Quick answer
A kitchen spec document is the signed description of exactly what will be built: a dimensioned plan and elevation, a cabinet schedule with every width in millimetres, finish and appliance schedules, priced lines and exclusions. It protects the homeowner because anything missing from it is not in the job. Read it before signing, not after delivery.
Key points
- A kitchen spec is the signed description of the job: dimensioned drawings, a cabinet schedule with widths in millimetres, finish and appliance schedules, priced lines, exclusions.
- It protects the homeowner more than the joiner. Everything on the pages must be delivered at the signed price; everything off the pages is a variation you pay for.
- You can read one properly in ten minutes: drawings first, then widths, then the exclusions list.
- Three checks before signing: dimensions match your actual walls, appliance model numbers rather than types, and a clear who-does-what on plumbing, electrical and disposal.
- Spec, quote and invoice should be one set of lines wearing three hats. If they do not reconcile, ask why before you sign.
The anatomy of a kitchen spec, and the three rows to slow down on.
Two kitchen quotes are sitting on your table. One is an email with a single line, 'supply and install new kitchen as discussed', and a number. The other runs to six pages: a plan drawn to scale, an elevation with heights marked, a list of cabinets with widths in millimetres, finishes named, appliance gaps tied to models, and half a page of exclusions in small type. That second document can feel like paperwork for its own sake. It is the opposite: the only version of the job you can hold anyone to.
This piece walks through what a proper kitchen specification contains, why signing one is in your interest more than the joiner's, and how to read one in ten minutes without pretending to be a quantity surveyor.
What is a kitchen spec document?
A kitchen spec document is the written and drawn description of exactly what will be manufactured and installed: every cabinet, every dimension, every finish, every provision for appliances, and every task that sits inside or outside the price. On a straightforward same-footprint job it might be four pages. However long it runs, the good ones share the same skeleton.
- A dimensioned plan: the kitchen from above, drawn to scale, every run length in millimetres.
- An elevation: the kitchen from the front, with heights marked.
- A cabinet schedule: each unit listed with its width and its role, whether drawer bank, sink base, pantry or corner.
- A finish schedule: door and panel colours, edging, benchtop material, splashback, hardware.
- Appliance provisions: the gaps and services the joinery must allow for, tied to actual models.
- Priced lines: what each element costs, or at minimum how the total is built up.
- Exclusions: the jobs the price does not include, commonly plumbing, electrical, flooring and disposal.
The drawings: plan and elevation, dimensioned in millimetres
An elevation that carries no numbers is a picture. A useful one reads like a recipe: 150 mm toe kick, 720 mm base carcass, benchtop finishing at 900 mm, a 600 mm splashback zone, then 720 mm of upper cabinet, 2,220 mm overall. The plan gives bench depth at 600 mm and shows base cabinets stepping in widths from 150 mm up to 1,000 mm, with 600 mm the default module. When those numbers sit on the drawing, the workshop, the installer and you are all describing the same kitchen.
The plan earns its keep at the walls. Run lengths in millimetres are what get checked against the room, and a spec drawn from approximate measurements stays a polite fiction until someone stands in the kitchen with a tape, which is why site measure versus plan measure is its own subject. On larger jobs the same drawings grow into shop drawings issued for approval, the identical information taken to manufacturing depth.
The schedules: cabinets, finishes, appliances
The cabinet schedule is the spine. Each box appears with its width and its job, and the widths along a run should add up to the run length on the plan. Ten seconds with a phone calculator confirms it. The finish schedule should name real products and colours rather than 'white laminate', because 'white' covers a dozen boards and three gloss levels, and the one you imagined is not automatically the one that arrives.
Appliance provisions are where vague language costs real money. A line that says 'space for dishwasher' is weaker than one that names the model, because the model fixes the width, the under-bench height and where the services land. On volume and social-housing work the appliances are commonly supplied by others, and the spec says so plainly: the joinery leaves the gaps and the services, someone else delivers the fridge and stove. The same clarity serves a homeowner just as well.
Why the spec protects you more than the joiner
It looks back to front. The joiner wrote the document, so surely it defends the joiner. In practice the protection runs the other way. Once the spec is signed, everything on it must be delivered at the signed price: the widths, the named finishes, the soft-close hardware, the glass splashback behind the cooker. Without a spec, the job is whatever the installer remembers agreeing to, and memory tends to favour whoever is holding the tools.
A kitchen without a spec is whatever the installer remembers agreeing to.
The exclusions list does the same work in reverse. A price with no exclusions has not included everything; it has gone quiet about the edges, and the edges are where budgets fail. Plumbing disconnection, the electrician, taking the old kitchen away, patching the floor: each is either in the price, or named as excluded so you can plan for it. A one-number quote hides all of this, which is the whole argument of how to read a kitchen quote and spot the hidden costs.
How to read a spec in ten minutes
- Minutes one to three: the plan. Check each run length against your own tape measure of the room, wall by wall.
- Minutes four and five: the elevation. Find the window, check the splashback zone and upper cabinets clear the sill and the switches.
