Kitchen Remodeling in Houston, TX
We survey the house before we quote it, price the whole job once, and put one project manager on it from the first visit to the last. Kitchens first, bathrooms, whole-home and commercial alongside them.
A Houston remodeler that checks the house before it quotes the kitchen
Slab-on-grade decides where your plumbing can go. A 1960s panel decides how much lighting you can add. An elevation certificate decides what a Meyerland rebuild is allowed to do. None of that shows up in a walk-through quote, and all of it shows up in the final invoice if nobody looked. We look first, then price, which is why our number holds.
Find out what your project costs before you commit to it
We come out anywhere in Houston or Greater Houston, measure properly, and follow up with a fixed price in writing.
Kitchen Remodeling in Houston, TX
From a cabinet-and-countertop refresh through to taking the wall out and rebuilding the plan. On a Houston slab that is a bigger decision than most people are told, and we will be straight with you about it before you commit.
What actually drives the cost of a Houston kitchen
Three things, in this order: whether the layout changes, the cabinetry, and the stone. Appliances and tile matter far less than people expect, and the layout question is much more expensive here than in a city built on pier and beam.
Moving a sink or a dishwasher on slab means cutting concrete, re-routing drain under the floor, and re-pouring. It is entirely doable and we do it constantly, but it is a real line item, not a detail, and any quote that treats it as a detail is not a real quote.
Where most of our Houston kitchens start
Almost every job we run begins as one of these three:
- The boxes are fine. Solid cabinet carcasses, a layout that works, and dated doors and countertops. Refacing plus new stone gets you a new kitchen for a fraction of a gut, and we will tell you when that is the right call.
- The wall has to go. A galley closed off from the den, or a peninsula where an island belongs. This is the full remodel, and it is the one that changes how the house lives.
- You just bought it. Doing the kitchen before you move in is faster, cleaner and cheaper, no temporary kitchen, no dust barriers, no living on a job site.
New custom cabinetry, refacing and refinishing. The biggest line in any kitchen budget.
Quartz, granite, quartzite, marble and porcelain, templated, fabricated and fitted.
Layout drawings, 3D views and material selections, then the same team builds it.
Custom inset cabinetry, natural stone, panel-ready appliances and architectural millwork.
Adding, enlarging or rebuilding an island, including the plumbing and electrical behind it.
Galley and apartment kitchens, layout, storage and light in a room that can't grow.
Built-in grills, weatherproof cabinetry and stone that survives a Texas summer.
Cost is the first question everyone has and the one most contractors dodge. Here's the honest version: the price is driven by three things, in this order, whether the layout changes, the cabinetry, and the stone. Appliances and tile matter far less than people expect.
Three cost drivers people consistently underestimate:
- Moving the sink or range. Relocating plumbing or gas more than a few feet means opening the slab or the ceiling below. In Houston's slab-on-grade houses that's a real line item, not a rounding error.
- Cabinet grade. The gap between stock, semi-custom and full custom cabinetry is the single biggest swing in any kitchen budget, often more than every appliance combined.
- Whatever's behind the wall. Older houses hide things. We budget a contingency for it up front and tell you what we find, rather than discovering it on week three and handing you a change order.
Your proposal is a fixed price against a written scope. If we hit something genuinely unforeseen behind a wall, you see the cost and approve it before we touch it.
Cosmetic work doesn't need a permit. Cabinets, countertops, backsplash, flooring, paint and swapping a fixture for a like-for-like fixture are all fine as-is.
You do need a permit, and we pull it, when the project involves:
- Removing or altering a wall, load-bearing or not
- Moving or adding plumbing supply and drain lines
- New electrical circuits, a panel change, or moving the range circuit
- Gas line work of any kind
- Changing or adding a window or exterior door
- Adding or relocating a range hood that vents outside
We handle the application, the drawings, and the inspection scheduling with the City of Houston. It's built into the timeline we give you, not an afterthought that stalls the job. Working without a permit on structural or gas work is a problem you inherit at resale, when the buyer's inspector asks for paperwork that doesn't exist.
