"How long will this take?" is the question every San Diego homeowner asks in the first meeting, and the honest answer has two parts: how long the work takes, and how long everything before the work takes. This article puts both on one calendar for every project type we build, from an expedited bathroom to a second story. It also carries a figure no cost guide can give you: how long San Diego families actually take to decide, measured from our own records.
Every duration below is a typical range from our projects across San Diego County, not a guarantee; the two clocks that stretch it most are the jurisdiction and the speed of decisions, and both are covered.
Every project on one calendar
Each bar is one project type from the first design meeting to the final walkthrough. The first segment is design and the proposal, the second is everything that has to happen before a crew arrives, the third is construction. Where a range is wide, the lighter tail shows how far a complex version of the project runs.
Before any of that: the decision clock
No schedule starts until a family decides, and that clock is theirs. We measured it. Among the projects of $50,000 or more that homeowners signed with Kaminskiy between 2021 and 2025, across every project type, the median time from first inquiry to a signed design agreement was 28 days, and half of all clients signed within 15 to 56 days. On projects of $250,000 or more the median was 36 days, with half signing within 9 to 60 days. People who have decided to remodel move quickly once they trust the team and the number; the ones who take six months are usually still deciding whether to remodel at all.
Two models, two clocks
We run two delivery models, and which one your project belongs to decides its calendar more than its size does.
For a single kitchen or bathroom in its layout. Weeks 1 to 2: after the in-home consultation, a showroom visit to review the concept, the key finishes and an itemized proposal. Weeks 2 to 4: the verification and engineering meeting the week after signing, then the product selections and cabinet meeting the week after that, with delivery dates confirmed. Start: a bathroom about four to six weeks after contract; a kitchen when the cabinet window is in writing, typically six to eight weeks. Build: bathroom four to eight weeks, kitchen six to ten.
For whole homes, additions and any project that moves walls or plumbing. About six weeks from the design retainer: the conceptual design and the design-and-bid presentation. About twelve weeks of pre-construction after contract: weeks 1 to 6 architecture, engineering and selections; weeks 7 to 12 permitting, material orders, subcontractor scheduling and shop drawings. Build: bathroom about twelve weeks, kitchen about sixteen, whole home about twenty, ground-floor addition about five months; large and complex projects twelve months or more.
The ten-step process page shows who does what at each step, and the express kitchen and bath page explains when the expedited model fits.
The permit clock, by jurisdiction
Permits rarely set the schedule in the City and County of San Diego, because we process them while selections and orders are under way. Where the house sits decides how true that is.
| Where | Same-layout kitchen or bath | Plan-checked project (walls, plumbing moved, added square footage) | What else runs first |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of San Diego | No-plan permit under the City's Information Bulletin 203, typically under a week | Plan check averages about six weeks; the law requires a decision on an ADU within 60 days | A potential-historic review on any home 45 years or older, typically ten business days; a Coastal Development Permit in the Coastal Overlay Zone |
| County of San Diego (unincorporated) | No-plan permit, typically under a week | Weeks to a few months depending on structure | Fire and septic reviews on rural lots |
| Smaller cities (Poway, Chula Vista, Santee and others) | Often full plan review even for a single room | Can take several months | Their own design review in some neighborhoods |
| Any HOA or condo | Architectural review adds two to six weeks before the permit; condos add work-hour, elevator and noise limits that force phased sequencing | Submit to the board early, in parallel with design | |
Inspections come at the milestones: framing, rough plumbing and electrical, waterproofing, finals. In the City and County we can usually book one within a few days, our trade leads pre-inspect so the work passes on the first visit, and a re-inspection adds two to five days.
Our San Diego remodeling permit guide for 2026 has the fees behind each of these paths and what the City, the County and the other cities publish about their review times.
What sets the start date
A start date is real when four things are true, and not before. We hold the start if one is missing, because an idle jobsite costs the homeowner more than a later start does.
The kitchens that finish on time are the ones where nothing was decided in the field. Cabinets set the kitchen start, so we lock the line and the finish in week two or three and we do not demolish until the delivery window is in writing. Then the schedule has three long poles and only one of them is the City: selections, lead times, and the build itself. Decide at the pace we recommend, give us one person in the household who says yes, and the calendar on this page is the calendar you get.
Want a real start date for your project?
A complimentary in-home design consultation is how a schedule starts: a designer sees the house, confirms the jurisdiction, checks the lead times that apply to your project and comes back with a concept, a proposal and a calendar you can plan around.
