Budget kitchen reno...how much to expect?

[peach]

We plan to do it almost 100% ourselves. All the plumbing, electrical, installing the cabinets, flooring, tile, etc.

We are planning on removing a small wall and depending on what we find, would hire a pro to come in the move the electrical in the wall and patch the ceiling properly. But my brother is an electrical apprentice and my parents have removed several walls before, so unless we get a nasty surprise I think we can do it on our own too.

I want to use just basic builder grade cabinets, but want to splurge on some sort of solid surface countertops, a wall oven, and a nice backsplash. Everything else - cabinet hardware, taps, lighting, etc. we will bargain hunt for.

Am I totally out to lunch to guesstimate we could do it for around $10k? It's about 4 years away in the grand scheme of things but we are trying to save money toward it and I want a somewhat realistic timeline. I am more encouraged to save if I have a specific goal in mind. "If I save 300 dollars a month, we can do the kitchen in x years" sort of thing."

I know it depends on what we pick, how big the kitchen is, and a million other things. Just ballpark idea of a DIY kitchen on a Home Depot budget...is 10k anywhere realistic?

[tarheels]

Check the link in my siggy. You might find some good numbers there.

I would urge you not to go bargain basement on the cabinets. They're the backbone of the kitchen and do the most work. It's so much more important to have nice cabinets and laminate counters than cheap cabinets and fancy counters.

[kellikans]

I don't know about a full kitchen redo, but we are redoing our countertops with marble ($10/sqft), putting in hardwood floors, a subway tile backsplash and painting the cabinets ourselves. with all of the materials (counters, sink, faucets, garbage disposal, tile, wood, etc.) and labor (demo and installation of counters and floor), we're going to be spending about $6k. we didn't go for super cheap materials (like the sink or faucet), but we didn't go high-end either. we chose stuff that we'll be happy living with for the next 10 years since that's how long we plan on staying here.

[peach]

I don't mean we will get crap Ikea cabinets.
Just that we are not getting custom cabinets built by a cabinet maker. We will buy cabinets that are solid wood doors with a cheaper "box", that's what we had in our last house and we were perfectly happy with it. And will be installing ourselves.

And when I say bargain hunting, I don't mean buying cheap shit, I mean finding amazing deals, coupons, ebaying, etc.

[simpsongal]

Beware of going too cheap on the box too. It's the box that will warp and get the most wear and tear and make your cabinets 10 year ones or 50 year ones.

[crispnclean]

Are you replacing other appliances besides the wall oven? If so, new appliances could eat up a huge chunk of your budget pretty quickly. Heck, even a wall oven will probably be a decent portion of it.

Also, are you replacing the floors?

If the answer to both of those questions is no, I don't think your estimate sounds too far off base, but like you acknowledged, that really depends on how much square footage you're talking.

[SusanBAnthony]

I think 10k sounds reasonable, but I agree that it depends a lot on how high end you got with appliances. N maybe price those out separately?

Worst case you can keep your old fridge for a year or two after you do the Reno, I suppose.

[peach]

Just getting a new wall oven and a dishwasher. The fridge is brand new and high end, so we would keep it.

But we have a stainless steel stove and a dishwasher we would sell, and we will sell the old cabinets as well. And the light fixtures that are not my style but actually new and decent looking.

Flooring will just get "patched" up for the time being and we would run hardwood floors through the entire house the following year.

I am thinking it will probably be closer to 12-15k, because I know that everyone says you always go overbudget with a kitchen reno.

[sjh722]

I just spent about $4,000 on basic cabinets (like you described), $1,000 on laminate counters, and $2300 on appliances (regular range, french door fridge, OTR microwave, d/w - all drastically on sale or from an outlet).

I don't know how much the floors were for just the kitchen since we did the whole house at once.

You might be cutting it close, depending on the size of your kitchen, considering you want separate oven + cooktop (a fancy vent hood will also add to your total) + backsplash + solid surface counters.

[sjh722]

I just read your latest post - if you're keeping some appliances you'll be in a lot better shape. The fridge is the most expensive!

I'm sure you know this, but shop around for cabinets, the prices varied a lot at the different places I checked.

[kaylie]

I've been doing some math on this recently because we want to do a mini kitchen reno before we refi to up our appraised value and help our LTV. These are the numbers I have:

Granite Counters (level 1 or 2) - $2,200 installed
Ceramic tile for floor (~250 sq feet) - $1000 if I DIY, $2,000 if I have it installed
Granite composite sink - $400
Faucet - $750
Backsplash tile - $250

[grey56]

I have been reading a lot online b/c we are planning the same thing - not a super high end kitchen, but not cheap crap. I read to budget NO MORE THAN 15% of your home's value on a kitchen reno. We are going to do the things that can't be changed first (new cabinets, counters, flooring, etc.) but make-do with things that can be changed later (fridge is new-ish but small, stove is brand-new, etc.).

Since our house is ~$200K, 15% is ~$30K. I think cabinets will be around $5-7.5K, counters another $2K (I want quartz or a man-made solid surface), who knows about flooring. I would like to keep it all under $20K. We are going to do this reno in 2014. We are saving all cash, and have $10K now.

Someone on here recommended Cliq Cabinets, so we are probably going with them.

[Deleted]

I have no idea but I'm just coming into say I have builder grade stock cabinets from Lowes. Right in the middle/higher end of avg. I didn't get bargain returned crap but I didn't get high end either.
It's been 8 years and they're great. Still look brand new. In fact I was just at my SILs new house that had "custom" cabinets and mine are better quality..all wood inside instead of that white laminate stuff etc.
Don't discount it just because it isn't "custom."

[wawa]

Dec 6, 2012 8:36:38 GMT -5 @justdairy said:

I have no idea but I'm just coming into say I have builder grade stock cabinets from Lowes. Right in the middle/higher end of avg. I didn't get bargain returned crap but I didn't get high end either.
It's been 8 years and they're great. Still look brand new. In fact I was just at my SILs new house that had "custom" cabinets and mine are better quality..all wood inside instead of that white laminate stuff etc.
Don't discount it just because it isn't "custom."

Agreed. As long as the box is plywood and not any kind of particle board they'll hold up fine.

Particle board shelves will start to sag over time though. And they're pretty standard on mid-low range cabinets.

[decoraholic]

I think we spent about $10K on ours for Ikea cabinets, granite, all new appliances (including an island mount range hood), backsplash, door hardware, crown molding, molding around the peninsula, and light fixtures. I think it is totally doable, but we didn't have any paid labor other than the granite installation. We also did some serious price shopping and bargain hunting, so I think we got pretty good deals on everything.