Kitchens & baths, start to finish.

A cabinet reface or a backsplash and counter update is usually two to four days. A full kitchen — cabinets, counters, flooring, lighting — typically runs two to four weeks on site once materials have arrived.

Material lead time is the part most people underestimate. Cabinets in particular can take longer to arrive than they take to fit, which is why ordering happens before a start date is set.

For a bathroom, if it's the only one in the house, that gets planned around — the fixtures go back in as early as the schedule safely allows.

For kitchens, expect a stretch without a working sink or counters. It helps to set up a temporary station elsewhere; you'll be told roughly which days those will be before work starts.

Either way works. Plenty of homeowners enjoy choosing their own tile and fixtures, and some prefer one supply-and-install price with no shopping involved.

Whichever you pick, the estimate spells out exactly which items are included so there's no confusion on day one.

Swapping finishes — cabinets, counters, tile, fixtures in the same locations — generally doesn't. Moving plumbing or electrical, or altering structure, generally does.

Where a permit is required, the work runs through a licensed contractor who pulls it and oversees the job, and you'll be told that at estimate stage rather than halfway through.

It depends far more on what's behind the walls than on the tile you pick. A refresh with new fixtures and paint sits at one end; a full rebuild with a tiled walk-in shower and relocated plumbing sits at the other.

You'll get an itemised written figure after the walkthrough, free, so you can see where the money actually goes before deciding anything.