How to Budget for a Kitchen Renovation
“Be prepared for it to cost more than you planned,” said every single person we talked to about how to budget for a kitchen renovation. And it did. About 25% more than we had planned- but we planned for that, so maybe it wasn’t more than we thought?!?
When you are planning a budget for any renovation, including a kitchen, it is important to expect some unexpecteds, determine what your key priorities are, and know where you can cut back if you need to.
The breakdown of our costs looks like this:
| Category | Percentage of Costs |
|---|---|
| Appliances | 33.28% |
| Cabinets | 25.95% |
| Floors | 7.26% |
| Fixtures & Finishes | 5.80% |
| Stone | 10.75% |
| Window | 1.70% |
| Labor | 14.20% |
| Design Services | 1.05% |
Our Priorities
Our key priorities were appliances and cabinets, and our budget reflects this. We loved our cabinet maker. He is working on cabinets for our flip house now.
Flooring that matched throughout our house was also a priority and we were pleased with Alabama Custom Flooring in Athens. The hardwood flooring that is now throughout almost all of our house and the contractors they used to install it are both high quality.
Worth Every Penny
Design services by Erin Cossey Interiors were worth every penny as was the cost and wait on a larger window unit. We probably saved more money than we paid by utilizing Erin’s design services.
Where We Cut Back
The first marble we found that we liked (but didn’t just love) was about twice the price of what we ended up with, and we like what we ended up with better. So.. when I’m giving suggestions for how to budget for a kitchen renovation, I definitely recommend shopping around for stone and comparing prices on both the material and the labor. We were pleased with Triton and Carroll’s Countertops.
Labor
We got multiple quotes on most sources of labor and subbed it all out ourselves, saving on the cost of a general contractor, which will usually run you about 10-15% of the total cost of the project.
| Type of Work | Percentage of Costs |
|---|---|
| Demo & Framing | 21.71% |
| Sheetrock | 10.28% |
| HVAC (vent hood) | 7.14% |
| Plumbing | 10.88% |
| Electrical | 27.42% |
| Trim and Wood | 14.28% |
| Window Rework | 8.28% |
We will continue to call upon these contractors for labor:
There are a couple of other small one or two people contractors that we really liked – DM us to get their contact info!
Don’t forget to Budget Your Time!
- Initial redesign plans took about a month.
- Finalized plans took an additional month.
- Appliances took six to eight weeks to come in.
- Cabinets took three months from initial deposit to first phase of install.
- From demo to done took three and a half months. It would have taken less time had we ordered the window earlier. What we thought would take two to three weeks to come in took almost ten, which delayed some appliance and countertop installation.
Remember: The finished product is worth it!