The honest answer is that the build is the short part. Design, selections and lead times take longer than the construction does, and that's the phase people are surprised by.
| Phase | Typical duration | What's happening |
|---|---|---|
| Consultation & measure | 1 week | Site visit, measurements, budget conversation |
| Design & selections | 3 – 6 weeks | Layout drawings, 3D views, cabinet and stone selections, final scope |
| Ordering & lead time | 4 – 10 weeks | Cabinetry built, appliances secured, tile and fixtures delivered |
| Demo & rough-in | 1 – 2 weeks | Tear-out, framing, plumbing, electrical, inspections |
| Install | 3 – 5 weeks | Cabinets set, stone templated and fitted, tile, flooring, paint |
| Finish & walkthrough | 1 week | Appliances, hardware, punch list, final clean |
Custom cabinetry is almost always the long pole. If your timeline is tight, tell us on day one. There are real ways to compress it, and choosing the cabinet line early is the biggest one.
You can stay in the house for a kitchen remodel and most of our clients do. What makes it bearable is preparation rather than optimism:
- We build dust barriers with zipper doors and run negative air, so drywall dust doesn't end up in your bedrooms.
- Floors and walkways between the entry and the kitchen are protected for the whole job.
- We'll set up a temporary kitchen, fridge, microwave, kettle and a working sink somewhere else in the house, before demo starts.
- The site is swept and tools are put away at the end of every day. You get your house back each evening.
- You get a schedule showing which trade is in the house on which days, so there are no surprise 7am knocks.
Get a fixed price for your Houston kitchen
An hour at your house, then a written proposal against a defined scope. The number you sign is the number you pay.
Bathroom Remodeling in Houston, TX
Bathrooms are judged on tile and they fail on waterproofing. In a climate this humid the membrane and the extraction are the whole job; everything else is finish.
The part of a bathroom nobody sees
A bathroom remodel is judged on tile and fixtures, and it succeeds or fails on waterproofing. Everything behind the tile. The substrate, the membrane, the slope of the shower pan, how the membrane laps at the curb and the corners, is what determines whether the room is still sound in ten years.
This is also where the money quietly disappears in cheap jobs. Tiling straight onto drywall, skipping the membrane, or building a pan that doesn't drain properly all save a few hundred dollars up front and cost tens of thousands when the subfloor rots.
We build wet areas on cement board or foam board with a bonded waterproof membrane, pre-slope every pan, and pressure-test before a single tile goes on. It's not glamorous and it's not optional.
The three bathroom projects we're asked for most
Most bathroom work falls into one of these:
- Tub-to-shower conversion. Replacing an unused tub with a proper walk-in shower. The most requested bathroom project there is, and one of the best returns.
- Primary bathroom renovation. A full rebuild, double vanity, separate shower, freestanding tub, better lighting and storage.
- Guest or hall bathroom refresh. Same footprint, everything new. Fast, contained, and a big lift for a modest budget.
Double vanities, spa showers, freestanding tubs, heated floors and real storage.
Tub-to-shower conversions, curbless entries, frameless glass and waterproofing.
Powder rooms and hall baths, contained projects with an outsized effect.
Bathrooms cost more per square metre than kitchens. It surprises people, but a bathroom packs plumbing, waterproofing, tile, ventilation, electrical and glass into a very small room, and almost all of it is skilled labour.
The things that move a bathroom budget more than people expect: moving the toilet (the drain is the least forgiving thing in the room), frameless glass made to measure, heated floors, and large-format tile, which costs more to fit because the substrate has to be genuinely flat.
Like-for-like fixture swaps generally don't need a permit. Moving drains, adding circuits, or altering walls does, and we pull those with the City of Houston.
The items that most often get flagged, and that we build correctly as standard:
- Extraction ducted to outside, not into the attic. Venting a bathroom into a roof space is how you grow mould above a ceiling.
- GFCI protection on every outlet, and correct clearances around the tub and shower.
- A shower pan with the right pre-slope to the drain, built before the membrane rather than after.
