How to plan a kitchen remodel

What order should kitchen decisions be made in?

Almost every kitchen that goes badly went badly in the same way: a decision was made out of sequence. Someone picked the range first, or fell for a slab, and the layout was then bent around it.

The dependency chain runs roughly like this:

1. Layout — where the work zones, walkways and sight lines go.
2. Cabinetry — sizes, configuration and door style, which are governed by the layout.
3. Appliances and plumbing — exact models, because their dimensions and utility locations determine the cabinet openings and rough-ins.
4. Counters — material and edge, templated only after cabinets are installed.
5. Backsplash — chosen against the counter, not before it.
6. Lighting — positioned relative to the island and cabinet runs, so it must follow the plan.
7. Hardware and finishing details — last, and easiest to change.

This is the practical argument for drawings before decisions. On paper, moving the range is free. After the gas line is run, it is not.

Layout: the clearances that matter

Kitchen layout is largely about distances. These are the ones that determine whether a kitchen is pleasant to cook in, drawn from the National Kitchen & Bath Association's planning guidelines, which are the standard reference in the industry:

The most frequent real-world failure is the island. Islands get sized to fill available floor, then the aisle around them ends up at 36 inches, and for the next fifteen years two people cannot work in the kitchen at the same time. If the choice is a smaller island or a tighter aisle, choose the smaller island every time.

Second most frequent: the refrigerator door swinging into the main walkway, or opening against a wall so the crisper drawers cannot fully extend. Check the actual swing on the actual model.

Older Dallas homes

In the Park Cities, Preston Hollow and older North Dallas neighborhoods, kitchens were built for a different way of living — closed off, small windows, a service entrance, no island. Opening them up is often the right move, but two things need checking before you plan around it: whether the wall is load-bearing, and where the existing plumbing stack and gas line run. Both change the cost meaningfully. This is worth establishing at the drawing stage, not on demolition day. There is more on older-home renovation in the Park Cities renovation guide.

Cabinetry and storage

Cabinetry is usually the largest single line in a kitchen budget, and it is where the difference between a builder kitchen and a designed one is most visible.

• Drawers beat doors below the counter. Deep drawers for pots and pans put everything within reach without kneeling. This one change does more for daily usability than any other.
• Plan storage by contents, not by cabinet. Walk through where the sheet pans, the stand mixer, the spices, the trash, the recycling, the platters used twice a year and the school lunch supplies will each live. Design the cabinets around those answers.
• Take upper cabinets to the ceiling if the proportions allow. The alternative is a dust shelf and a visually unresolved gap.
• Decide about the appliance garage early. Countertop appliances need a home, and the counter is not it.
• Door style is a style decision; box construction is a quality decision. Ask about plywood versus particle-board boxes, drawer glide ratings and finish process. These are the things that determine how the kitchen looks in year eight.

Cabinetry is also where custom millwork earns its cost: an awkward corner, a chimney breast, an unusual ceiling height, or a run that stock sizes simply cannot fill without filler panels.

Counters and backsplash

The main counter materials in Dallas kitchens, and what each is actually like to live with:

Two practical rules. First, always view the actual slab for natural stone, not a sample chip — and photograph it standing back, because veining reads completely differently at counter scale. Second, choose the backsplash after the counter is chosen, standing next to it in daylight. Backsplash tile picked from a screen against a remembered counter is how kitchens end up subtly wrong in a way nobody can articulate.

Lighting, in three layers

Recessed cans on one switch is not a lighting plan. A kitchen needs three layers, ideally on separate controls:

• Task. Under-cabinet lighting onto the work surface. Non-negotiable — overhead lights put your own shadow on the counter.
• Ambient. General light for the room as a whole. Recessed fixtures, placed relative to cabinet runs rather than in a grid drawn by the electrician.
• Accent and decorative. Pendants over an island, a fixture over the table, interior cabinet lighting. This is the layer people see; it works only when the other two are right.

Keep color temperature consistent, typically in the 2700K–3000K range for a warm domestic light, and check the CRI — above 90 makes food and finishes look like themselves. Put everything on dimmers. A kitchen at 7am and a kitchen at 9pm are different rooms.

Eight mistakes that show up later

1. Pendants hung at the wrong height. Roughly 30–36 inches above the counter, and centered on the island's usable length, not on the room.
2. Undersized ventilation. A powerful range needs real extraction, ducted outside. Recirculating hoods move air; they do not remove much.
3. No landing space beside the ovens. Nowhere to set a hot tray is a daily irritation.
4. The trash pull-out placed away from the prep zone. It should be within a step of where the chopping happens.
5. Too few outlets, badly placed. Plan them into the elevations, including inside the pantry and island.
6. Deep corner cabinets with no mechanism. A cabinet you cannot reach into is storage you do not have.
7. Picking the sink after the cabinets. The sink dictates the base cabinet size; it has to come first.
8. Forgetting how doors and drawers interact. A dishwasher door that blocks a corner drawer, or two adjacent appliance doors that cannot both be open. Check this on the plan.

Where does a kitchen budget actually go?

Kitchen costs vary enormously with size, finish level and how much moves, so any single number is misleading. The proportions, however, are fairly stable: cabinetry is usually the largest share, followed by labor, then counters and appliances, with plumbing, electrical, tile, flooring and lighting making up the rest. Moving plumbing and gas, and any structural work to open a wall, sit on top of all of that.

Two things that consistently return their cost: the layout, because it is what you live with, and the cabinetry interior, because it is what you touch every day. Two that consistently do not: the most expensive version of a finish that will be largely covered, and appliances whose capabilities exceed how you actually cook.

Hold back a contingency of at least 10–15 percent, higher in a house built before 1980. It is not pessimism — galvanized supply lines, undersized electrical service and cheerfully improvised previous remodels are extremely common in older Dallas housing stock.

Jan Revels

ASID Allied Professional Interior Designer · Chateau Concepts, Dallas

Jan has practiced interior design in Dallas since 1997 and founded Chateau Concepts in 2001. She holds a BFA in Interior Design from the University of North Texas. She designs and general-contracts residential and commercial projects across the Park Cities, Preston Hollow and North Dallas. Read her full profile →

Written and reviewed by Jan Revels before publication