The kitchen is the room Dallas homeowners remodel first, and the room where the layout matters more than the finishes. A beautiful kitchen with the refrigerator door blocking the walkway is still a kitchen that annoys you every morning. MASACO Construction is a woman-led design-build firm based in Plano. We remodel kitchens across Dallas, from 1920s Tudors in the M Streets where the original kitchen was built for one cook and a back door, to 1980s two-stories in Far North Dallas where the kitchen is fine on paper and wrong in every detail.
The 3 layout decisions that shape every Dallas kitchen.
Before we talk about a single finish, we settle 3 things.
Does a wall come down? In most Dallas homes built between the 1950s and the 1990s, the kitchen is closed off from the living or dining room by a wall that may or may not be carrying load. In a single-story ranch in Lake Highlands or Casa Linda, that wall often carries ceiling joists. In a two-story, it may carry the floor above. We open inspection holes and trace the framing, and if it’s bearing, a structural engineer sizes the beam. A flush beam hidden in the ceiling gives you a clean opening; a dropped header costs less but you’ll see it forever.
Is there room for an island? An island needs clearance on all sides, generally around 42 inches for one cook and more where two people work or where a dishwasher door swings into the aisle. Plenty of 1960s kitchens are too narrow for an island, and a peninsula or a wider run of counter often serves better. If the island gets a sink or cooktop, that decision also drives plumbing and electrical relocation, which we’ll come back to.
Does the work triangle hold? Sink, range, and refrigerator should form a triangle you can move through without crossing traffic. Open-plan kitchens stretch this idea into zones: prep, cooking, cleanup, and a landing spot for groceries.
Cabinetry explained without the sales pitch: stock, semi-custom, custom.
Cabinetry is usually the largest single line in a kitchen budget and the one with the most confusing vocabulary.
Stock cabinets come in fixed sizes, typically 3-inch width increments, with a limited palette of door styles and finishes. They ship fast and cost the least. The tradeoff is fit: odd wall lengths get filled with filler strips, and tall ceilings often end with a gap or a soffit.
Semi-custom cabinets start from standard boxes but offer modified depths and heights, more door styles, more finishes, and interior organizers. Lead times are longer than stock. For most Dallas kitchens, semi-custom hits the balance: a fitted look without the wait or the price of full custom.
Custom cabinets are built to your drawings, to the inch, in any finish, with any interior. A 1920s Tudor kitchen in Hollywood Heights with out-of-square walls and a 10-foot ceiling often needs custom to look right. The lead time is the longest, and the shop drawings need careful review.
Beyond the category, the details that matter: plywood versus particleboard boxes, full-overlay versus inset doors, soft-close hardware, and drawer construction. We walk you through them in the showroom, not in a spreadsheet.
Countertops and the surfaces you’ll touch every day.
Quartz, granite, marble, quartzite, solid surface, butcher block, and porcelain slab each behave differently under a Dallas kitchen’s daily use. Quartz is engineered and consistent, resists stains, and doesn’t need sealing, but it can be marked by high heat. Granite is natural, heat tolerant, and needs periodic sealing. Marble is beautiful and etches when it meets lemon juice or wine. Quartzite looks like marble and performs closer to granite. Butcher block is warm and forgiving and needs oil.
Templating happens after the cabinets are installed and level, which is why countertops sit near the end of the schedule and why the cabinet install date drives everything behind it. Backsplash tile goes on after the counters, so the tile you choose is the last selection you can change without a ripple.
A lighting plan is not a fixture list.
The most common failure in a remodeled Dallas kitchen is a grid of recessed cans in the ceiling and nothing else. You end up working in your own shadow at the counter.
A real lighting plan has 3 layers. Ambient light from recessed or surface fixtures fills the room. Task light, usually under-cabinet strips and pendants over the island, lands where your hands are. Accent light inside glass cabinets, on open shelves, or at the toe kick gives the room depth at night. Each layer gets its own switch or dimmer, and the color temperature stays consistent across all of them so the quartz doesn’t read as blue under one light and yellow under another.
We design the lighting in the 3D model, where you can see how the room looks at 7 a.m. and at 9 p.m. before an electrician drills a single hole.
Moving plumbing, gas, and electrical in a slab-on-grade house.
Most DFW homes sit on a slab foundation, and that shapes what it takes to move the sink, add a plumbed island, or relocate the range.
On a slab, supply lines can often be re-routed through walls and the attic, but drain lines run under the concrete. Moving a sink drain or adding an island sink means cutting a trench in the slab, extending the drain with proper slope, tying into the existing line, and pouring back. It’s routine work for a crew that does it often, and it’s inspected before the concrete goes back. In 1950s and 1960s homes in Lochwood, Lake Highlands, and Casa Linda, the existing drains are often cast iron near the end of its life, and a kitchen remodel is the moment to replace the section under the new kitchen rather than tying new work into a failing pipe.
Older neighborhoods like the M Streets, Kessler Park, and parts of Oak Cliff and Lakewood run pier-and-beam, where plumbing lives in the crawlspace and moves more easily. The tradeoff is that the original framing and subfloor often need attention while the floor is open.
Electrical follows the same logic. Modern kitchens need dedicated circuits for the refrigerator, dishwasher, disposal, microwave, and each countertop run, plus GFCI protection where code requires it. A 1970s panel in Far North Dallas may not have the space, and a panel upgrade becomes part of the kitchen scope. Gas relocation for a new range position is a licensed plumbing job with its own pressure test and inspection.