- Correct blocking behind the wall for grab bars, hardware and a wall-hung vanity, much easier now than retrofitted later.
- Waterproof membrane lapped properly at the curb, corners and niche. Corners are where failures start.
Bathrooms are shorter than kitchens on site but have more mandatory waiting built in, mortar and membranes cure on their own schedule and cannot be rushed.
| Phase | Typical duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Design & selections | 2 – 4 weeks | Layout, tile, fixtures, vanity, glass |
| Ordering | 2 – 6 weeks | Vanities and specialist tile drive this |
| Demo & rough-in | 3 – 5 days | Tear-out, plumbing and electrical moves, inspection |
| Waterproofing & tile | 1 – 2 weeks | Includes cure time between stages |
| Fit-out | 3 – 5 days | Vanity, fixtures, glass templating and install |
Frameless shower glass is templated after tiling and typically takes 1 to 2 weeks to fabricate, plan for a temporary curtain in that gap.
Home Remodeling in Houston, TX
When the project is bigger than one room. A house you just bought, a plan that stopped working, or a renovation you would rather do once. One contract, one permit package, one period of disruption.
Why doing it once costs less than doing it three times
Renovating a house room by room over several years feels financially safer. It usually isn't. Every project restarts the same fixed costs, mobilisation, dust protection, permits, design, the disruption of living through it, and finishes drift as product lines change, so the house ends up looking assembled rather than designed.
Running the work as one project means one design language, one permit package, one set of trades sequenced efficiently, and one period of disruption instead of four. On a house where you're touching a kitchen, two bathrooms and the flooring, that consolidation is usually worth 10 to 20 percent against the same scope done piecemeal.
The projects this covers
Whole-home work tends to be one of these:
- A house you've just bought. Everything done before you move in. The fastest and least painful version of a renovation, with no temporary kitchen and no living around a job site.
- Opening up a closed floor plan. Removing walls between kitchen, dining and living, engineering the beams, and rebuilding as one space.
- A staged renovation of a house you're staying in. Same contract, sequenced so you always have a working kitchen or bathroom somewhere.
- Preparing a house for sale. Focused on the rooms that move an offer, kitchen, primary bath, flooring and paint.
Back-to-studs and major renovations, sequenced as one project.
Room additions, kitchen extensions, primary suites and second storeys.
Both rooms under one contract, one design language and one period of disruption.
Whole-home budgets are best understood per square metre of what you're actually touching, not the total floor area of the house. A "full renovation" that leaves three bedrooms alone is a very different number from one that doesn't.
Older houses carry more risk of the unexpected, outdated wiring, cast iron drains at the end of their life, foundation movement, or the previous owner's undocumented work. We build a contingency into the proposal and tell you what we find as we find it, rather than presenting it as a change order after the fact.
Opening a floor plan is the change that most alters how a house lives, and the one with the most behind it:
- We establish whether a wall is load-bearing early, from framing direction, span, and what's above it, not on demo day.
- Load-bearing walls need an engineer's beam specification and a permit. We handle both.
- Whatever lives in the wall gets rerouted: plumbing stacks, HVAC ducts, electrical runs. This is the item that most often changes a budget.
- Temporary shoring supports the structure while the beam goes in.
- Ceiling and floor make-good across the old wall line is planned rather than patched, so there's no visible scar where the wall used to be.
On a whole-home project the order of operations is most of the value we add. Rough sequence:
| Stage | What happens | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Design & permits | Drawings, engineering, selections, permit approval | 6 – 12 weeks |
| Demo & structural | Tear-out, beams, framing changes | 2 – 4 weeks |
| Rough-in | Plumbing, electrical, HVAC, inspections | 2 – 4 weeks |
| Close-up | Insulation, drywall, tape and finish | 2 – 3 weeks |
| Finishes | Cabinetry, tile, flooring, paint, trim | 4 – 8 weeks |
| Fit-out & punch | Fixtures, appliances, hardware, walkthrough | 1 – 2 weeks |
For a full gut, moving out is usually the right call and often cheaper overall, because the trades can work continuously instead of around you. We'll tell you honestly which weeks are liveable and which aren't.