What speeds a project up, and what slows it down
Every project has two sets of levers, the ones outside the house and the ones inside it. Knowing which is which is how we keep a schedule.
| Lever | Speeds it up | Slows it down |
|---|---|---|
| Decisions | Approvals on drawings and selections within two to three days; one household decider; one focused showroom visit | Open questions carried into construction; a change order after the walls are open, which on a house is a sequence of trades coming back |
| Jurisdiction | City or County no-plan permit; a complete, clean submittal | A smaller city's plan review; an HOA board that meets monthly |
| Lead times | Cabinet line and finish chosen in week two or three; a faster line held as plan B; windows and appliances ordered at sign-off | A custom line at twelve to fourteen weeks chosen late; an appliance that arrives an inch wider than the opening |
| Scope | A same-layout room; standard structure | Walls and plumbing moved, a second story, high-end finishes that need fabrication |
| Access | An empty house or a sealed-off wing | Living in the house, phased work, condo hours and elevators |
| The house | Built after 1990, open walls early | A 1960s to 1980s house with a 100-amp panel, galvanized lines and cast-iron drains found after demolition |
Living in the house, or not
Most families stay for a kitchen, a bathroom or a ground-floor addition, and it costs time: the rooms in use are protected, the work is phased around the household, and access windows shrink the day. A whole home remodel usually means moving out, because the kitchen and every bathroom are out of service at once and crews move faster through an empty house. A second story is the hard case; some families stay through it under a temporary roof with a sealed stair, and some move out for the structural phase. We propose the plan before anything is signed, so the cost of living elsewhere is in the budget and the weeks it saves are in the calendar.
Before you start
- Confirm the jurisdiction on day one. City or County means weeks; Poway, Chula Vista or Santee can mean months. Pad the calendar accordingly.
- Set a decision rule. Forty-eight to seventy-two hours on drawings and selections, one decider in the household, selections grouped into one showroom visit.
- Lock the long items at sign-off. Cabinets, windows, specialty appliances, custom tile and engineered beams go on order the day the design is signed.
- Freeze the scope before demolition. Keep one or two material alternates priced up front so a substitution never stops the job.
- Decide where you will live. The weeks a phased plan adds, or the rent a move costs, belong in the plan from the start.
What each of these projects costs is in its own article: the kitchen, the bathroom, the whole home and the room addition.
How we built these numbers
The durations are typical ranges from Kaminskiy projects across San Diego County in 2025 and 2026, by delivery model and project type, with the buffers we actually carry; they are targets, not guarantees, and the jurisdiction, the scope and the speed of decisions move them. The decision-clock figures come from Kaminskiy's own customer records, 2021 to 2025, analyzed in October 2026: the projects homeowners signed with us at $50,000 or more and at $250,000 or more, across every project type, with the days counted from the first inquiry to the signed design agreement; we publish medians and ranges, never counts, and no client's project is identifiable from anything here.
Sources read for this article (October 2026)
- City of San Diego Development Services, Information Bulletins 203 (no-plan building permits), 501 (construction permit fees and plan check, August 2026), 580 (potential historical resource review) and 402 (Coastal Overlay Zone).
- County of San Diego Planning & Development Services, building permit process and fee schedule PDS 613 (July 2026).
- California Government Code, accessory dwelling unit provisions (the 60-day decision clock and the 15-day completeness check).
- Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, the ten-step process, the expedited kitchen and bath model, project schedules 2025 to 2026, and customer relationship records 2021 to 2025, aggregated October 2026 (method above).
Remodel timelines in San Diego: your questions
In our expedited model, about four to five months from the first meeting: one to two weeks to a concept and proposal, two weeks of verification and selections, a cabinet lead time of six to eight weeks that sets the start date, then six to ten weeks of construction. In design-build, for a kitchen that opens a wall or moves plumbing, about eight months: six weeks to a concept, twelve weeks of pre-construction, then about sixteen weeks of building.
About three months in the expedited model: the concept and proposal in one to two weeks, selections the following two, a start four to six weeks after contract when the permit issues and the tile and vanity are on site, then four to eight weeks of construction. A design-build bathroom with plumbing moved or the room enlarged runs about seven months, with twelve weeks of construction.
Nine to twelve months from the first design meeting to the final walkthrough: about six weeks to a concept, twelve weeks of pre-construction for architecture, engineering, selections, permits and orders, then about twenty weeks of construction for a whole home inside its walls and about five months for a ground-floor addition. A second story, major structural work or a large, high-end scope runs twelve months or more.
Usually not in the City and County of San Diego, because we process them during planning: most same-layout kitchens and baths take a no-plan permit that issues in under a week, and a plan-checked set averages about six weeks. Smaller jurisdictions such as Poway, Chula Vista and Santee can require full plan review that takes months, so we confirm the jurisdiction at the first meeting and pad the calendar.
Cabinets. A kitchen's start date is set by the cabinet delivery window, typically six to eight weeks from order, and we do not demolish a kitchen until that window is in writing, so nobody lives without a kitchen longer than necessary. Because we work with several cabinet lines, we can switch to a faster one when timing matters.
Yes for most kitchens, bathrooms and ground-floor additions, and it adds time: phasing the work around a family, protecting the rooms in use and limiting access windows all stretch the schedule. A whole home remodel usually means moving out, because the kitchen and every bathroom are out of service at once. We propose a plan that balances comfort and speed before anything is signed.
Inspections come at the milestones: framing, rough plumbing and electrical, waterproofing, finals. In the City and County of San Diego we can usually book one within a few days, and our trade leads pre-inspect the work so it passes on the first visit; a re-inspection adds two to five days. HOA and architectural review approvals can add two to six weeks before the permit, and many condos limit work hours and elevator use, so we build those constraints into the schedule from the start.
Ready when you are