- Minutes six and seven: the cabinet schedule. Add the widths along each run and confirm they total the plan's run length.
- Minute eight: the finish schedule. Named products and colours, not 'white' and 'laminate'.
- Minute nine: appliance provisions. Model numbers, not categories.
- Minute ten: exclusions. Read every line and decide who is doing each excluded task, and when.
That last minute is where the surprises live. Nobody disputes a cabinet width after install; plenty of people discover on day three that no one owns the plumbing reconnection. Ten minutes with the exclusions beats an awkward phone call from a kitchen with no taps.
The three checks before you sign
First, dimensions against your actual walls. Your tape measure is allowed an opinion, and if your lounge-side wall reads 2,980 mm where the plan says 3,100 mm, raise it now. No manufacturer should cut board from a homeowner's measurements alone; a site measure locks the final dimensions before anything is built, and the spec should say that in writing.
Second, appliance model numbers. Third, who does what: every excluded trade named, every included one confirmed, so demolition day arrives with no orphan tasks. Those three checks take a quarter of an hour and remove most of the ways a kitchen job goes sour.
Spec, quote, invoice: one set of lines, three jobs
Spec, quote and invoice should be the same information wearing three hats. The spec describes the lines, the quote prices them, the invoice bills them, and a signed variation is simply a new line joining the list. Priced from coded lines, the way social-housing packages are built, the three stay reconcilable at a glance. When they drift apart, disputes grow in the gaps, which is why a quote that matches the invoice is worth insisting on before work starts.
| Document | What it does | When to check it |
|---|---|---|
| Spec | Describes exactly what gets built and installed | Before you sign anything |
| Quote | Prices the same lines, states GST and a validity window | Before you accept, line against line with the spec |
| Invoice | Bills the same lines plus any signed variations | Before you pay; it should hold zero surprises |
If a supplier cannot show you the job in this shape, that tells you something about how the final invoice will read. The pipeline either side of the document, from first enquiry to the installer's last day, is mapped in what happens after you request a kitchen quote.
The half hour that protects you
Before signing anything, spend thirty minutes: tape-measure each wall the kitchen touches and write the numbers down, pull the model numbers for every appliance staying or arriving, then read the exclusions out loud to whoever shares the house and assign each excluded job a name. Any gap you find costs nothing to fix today and plenty to fix after manufacture.
If you want to arrive at the conversation already holding the artefact this article describes, the designer on our site produces one: to-scale plan and elevation drawings with every dimension in millimetres, a cabinet schedule you set width by width, and a print-ready spec PDF priced from coded lines. Send it through with your quote request and MTN Kitchens replies within 24 hours with a reference number; a site measure then locks the dimensions before the East Tāmaki workshop cuts a single panel.
Frequently asked questions
What is a kitchen spec document?
It is the signed written-and-drawn description of a kitchen job: a dimensioned plan and elevation, a cabinet schedule listing every unit and width in millimetres, finish and appliance schedules, priced lines and an exclusions list. It defines exactly what will be manufactured and installed for the agreed price, so both sides can point at the same pages when questions come up.
What should a kitchen spec include?
Seven things: a to-scale plan with run lengths in millimetres, an elevation with heights, a cabinet schedule with each unit's width and role, a finish schedule naming real products and colours, appliance provisions tied to model numbers, priced lines showing how the total builds up, and an exclusions list naming the tasks outside the price, typically plumbing, electrical, flooring and disposal.
What is the difference between a kitchen spec and a quote?
The spec describes the job; the quote prices it. They should carry the same lines, so every cabinet, finish and provision on the spec has a matching entry in the price build-up. The invoice later bills those same lines plus any signed variations. When the three documents share one structure, you can reconcile them in minutes and disputes have nowhere to grow.
What should I check before signing a kitchen spec?
Three things. Check the plan's run lengths against your own tape measure of the room. Check appliance provisions carry model numbers, not types, because models fix the widths and services the joinery is built around. And check the exclusions list line by line, assigning every excluded task, plumbing, electrical, disposal, flooring, to a named person before demolition day.
Do I need a spec for a small kitchen renovation?
Yes. A same-footprint galley swap deserves the same pages as a big renovation, just fewer of them. Small jobs still involve widths that must fit walls, finishes that must match what you imagined, and excluded trades someone must organise. The spec might be four pages instead of ten, and it prevents the same arguments either way.
What are typical exclusions on a kitchen spec?
Plumbing disconnection and reconnection, electrical work, flooring, wall repairs behind the old kitchen, painting, tiling, appliance supply and removal of the old kitchen. None of these being excluded is a problem in itself; the problem is an exclusion nobody read. Each excluded task needs an owner and a slot in the timeline before work starts.
Can the spec change after I sign it?
Yes, through a written variation: a new or amended line with its own price, agreed before the work happens. What a signed spec prevents is silent change, where the job drifts from what you agreed and the difference surfaces on the invoice. Before manufacture, changes are usually cheap or free. After the board is cut, the same change costs real money.