Commercial Remodeling in Houston, TX
Interior fit-out for Houston businesses. The build is straightforward; keeping you trading through it is the part that takes planning.
Commercial work is a scheduling problem
The construction in a commercial fit-out isn't fundamentally different from residential. What's different is everything around it: you're trading while we build, there's a landlord with an opinion, a lease with a deadline, and a code path that's stricter than a house.
That's what we plan around. Night and weekend phasing where the space has to stay open. Temporary partitions that are presentable rather than just functional. A programme that hits the date on the lease, because that date has money attached to it.
Where we work
Our commercial work is interior remodeling and fit-out rather than ground-up construction:
- Restaurants and bars, front of house, bar builds, banquettes, millwork and finishes, plus coordination with kitchen equipment suppliers.
- Offices, reconfiguration, meeting rooms, break rooms and kitchens, reception and custom millwork.
- Retail, shopfits, fitting rooms, display joinery and back-of-house.
- Multi-family and HOA, unit turns, amenity spaces, clubhouse kitchens and common areas.
- Medical and professional suites, reception, consult rooms and specialist casework.
Front of house, bar builds and back of house, phased around service.
Reconfiguration, meeting rooms, break rooms and reception millwork.
Shopfits, fitting rooms, display joinery and back of house.
Almost every commercial project we run has a version of the same constraint. The revenue can't stop. The options, in rough order of how often they're the right answer:
- Night and early-morning working. Standard for restaurants and retail. Noisy and dusty work happens after close, and the space is presentable before you open.
- Zoned phasing. The space is split with proper temporary partitions and worked one zone at a time. Half the dining room, half the floor plate.
- Short full closure. Sometimes the honest answer. A concentrated two-week shutdown often costs less in lost revenue than eight weeks of half-capacity trading. We'll model both.
- Back of house first. Getting kitchens, storage and staff areas done while front of house keeps trading, then swapping.
Commercial code is stricter than residential and the inspection path is longer. The items that most often delay an opening, and that we front-load:
- Accessibility compliance, routes, restroom clearances, counter heights, door hardware and signage. Retrofits in older buildings are where this bites hardest.
- Fire and life safety, sprinkler head relocation, alarm devices, exit signage, egress widths and travel distances.
- Health department review for anything food-related, which runs on its own timeline separate from building permits.
- Mechanical, make-up air, exhaust and the ventilation calculations that come with a commercial kitchen.
- Landlord approval. A separate process from the city, with its own review period and its own requirements about what may be altered.
We front-load all of these because they're the items that turn a two-week delay into a two-month one. Sprinkler relocation in particular is routinely underestimated and routinely the thing standing between a finished space and an occupancy sign-off.
Tell us your trading hours and we'll build around them
Phased schedules, night and weekend working, landlord and health approvals run in parallel.
What remodeling actually costs in Houston
Real market ranges, not a number designed to get us to the next meeting. Your price comes from a written proposal after we've measured.
Kitchen remodeling
| Project | Typical range in Houston | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Countertop replacement only | $3,600 – $14,000 | Slab material, square footage, edge detail, sink cut-outs |
| Cabinet refacing | $6,000 – $14,000 | Door style and finish, number of openings, hardware |
| Kitchen remodel, same layout | $28,000 – $50,000 | Cabinet grade, countertop material, flooring, lighting |
| Kitchen remodel, layout changed | $50,000 – $88,000 | Wall removal, beam, plumbing and electrical relocation |
| Luxury / custom kitchen | $88,000+ | Custom inset cabinetry, natural stone, panel-ready appliances, millwork |
Bathroom remodeling
| Project | Typical range in Houston | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Guest / hall bathroom, same layout | $12,500 – $25,000 | Tile spec, vanity, fixtures |
| Tub-to-shower conversion | $12,500 – $25,000 | Pan build, glass, tile area, any plumbing moves |
| Primary bathroom, same layout | $25,000 – $42,000 | Double vanity, shower size, stone, heated floor |
| Primary bathroom, layout changed | $42,000+ | Moving drains, wall changes, window or door work |
Home remodeling
| Scope | Typical range in Houston | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cosmetic refresh (paint, flooring, fixtures) | $27,000 – $65,000 | No layout or structural change |
| Kitchen + primary bath together | $50,000 – $88,000 | The most common combination we run |
| Major renovation, layout changed | $110,000 – $280,000 | Wall removal, beams, plumbing and electrical reconfiguration |
| Full gut renovation | $280,000+ | Back to studs, new services throughout |
Ranges reflect completed projects across Greater Houston and the current cost of labour and materials. They are indicative, not quotes, layout changes, cabinet grade and stone selection move the number more than anything else. We give you a fixed price in writing before demolition starts.
