Yes. Your first consultation at our Costa Mesa showroom is free and carries no obligation. Plan on about 45 minutes. We’ll talk through your goals for the space, walk the showroom so you can see and touch our cabinetry lines, countertop samples, tile, and hardware, and give you an honest read on whether your budget and your wish list line up. What we don’t do at this stage is produce drawings, measurements, or a design — that work begins once you’re ready to move forward.

Yes, we can give you a realistic budget range based on your room size, the scope you describe, and what similar Orange County projects have run. What we can’t give you before design is a fixed bid. A firm number requires field measurements, a finalized layout, and specific product selections — a kitchen with stock cabinetry and laminate counters and the same kitchen in full custom cabinetry with a quartzite waterfall island are two completely different projects. The range is meant to help you decide whether to keep going. The bid comes after design.

Because design is real work, not a sales tool. The retainer pays for your designer’s time: field measuring your space, drafting the floor plan and elevations, producing 3D renderings so you can see the room before it’s built, pulling and coordinating selections, and confirming that the plan is buildable within code. That’s typically 15 to 40 hours of professional labor depending on the project. Charging for it also protects you — it means we’re designing the best version of your space rather than the fastest thing we can sell.

Bring more than you think you need:

• Photos of the existing space — every wall, plus a wide shot from the doorway
• Rough dimensions — even a hand sketch with measurements helps enormously
• Inspiration images — a Pinterest board, Houzz ideabook, or screenshots. Save the ones you dislike too; knowing what you’re ruling out is just as useful.
• A floor plan or original blueprints, if you have them
• Model numbers for any appliances you’re keeping
• Your budget range — a real one, not a number you think we want to hear
• A must-have vs. nice-to-have list, ideally agreed on by everyone in the household

Pay attention to how you actually use the room. For a week or two, note the specific frustrations: where you run out of counter space, which drawer you open twenty times a day, where the light is bad, what you have to walk around. Those observations shape a layout more than any inspiration photo will.
Beyond that: set a budget range you’re genuinely comfortable with, decide roughly when you want the work done and how long you can live without that kitchen or bathroom, get everyone with a say in the decision on the same page, and check whether your HOA or condo association has approval requirements or work-hour restrictions.

Our in-house design team. We don’t outsource layout to a third-party drafter or hand you off to a plan service. Your designer measures the space, develops the layout, and produces the drawings — and stays on your project through construction, so the person who made the decisions is the person answering questions when the plumber has one.

It depends on scope more than square footage. The factors that move the number most:

• Whether plumbing and electrical stay put. Moving a sink, relocating a range, or adding circuits adds cost and permitting.
• Structural changes. Removing a wall, adding a window, or a room addition requires engineering and inspection.
• Cabinetry line. This is usually the single largest line item, and the spread between entry and full custom is wide.
• Countertop material. Quartz, granite, quartzite, and porcelain slabs sit at very different price points, and so does edge detail and slab count.
• Condition of what’s behind the walls. Older Orange County homes — especially Santa Ana and parts of Costa Mesa — often have galvanized supply lines, cast iron drains, or non-code wiring that has to be addressed once it’s exposed.

Most remodels involve at least three separate companies: a designer who draws it, a contractor who builds it, and a showroom that sells the materials. When something doesn’t line up — and something always doesn’t — you become the messenger between them. We’re a design-build firm, which means design, materials, and construction all live under one roof and one contract. One point of accountability.
Our competition falls into three groups: big-box kitchen departments, which are strong on price and weak on design and installation accountability; independent kitchen designers, who often do beautiful work but hand the build to a contractor you have to manage; and general contractors without a design arm, who can build anything but usually expect you to arrive with a finished plan and all your selections made. We’d rather be judged against those honestly than pretend there’s no alternative.

Yes, we can, but it’s a lengthy and expensive process to get an accurate match. We have to send a sample of your existing finish out for color matching, which takes six to eight weeks on top of normal cabinet production time.
It’s also worth setting expectations: existing cabinets have aged. UV exposure, cooking oils, and cleaning products all shift a finish over time, so even a technically correct match to the original spec can read slightly different next to a door that’s been in a sunny kitchen for eight years. Stains on wood grain are hardest; painted finishes match more reliably. For larger additions, refinishing or replacing the existing run sometimes costs less than a custom match and always looks better.