What a Full Kitchen Remodel in Iona Actually Costs and How Long It Takes
A full kitchen remodel in Iona typically costs between $14,000 and $45,000 and takes 6 to 10 weeks from demolition to final walkthrough. The job strips the room to the studs and rebuilds it: new layout, new electrical, new plumbing rough-ins, new flooring, new cabinets, new countertops, and new appliances. We’re not talking about swapping out cabinet fronts or updating a backsplash. This is the whole room, designed and built from scratch. Call (844) 638-7249 to schedule a free on-site estimate and get a fixed-price quote for your Iona home.
How We Take a Full Kitchen Remodel From Start to Finish in Iona
Most homeowners haven’t lived through a full gut-and-rebuild, so the timeline can feel abstract. Here’s the actual sequence we follow, stage by stage, so you know what happens and when you’ll need to make decisions.
Stage 1: Design and Permitting (2-3 weeks before we touch a wall)
We measure the existing kitchen, draw as-built plans, then work with you on the new layout. This is where you choose cabinet door styles, finish colors, countertop material, sink configuration, and appliance locations. Once the plans are locked, we submit the permit package to Lee County Building Department. Because Iona is unincorporated Lee County, all permits run through the county, not a municipal office, and post-Ian review volumes can add a week or two that wouldn’t apply in other parts of Southwest Florida. We handle every page of the permit application, including the product approval sheets for any impact-rated windows or exterior doors that fall within the kitchen’s scope.
Stage 2: Demolition and Rough-In (Days 1-5)
We seal off the work area with plastic containment, disconnect and cap the plumbing and electrical, then take the room down to bare studs and subfloor. Old drywall, flooring, cabinets, and soffits come out. Our crew then runs new circuits for code-compliant GFCI outlets, dedicated appliance lines, under-cabinet lighting, and any island power you’ve spec’d. Plumbers move supply lines and drain stacks if the sink, dishwasher, or gas range are relocating. This is also when we address anything the demo reveals: termite damage in bottom plates, rotted sill plates from a past dishwasher leak, or corroded cast-iron vent stacks common in Iona’s 1970s-era canal-front homes.
Stage 3: Drywall, Flooring, and Cabinet Installation (Days 6-20)
Once the rough-in passes inspection, we hang, tape, and finish the drywall, then paint the walls and ceiling. Flooring goes in next: tile, luxury vinyl plank, or engineered hardwood, depending on your selection. After the floor cures, the cabinetry crew arrives. Base cabinets are leveled and anchored first, then uppers, then trim and crown molding. This is the stage where precision matters most. A quarter-inch discrepancy at the base cabinet row compounds across the entire countertop run, so we laser-check every cabinet line before locking it down.
Stage 4: Countertops, Backsplash, and Finishes (Days 21-30)
We template the countertops after the base cabinets are permanently set, which eliminates the measurement errors that happen when templating off plans alone. Fabrication takes 7-10 days depending on the material. Once the slabs are installed, the backsplash tile goes up, the sink and faucet are connected, and the appliances get slid into place. Our electrician returns to trim out outlets, switches, and under-cabinet lighting. By the end of this stage, the kitchen looks finished, but we still need the final sign-off.
Stage 5: Final Inspections and Walkthrough (Days 31-35)
Lee County sends an inspector to verify the electrical, plumbing, and structural work matches the permitted plans. We’re on-site for every inspection. If the inspector flags anything, we fix it that day or the next and call for a re-inspect. Once you have the green tag, we do a formal walkthrough with you, demonstrate every appliance and fixture, and log any punch-list items. Everything gets resolved before we consider the job complete. Your 730-Day Done Right Promise starts on the day you sign off.
The Options You’ll Choose Between for a Full Kitchen Remodel
Every full kitchen remodel forces a set of material and configuration decisions. Here are the ones that shape the budget and the daily experience of the room.
- Cabinet construction: stock, semi-custom, or custom. Stock cabinets ship in standard sizes and cost less, but limit layout flexibility. Semi-custom gives you width and depth modifications, deeper drawers, and more finish options. We install a lot of KraftMaid semi-custom in Iona because it hits the sweet spot of build quality and lead time. Full custom lets you specify every dimension and material, but adds 4-6 weeks and $8,000-$15,000 to the cabinet line.
