What does a typical kitchen remodel cost?
Kitchen remodels are typically a good investment for several reasons. First, they increase the home’s value, allowing you to recapture the money you put into it plus some extra. Remodels can also provide savings in the form of reduced consumption of water, electricity, and gas thanks to upgraded appliances and lighting. Better electrical components and new gas lines can make your home significantly safer for your family. Finally, a kitchen remodel may also create a layout that is more logical for the way your family lives, creating greater efficiency that takes some of the stress out of your daily routine.
Whatever factors have triggered you to plan on remodeling your kitchen, your first question is likely to be whether you can live with the budget. While there is no one-size-fits-all budget for a kitchen remodel, a good rule of thumb is that it will end up somewhere around $150 per square foot. With that said, there are many variables that can pull that cost down or up. Let’s look at some of them.
Are You Remodeling or Renovating?
Many homeowners may answer this question with another question: What’s the difference? While many people describe their kitchen project with both words, contractors will tell you that there is a difference in their meanings.
A renovation is limited to mostly cosmetic steps: new paint, new flooring, upgraded countertops, and so forth. A remodel will include structural elements like adding or removing walls. An easy way to remember is that the root word of “renovate” is the Latin word “nova”, meaning “new”. If you’re just making things new, you’re renovating.
How Deep is Your Remodel?
Not all remodels are created equal. Some involve many expensive upgrades that others don’t require. That’s why it’s so hard to give a simple answer about how much a remodel will cost. Let’s look at which things might be in and which might be out.
Appliances
One of the larger expenditures in either type of kitchen redo is appliances. Quality units will easily run into several thousand dollars. In some situations, the homeowner has recently upgraded appliances because the fridge went on the fritz or the range went out to pasture. A case like that makes kitchen remodeling cost significantly less.
Electrical Work
Another major factor is electrical work. You’ll be able to make your kitchen remodeling cost quite a bit less if you find that the existing wiring, receptacles, and the breaker box itself are in good condition, adequate for the expected load, and up to code. If you can avoid electrical work, you’ll be saving $50 to $100 per hour.
Countertops
Years of scooting toasters and chopping vegetables may have left your countertops looking rough already, leading you to replace them as a stand-alone kitchen upgrade. They may have also gotten retired for an outdated appearance. If you’ve already replaced countertops and are happy with what you have, you can save quite a bit by gently removing and storing them while the rest of the work is done.
Cabinets
There are basically three options here with three different price levels. If your existing cabinets work well, look good, and match your plan, you can stay at the first level and keep them. If they have some cosmetic or aesthetic issues, you can just replace the hardware or maybe step up to replacement of doors and drawer fronts for an intermediate expense. If you’ll be adding new areas of cabinetry or have damaged or broken units, you’ll be all in with entirely new cabinets. Where you fall on this spectrum plays a big part in your kitchen renovation price.
Windows and Doors
Windows and doors can create big costs or big savings. Like the appliances, they may have been upgraded recently, probably with the those in the rest of the house. If the home is fairly new, the units may not need replacement and could have a lifetime warranty. On the other hand, the painted-shut, drafty windows in older homes should definitely be candidates for replacement.
Lighting
If your home has much age on it at all, the lighting could probably use an upgrade. Modern fixtures are more than just more attractive. They are also considerably more energy-efficient and can be configured to optimize their areas of illumination. Within that range, there are lots of different options for lighting. You can put in as many fixtures as you want, and those fixtures can fall anywhere on a broad range of prices.
Plumbing
Your design will play a big part in how far this segment of the budget goes. Some remodels involve adding or relocating sinks, dishwashers, and refrigerators, all of which will require that you run water to a new location in the kitchen. Your plumbing fixtures may also be in the plan; new faucets are significantly more efficient that old ones, allowing you to cut back on your water consumption to the benefit of the planet as well as your project budget.
Design
The depth of your remodel will determine how much it costs to complete the design. If the job is simply a “this-for-that” effort–swapping out cabinets, repainting, and so forth–there will be no design. Other times, design is included in the price, such as with cabinets. If you have a bigger project, though, you may have to hire a designer or even an architect to get everything on paper for the contractors.
Will You Change the Footprint?
When you step into the planning level of a remodeling project, you may find that the available square footage just isn’t enough for what you have in mind. If that’s the case, you may work with your contractor to create some extra space. This may mean removing walls and pushing the kitchen into parts of adjacent rooms. It may even mean expanding the house to make the kitchen bigger.
Not surprisingly, a project of this caliber will cost significantly more than one that is completed inside the space you already have. If you go as far as expanding the house, you will be looking at lots of expense for foundations, footers, exterior walls, and roofing. There may also be building permits and fees to pay. A project of this scale can still be very beneficial in the long run, but you need to come in with your eyes open to the cost.
Where Can You Chip in on Labor?
A big part of the kitchen renovation price will be labor. The work you’ll be getting done is skilled labor that cannot be done at a bargain-basement price. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and flooring installers may all be involved in the job, and you only want to hire reputable people with their insurance and licensing in hand. Substandard work can cause leaky pipes, cracked walls, and all kinds of other problems down the road. Remodeling labor is like many other things: You can pay now or pay later.
With that said, it is possible to shave some of the expense associated with labor by doing some of the work yourself. Of course, you should never undertake anything that you aren’t qualified to do, but jobs like demolition and painting could easily be within your skill set. Another factor to consider is your time frame; you may be quite capable of doing a certain phase of the project, but if you’re only able to chip away at it on evenings and weekends, your slow progress could interfere with the contractor’s overall schedule and lead to delays or even extra costs.
Can You Do All the Work Yourself?
Some people actually have the knowledge and experience to do the entire project themselves with no paid labor. If that’s you, you’ll see a much better budget than the neighbor who has workers on site every day. Of course, this strategy is not without its down side.
First of all, you may not have enough time to do the work. Your available vacation time, evenings, weekends, and holidays may not offer enough hours to get the job done in a timely fashion. Remember that a kitchen remodel will leave you with the loss of some combination of function in your home. How long can you go without water while you struggle with plumbing? How will you cook until the new appliances are in? How long can you tolerate dust, noise, and extension cords running all over the place? How much overtime might you miss at work? What about soccer games, family get-togethers, and just having time to relax? The disruption and inconvenience of the project is a non-cash cost that may easily justify a cash expenditure to get the work done faster.
Whatever your kitchen remodel looks like, you’ll be glad you did it. There’s no question that a quality job will make your home more functional, more valuable, more beautiful, and more affordable. The key is to make the project as painless as possible by carefully planning it and doing everything you can to keep it on budget without cutting corners.
