry when it arrives, we’ll finalize the pickup or delivery schedule at that time. If you are not ready to take your cabinetry, we’ll schedule or plan to check back with you later. Any cabinetry not picked up or delivered within 3 weeks of arriving at Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor will incur a storage fee which will be billed on the first day of each month.

Pickup or Delivery
We’ll let you know your anticipated delivery or pickup date and we’ll contact you 1-2 weeks prior to that date to check in and schedule.

If you plan to pick up your cabinetry, please verify your pickup schedule prior to coming so that we can be sure that your cabinetry is easily accessible when you arrive, and that there is someone available to help you load.

If you plan to have your cabinetry delivered, please have an easily-accessible space cleared out in your garage for our delivery crew to put your cabinetry. Delivery into your home, or to any space that is not accessible by a 26′ box truck, will incur an additional delivery charge. If you informed your designer in advance that your delivery is not a standard garage delivery, this pricing will already be included in your contract. However, if the scope of delivery is changed at the time of delivery, you will see the additional charges noted on your invoice. Our delivery crew will deliver where you ask them to put the cabinets, and they will not discuss delivery pricing with you.

Installation
We are equipped to manage the full scope of your remodel with a combination of our in-house install crew and our team of vetted subcontracted tradespeople. If we are managing your project, we’ll keep you informed of the stage of the project throughout the process of installation. The following is a typical sequence of events for a kitchen remodel:

Demolition
Framing of new space
Plumbing and electrical rough in
Sub-flooring and wall construction
Painting
Installation of glued-down or tile floors and walls
Cabinet installation, including trim and associated accessories
Countertop measurement
Electrical finish
Installation of floating floors
Countertop installation
Appliance installation
Plumbing connections
Casing and associated trim
Backsplash and lighting
Punch list completion and cabinet adjustments

The time needed for each of the production stages vary widely based on the scope of your project. Your designer will give you an idea of timeline to expect once your project scope is determined. After your project enters the production stage, your designer will hand your project over to your project manager, who will coordinate subcontractors and installers, and who will provide you with an anticipated schedule for your project. All dates provided are tentative and can vary based on a wide variety of unplanned changes that are common in a remodel. You can trust your project manager to keep you up-to-date concerning any changes to your timeline throughout the installation process. Please don’t hesitate to tell your project manager if you have any concerns or questions during your install. It is easiest to address any issues at this point, while our crew is onsite and able to take quick action. If additional materials are needed to wrap up the project, or repair any damaged items, we’ll document those items, inform you of the remaining install scope, and plan for a punch list installation.

Punch List Walk-Through and Installation
After your primary installation is done, we ask that you do a walk-through to identify any repairs, missing items, or remaining install tasks that have not been identified by our installers. It is important that you communicate these items to your Project Manager right away so that they can plan to address them at your punch list installation.

Following your walk-through, we’ll place orders for punch list materials as needed to complete install. If Welling Kitchen, Bath & Floor is responsible for your installation, we’ll schedule the punch list install as soon as we have ship dates for all required materials.

Payment
Your second payment will be for 20% of your project value and will be due upon substantial completion of your project. Your final invoice for the remaining balance, plus actual costs for the allowances in your contract will be due once the original scope of your contract is completed. Your kitchen remodel project will likely include multiple contracts (e.g. cabinets/cabinetry install and countertops/countertop install), in which case you will receive invoices at different times based on the progress and completion of each contract scope. Your invoices will show payments you have made and the amount due.

Please pay your invoices promptly, all payments are due upon invoice. Invoices that remain unpaid after 30 days will incur a finance charge. While we do accept credit card payments, payments made by credit card incur a 3.5% service charge. To avoid the service charge, we recommend payments be made with cash, check, or money order.

Testimonial
As a local, family-owned and run business, word-of-mouth reviews play a huge role in our success. If you’d be willing to recommend us, we’d be very thankful for your positive testimonial on Houzz, Facebook, or Google. Thank You! Your support means a lot to us!

Photo Session
We love sharing the finished product of our work! If you are willing to share your completed space with us, we may ask to schedule a photo shoot of your kitchen. We may post these photos on Houzz, Facebook, or use them in advertising and design competitions. We will not share any of your personal information along with the photos.