- Countertop material: quartz, granite, or solid surface. Quartz is non-porous, never needs sealing, and holds up to the humidity and occasional splash of a canal-front kitchen. Granite costs slightly less per square foot but requires annual sealing in Florida’s climate. Solid surface is the budget-friendly pick, but it scratches more easily and won’t add the resale value that quartz or granite brings to an Iona home.
- Flooring: porcelain tile, luxury vinyl plank, or engineered hardwood. Tile handles water and sand better than anything else. LVP is softer underfoot and faster to install. Engineered hardwood looks warm but doesn’t love standing water, so we steer canal-front homeowners toward tile or LVP unless the kitchen sits above the flood line and has good drainage away from the slab.
- Sink and faucet configuration. A single-basin undermount sink with a pull-down faucet is the most functional setup for most families. Farmhouse apron-front sinks look sharp but require a custom cabinet base and add about $600-$1,200 to the cabinet and countertop line. Touchless faucets are popular in Iona remodels now, especially in homes where the kitchen does double duty as a cleanup station after boating or fishing.
- Appliance placement and gas vs. electric. Moving the range or fridge more than a few feet from the existing hookups requires new gas lines or electrical runs, which adds $1,200-$3,000 depending on access. If you’re switching from electric to gas and don’t already have a propane tank or natural gas stub, there’s infrastructure to add before the range ever gets connected. We walk through this during the design stage so the cost is on the table before a single permit gets pulled.
What a Full Kitchen Remodel Costs in Iona, FL
The $14,000-to-$45,000 range for a full kitchen remodel in Iona covers everything from a straightforward 10×12-foot galley kitchen refresh to a high-end 300-square-foot open-concept kitchen with an island, custom cabinets, and quartz counters. Here’s what pushes a job toward the low or high end.
At the low end, around $14,000 to $20,000, you’re looking at a kitchen that keeps the same footprint, leaves plumbing and electrical rough-ins where they are, and uses stock cabinets, a mid-grade quartz or solid-surface countertop, and a standard tile backsplash. The scope includes new drywall, paint, flooring, and basic LED can lights, but no structural changes and no appliance relocation.
The middle of the range, $25,000 to $35,000, is where most Iona full kitchen remodels land. This gets you semi-custom cabinets, a quartz countertop with a waterfall island edge, under-cabinet lighting, a tile backsplash with a decorative insert, and some layout changes that move the sink or range within the same wall line. Appliance upgrades usually land here too: a slide-in range, a quiet dishwasher, and a counter-depth refrigerator.
Above $40,000, you’re into full layout reconfiguration. Walls come down between the kitchen and living room. The island moves to the center of the room with plumbing and electrical stubbed up through the slab. Custom cabinet finishes, dovetailed drawer boxes, soft-close everything, and Cambria or Caesarstone quartz tops push the material number higher. At this tier, we’re often pulling structural permits and installing a flush beam to open up a load-bearing wall, which triggers an engineer’s letter and a plan review with Lee County.
Every estimate we write is a fixed-price, line-item document. You’ll see the cabinet line, the countertop line, the plumbing and electrical allowances, the flooring square footage, the permit fee, and the labor. The number you see is the number you pay. We don’t write change orders because we missed something during the walkthrough. If you want to add scope mid-job, we price it transparently and get your approval before ordering a single extra sheet of drywall.
What Iona Homes Specifically Do to a Full Kitchen Remodel
Iona sits in the bull’s-eye of Hurricane Ian’s 2022 storm-surge corridor along the Caloosahatchee River estuary, and that one fact changes nearly every kitchen remodel we do here. Most of the homes we work on are 1970s-to-1990s concrete-block construction on slab, many of them on finger canals that drain to the Caloosahatchee. The original slab elevations were poured low, and after Ian, many of those elevations now fall below Lee County’s current Base Flood Elevation requirements. If your kitchen remodel is part of a larger post-storm rebuild and cracks the 50% substantial-improvement threshold, the county can require you to elevate the entire structure. That turns what starts as a Kitchen Remodeling in Iona job into a much larger foundation and elevation project. We flag this early in the design phase because it changes the entire budget conversation.
