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Design-build kitchens, one in-house team, Fairfax and Loudoun County

Full kitchen remodels, layout changes and full guts, designed in 3D, permitted and built by one in-house team. EA Home Design has completed close to 2,000 remodels across Fairfax and Loudoun County since 2009, from a design studio and showroom in Sterling, and holds four national design awards, including 2026 Best Kitchen Design from Möbel.

Updated October 2026

Most kitchens we remodel in Northern Virginia were built for a different way of living. The 1970s to 1990s houses of Fairfax, Reston, Vienna and Sterling were given kitchens designed as separate workrooms, closed off from the family room. The 1990s and 2000s houses of Ashburn, Brambleton and South Riding are structurally simpler but were finished builder grade; in Ashburn most kitchens came straight from the builder’s option sheet. The work is different in each, but the questions are the same: what the room has to do, whether the layout stays or changes, and what that means for the walls, the plumbing and the wiring behind the finishes. The scope below is what we design and build.

Most requests to open a kitchen come down to one wall, and the first question is whether it carries load. In Reston’s original 1970s and 1980s layouts it usually does. A load bearing wall comes out only with an engineered beam, sized by a structural engineer, to replace it, and that adds a structural permit, a framing inspection before the walls close, and real cost to the budget. That is why two kitchens that look alike in photos can be priced very differently. On our Reston kitchen it was worth it: the closed original layout opened to the living space, and the build ran about 10 weeks.

Whether the wall comes out, and how far the kitchen opens, is decided in design from the house itself, with the engineer’s answer in hand, before anything is priced. Moving the sink, the range or the island moves plumbing, gas or wiring with it, and that needs a permit even when the cabinets go back in the same place. Our open concept against traditional layout guide weighs the two layouts in detail.

A kitchen permit is triggered by the systems, not by the size of the job. New or relocated wiring, plumbing, gas, ductwork or structure needs one. Paint, flooring over a sound subfloor, counters, a backsplash and cabinets replaced in the same footprint with the same connections do not. The trap is the remodel that keeps the footprint but adds circuits: the cabinets go back where they were, nobody applies, and the new circuits were always the permit.

Which office issues it depends on the address, not the mailing name. Fairfax County reviews kitchen permits through its PLUS portal, but the City of Fairfax and the City of Falls Church run their own building departments, and the Town of Herndon has its own inspections office. The Town of Vienna does not: Fairfax County is the building official for Vienna addresses, and the Town reviews only work that changes the outside of the house. In Loudoun County the county issues every building permit through LandMARC, the towns included, but inside the Town of Leesburg a Town zoning permit comes first, and Purcellville, Middleburg and the smaller towns have zoning offices of their own.

A standard kitchen takes one to three weeks to approve in either county. Expect a rough electrical and a rough plumbing inspection before the walls close, a framing inspection if a wall moved, and a final once the fixtures work. We file the permit, answer the review questions and schedule every inspection into the build. Our kitchen permit guide sets out exactly which changes trigger a permit, and our permits and inspections checklist walks through what each inspection looks at.

Across the ten kitchens in our case studies, construction ran from about 6 weeks in Sterling and Leesburg to about 11 weeks in McLean, where the work was a full gut with a new layout. The full guts in Vienna and Great Falls ran about 9 and 10 weeks. Before construction, design and selections take their own time, and a permit adds one to three weeks of review. A pull-and-replace kitchen, with new cabinets and counters in the same footprint, can be done in as little as 2 weeks, depending on the final design. Whatever the scope, your completion date goes in your contract. Our kitchen remodel timeline guide walks through each phase.

Most families stay in the house. The kitchen itself is out of use for most of the build, so we tell every client to set up a temporary kitchen for six to eight weeks, and we tell them before the schedule is signed, because it matters more to daily life than most people expect. Plastic containment walls seal the work zone from dust and noise, and the written schedule shows when the kitchen goes out of use and when it comes back.

Each town asks something different of a kitchen. In McLean, a teardown market where new construction rises next to mid-century homes, buyers and appraisers notice the difference between builder grade and custom immediately, and the kitchen has to meet that standard. In Great Falls the kitchens are rarely small; the risk is a large room with a dated layout that feels empty rather than grand. Reston’s planned community rewards restraint: clean lines and materials that agree with the house. In the City of Fairfax an independent building department runs its own inspections, and the schedule is built around them. Ashburn’s planned communities are full of builder package kitchens ready to be taken well past them. And in Sterling, our home town, we have remodeled more kitchens than anywhere else.

We design and build kitchens across Fairfax County and Loudoun County, and in nearby Prince William County and Arlington, from our studio and showroom at 44225 Mercure Circle in Sterling. Every kitchen town page is listed further down this page. Planning more than the kitchen? See bathroom remodeling, whole home remodeling and home additions.

Why homeowners choose EA

2026 Best Kitchen Design from Möbel, a 2026 Design Award from Crystal Cabinet Works, and Waypoint’s Best Kitchen Design in 2016 and Best Bathroom Design in 2021. Virginia Class A licensed (#2705157182), with close to 2,000 remodels complete.

I had an exceptional experience working with EA Home Design to redesign my kitchen. From the initial consultation to the final installation, their team demonstrated professionalism and creativity.

Iman, a verified EA Home Design kitchen client

A free in-home design consultation comes first: a designer measures the kitchen and talks through how you use it, and you see the new layout in 3D with a realistic price for your scope before any commitment.

Fairfax County and Loudoun County, from our Sterling studio.