Living Between Template Day and Install Day
People book a countertop replacement expecting a disruptive day. What they get is a disruptive week, because the measuring visit and the installation visit are separated by fabrication, and the kitchen is usually out of service for the whole gap rather than for either visit. Knowing the shape of that week in advance is most of what makes it tolerable.
Why There Is a Gap at All
A template is a precise record of the cabinet run as it actually exists, taken with a laser or a physical pattern. It goes back to the shop, where the slab is cut to that record, the sink cutout is made, the edges are shaped and polished and the faucet holes are drilled. That is machine time, queue time behind other jobs, and handling time for a heavy and brittle piece of stone. Three to seven business days is the ordinary range for a single kitchen. A template taken on a Thursday often means an install the middle of the following week, so the day of the week you template is worth asking about.
What Comes Out, and When
The template has to be taken off bare cabinets in almost every case, because the templater is recording the surface the stone will sit on, including whatever is out of level or out of square after seventy years. That means the tear out happens before the template, not before the install. From the moment the old top leaves you have open cabinet boxes, no sink and no faucet, and that condition lasts through the entire fabrication window. The exception is a few shops that will template over an existing laminate top with a known thickness, which is worth asking about specifically because it can cut days off the outage.
Tear Out on Template Day or Earlier
The usual advice is to schedule the demolition for the same day as the template, as early in that day as possible. Doing it a week ahead only lengthens the time you live without a sink for no benefit. That is realistic for a laminate top. It is not realistic for a mortar bed tile counter, which can take a crew most of a morning and leaves cabinet rails that may need repair before anything can be measured. For those, the honest sequence is demolition and repair first, then the template once the rails are sound, which sometimes means a second day.
Setting Up a Temporary Kitchen
Do this before the sink leaves rather than after. A folding table in the dining room takes the microwave, the toaster oven, the coffee maker and a kettle. The refrigerator stays where it is and stays plugged in. A dish tub, a drying rack and dish soap go next to the bathroom or laundry sink, and a five gallon jug of water saves a lot of walking. Move a week of pantry items out of the base cabinets nearest the work, because those doors will be opening against a crew.
Dust and Pets
Even a clean tear out puts fine dust in the air, and stone install day adds the smell of adhesives and silicone. Cats and dogs should have a room with a closed door, on the far side of the house from the work, with water and a litter box in it, and everyone on the crew should know the door stays shut. That is as much about the front door standing open while heavy pieces are carried in as it is about dust. Cover the couch and anything upholstered in the adjoining room, take down what is hanging on shared walls, and expect to run the vacuum daily rather than once at the end.
A Realistic Day by Day Timeline
For a single kitchen with a laminate top, it usually runs like this. Day one: demolition in the morning, template early afternoon, kitchen closed from then on. Days two through five or six: fabrication at the shop, nothing happens at the house, and this is the stretch that surprises people. Install day: the crew sets and levels the top, bonds the sink, seams and seals, and leaves with instructions not to touch anything. The day after: plumbing reconnected, dishwasher back, kitchen usable. Roughly a week door to door, plus a day or two if the counter was tile on a mortar bed.