Even when elevation isn’t triggered, the coastal environment shapes material choices. Salt air corrodes exposed metal faster here than it does five miles inland. We spec stainless-steel appliance panels, galvanized or stainless cabinet hardware, and epoxy-coated drawer glides in every Iona kitchen. Water-resistant flooring isn’t a preference; it’s a requirement when the afternoon thunderstorm can push a half-inch of water across the patio and under the slider in 20 minutes. And because Iona is unincorporated Lee County, not Cape Coral or Fort Myers, every permit goes through the Lee County Building Department, where post-Ian plan-review backlogs mean we build an extra two weeks into every project schedule from the start. Homeowners who’ve moved here recently from areas with faster municipal permitting often aren’t expecting that delay, so we set the timeline expectation during the first site visit.
We’ve also worked on enough canal-front homes in Iona to know that any kitchen that shares an exterior wall with a seawall needs a careful look at the sill plate and lower stud bays before we close up the walls. Water intrusion through failed seawall caps or storm-driven surge has rotted framing we couldn’t see from the outside, and opening that wall during demo is the only way to find it. Fixing it adds a day or two but prevents mold inside a brand-new kitchen six months later.
Serving Iona, FL - Our Local Coverage Area
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Frequently Asked Questions About Full Kitchen Remodeling in Iona
Plan on 6 to 10 weeks from the day we start demolition to the day you get the final Lee County inspection sign-off. Design and permitting add another 2 to 3 weeks before that. The biggest variable is permitting turnaround at the county level, which has been running longer since the post-Ian rebuild surge. We’ll give you a firm schedule at the contract stage and update you weekly.
Yes. Any full kitchen remodel that touches electrical, plumbing, or structural walls requires a permit from the Lee County Building Department. We pull every permit the job needs, and our name is on the application, not yours. We also schedule and attend all inspections. Homeowners who try to remodel without a permit risk a stop-work order and problems when they sell, because unpermitted kitchen work shows up on the property disclosure.
You can, and it reduces the cost and timeline. When we don’t move plumbing or electrical rough-ins, you save $2,000 to $5,000 and about a week of schedule. The trade-off is that you’re locked into the original footprint. If the kitchen flow doesn’t work for you now, replacing the cabinets and counters in the same layout won’t fix it. We talk through both options during the design walkthrough so you can weigh cost against function. Many Iona homeowners pair a kitchen overhaul with a Full Bathroom Remodeling in Iona at the same time, and we can coordinate both crews under one permit window.
It includes demolition, debris removal, new drywall, paint, flooring, cabinets, countertops, backsplash, sink and faucet, electrical and plumbing rough-in and trim-out, lighting, and all permit fees and inspections. It does not include appliances, which you buy separately, though we coordinate delivery and installation with your appliance supplier. The spread from low to high comes down to cabinet grade, countertop material, layout changes, and whether we’re opening walls. Every estimate we write is line-item fixed-price, so you see exactly where your dollars go. Call (844) 638-7249 for an exact quote, free of charge.
Every full kitchen remodel we complete in Iona is backed by our 730-Day Done Right Promise. If something isn’t right within two full years of completion, we make it right. No fine print, no pro-rating. Cabinet manufacturers and countertop fabricators carry their own warranties on materials, and we register every product warranty in your name so you can deal directly with the manufacturer or through us, whichever you prefer. Our Kitchen Remodeling crew has been doing this work long enough to know that a two-year workmanship guarantee only works if the installation is clean on day one, so we build every job to outlast the warranty period by a decade.
Get a Fixed-Price Quote for Your Iona Full Kitchen Remodel
The fastest way to a real number is a 45-minute walkthrough at your Iona home. We’ll measure the space, talk through layout options, show you cabinet and countertop samples, and hand you a line-item written estimate, usually within 48 hours. No ballpark, no vague range, no sales pitch you have to sit through. Call (844) 638-7249 to schedule yours. A live person answers, day or night, and we’ll have Derek or one of our senior project managers at your door ready to get into the details. If you’re also thinking about the master bath, ask about pairing it with a Walk-In Showers & Shower Remodeling in Iona quote during the same visit.
Written by Derek Hollenbeck, Owner at Groundwork Construction Co., serving Southwest Florida homeowners since 2014.