What the permit covers and who inspects it.
Inside the city, kitchen remodels that move walls, relocate plumbing or gas, or add circuits need permits from City of Dallas Development Services. That typically means a building permit plus electrical, plumbing, and mechanical trade permits, each inspected at rough-in and at final. Cosmetic swaps, new doors on old boxes, or a countertop replacement generally don’t. We pull the permits, meet the inspectors, and close them out.
University Park and Highland Park, the Park Cities, have their own building departments and their own process. Homes in conservation districts or historic overlays, including parts of Lakewood, the Swiss Avenue Historic District, the M Streets, and the Bishop Arts area, face extra review when the kitchen project changes windows or the exterior wall, which is common when a kitchen opens to the backyard.
What the schedule looks like, week by week.
The industry-typical range for a full Dallas kitchen remodel is roughly 6 to 10 weeks on site once cabinets and countertops have been ordered, and longer when walls move or the slab is opened. Design, selections, and ordering add several weeks before that. The sequence:
- Demolition and protection of the rest of the house.
- Framing changes, and beam installation if a wall comes down.
- Plumbing, gas, and electrical rough-in, then rough inspections.
- Slab patch or subfloor repair, drywall, and paint prep.
- Cabinet installation, then countertop templating.
- Countertop installation, backsplash tile, and flooring transitions.
- Fixtures, appliances, lighting trim, and final inspections.
- Walkthrough and punch list.
The number one cause of a kitchen running long is a selection made late, so our schedule locks selections before demolition. One project manager runs the site and sends you a weekly written photo update, and the job closes with a walkthrough, a punch list, and a care guide for your counters and cabinet finishes. The full picture of how we run a job is at /process/.
Kitchens across Dallas, from the M Streets to Far North Dallas.
The right kitchen depends on the house. In Preston Hollow and University Park, kitchens often expand into adjacent formal rooms and connect to outdoor living. In Lake Highlands, Lochwood, and Casa Linda ranches, the job is usually opening the kitchen to the den and dealing with cast iron under the slab. In the M Streets, Hollywood Heights, and Kessler Park, kitchens were built small and separate, and the project balances a modern plan against the character that made you buy the house. In Uptown townhomes, the HOA and the shared walls shape the plan. In Far North Dallas, the footprint is usually fine and everything inside it is ready for replacement.
Kitchen work sits under our general construction category, pairs naturally with bathroom remodeling, and often grows into whole-home remodeling or a home addition when the family wants more than the current footprint allows. Finished work is at /projects/. We run the same process from our Plano headquarters across the metro: start with Plano or Fort Worth, or go straight to kitchen remodeling in Plano and kitchen remodeling in Fort Worth.
How we price it.
After design, you get a fixed-scope proposal that lists the work item by item: demolition, framing, each trade’s rough-in and trim, cabinets, countertops, tile, and finishes. Selections that aren’t final yet are carried as allowances with a stated amount each, so you can see where the budget is going and adjust before we order. If a selection comes in above or below its allowance, the difference is reconciled in writing.
Anything that changes after signing gets a written change order with the cost, the schedule impact, and a description of what’s added or removed. You sign before we proceed. Payments follow a draw schedule tied to milestones, and each draw comes with lien releases from the trades paid on the prior one.
Think Massive. Build Smart. If your kitchen is the room you’ve been living around instead of in, book a consultation. We’ll measure it, talk through the wall, the island, and the triangle, and show you the 3D model before anything gets ordered. Book a consultation.
What's included.
- Layout redesign, including island additions and wall removal
- Stock, semi-custom, and custom cabinetry specified to your budget and layout
- Countertop templating and installation in quartz, granite, marble, or solid surface
- Layered lighting plan: ambient, task, and accent, with dimming
- Electrical upgrades and dedicated circuits for modern appliances
- Plumbing and gas relocation, including under-slab work
- Ventilation sized to the range and ducted outside
- Tile backsplash, flooring transitions, and trim
- Permits and inspections through City of Dallas Development Services
- 3D visualization of the finished kitchen before ordering
How the project runs.
- Consultation and kitchen walk. We meet in your kitchen, watch how you move through it, and measure everything. We check the panel, find the drain and supply lines, confirm the foundation type, and look at which walls carry load, so the design starts from what the house can actually do.
- Layout design and 3D visualization. We draw 2 or 3 layout options, then build a 3D model of the one you choose so you can see the island clearances, cabinet heights, lighting, and finishes from where you'd stand. Revisions happen here, before a single cabinet is ordered.
- Selections and fixed-scope proposal. You choose cabinetry, countertops, tile, fixtures, and lighting with our design team, and we write a fixed-scope proposal with allowances for anything still open. Lead times are confirmed so demolition is scheduled around delivery, not the other way around.
- Permits, demo, and construction. We pull the permits, then run demolition, framing, electrical and plumbing rough-in, inspections, drywall, cabinets, countertops, tile, and trim in sequence. One project manager runs the site and sends you a written photo update every week.
- Walkthrough, punch list, and care guide. We test every drawer, door, outlet, and faucet with you and write down anything that needs attention. The punch list closes before final payment, and you get a care guide for your countertops, cabinet finishes, and appliances.