One team, five steps, no surprises
Nearly every remodeling horror story starts the same way: someone priced the job before they understood the house. We do it in the other order.
01
Walk the house
An hour on site. We measure, look under the sink, check the panel, and tell you what the building will allow.
02
Draw it properly
Plans, elevations and a materials list. You see the finished room before you spend anything on it.
03
Price it once
A line-item scope with a fixed number and a written schedule. No allowances hiding a second quote.
04
Build it with one crew
One project manager, one set of trades, a locked sequence, and the site swept before anyone leaves.
05
Close it out
We walk it together, write the list, fix the list, and only then ask for the balance.
The same crew, from the first visit to the last
You meet the person who measures, and you see them again on site. The job does not get handed to a different crew once the paperwork is signed.
- One point of contact The same project manager from the survey through to the final walkthrough.
- Our own trades The people in your house are the people we work with every week, not whoever was free.
- We clean up Dust barriers go up on day one and the site is swept before anyone leaves.
One project manager, one contract, one price
Design and construction under one roof, so there are no hand-offs to fall through.
Greater Houston
We're based in Houston and run projects across Greater Houston. Neighborhoods and suburbs where we work most often:
- Bellaire
- West University Place
- The Heights
- Memorial & Spring Branch
- River Oaks
- Meyerland & Braeswood
- Montrose & Rice Military
- Katy & Cinco Ranch
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Areas we serve across Houston & Greater Houston
We're based in Houston and run projects throughout Greater Houston. Below is where we work, and what tends to be different about remodeling in each.
Where your house is changes the project more than most people expect. The permitting authority is different in the Park Cities and in each suburb. Conservation and historic districts restrict what can change. Condo and townhome buildings add a management approval that often takes longer than the city does. And the housing stock itself, 1960s ranch, pre-war Tudor, new-build, decides whether your kitchen needs a structural change or just a good layout.
Houston's housing stock sets the terms. Almost everything here is slab-on-grade, so moving a sink or a drain means cutting and re-pouring concrete rather than dropping into a crawl space. The 1950s–60s ranch houses through Meyerland, Braeswood and Spring Branch were built with the kitchen walled off from everything else, and opening that up is the single most requested change we get. Bungalows in the Heights are pier-and-beam and far more forgiving on plumbing, but they sit inside a historic district where anything touching the exterior is reviewed. And in the neighbourhoods that took water in 2017, the elevation certificate and the flood-vent detail come before the finishes conversation, not after it.
Frequently asked questions
Working with us
Kitchen remodeling
Bathroom remodeling
Whole-home renovation & additions
Commercial remodeling
Book a free in-home consultation
We measure, talk through layout and materials, and follow up with a written fixed-price proposal, no obligation, no pressure, and no salesperson at your kitchen table until 10pm.
- About an hour at your house. We measure and check what's behind the obvious problems.
- A realistic budget range on the day, including the parts people usually forget.
- A fixed-price proposal in writing against a defined scope, with a schedule.
- No expiring discounts, no pressure, and no obligation to go ahead.
5909 W Loop S, Bellaire, TX 77401
info@noirkitchenremodelinghouston.com
Monday to Saturday 8:00am – 7:00pm · Sunday closed
Request a free estimate
Tell us about the project and we'll come out to Houston to measure.