The room’s systems come before the style
Storage layout, appliance clearances, lighting, ventilation, water and gas lines, and any structural change all have to be settled before finish decisions are locked in.
A complete scope should list
- The actual problem, not just the symptom
- How the rest of the space gets protected
- Material choices and how they interact with existing systems
- Permit, testing, disposal, and cleanup duties
- Exclusions, warranty coverage, and change-order pricing
Sandy Springs context
Very little of the hillside-and-clay picture reaches an interior kitchen, and pretending otherwise would waste the paragraph. What genuinely shapes a Sandy Springs kitchen project is the era and the alteration history of the house. Mid-century ranches were built with compartmented kitchens and load-bearing interior walls, so the open-plan change most people want is a structural question first and a cabinet question second. The complex addition history running through this housing stock matters here too: a kitchen sitting at the seam between original construction and a later addition can involve two framing eras, two electrical vintages and a floor plane that does not quite match, none of which is visible until demolition. The one place outdoor conditions do arrive is the vent run -- on a wooded lot, a range hood needs a real exterior termination rather than a recirculating compromise.