Home Advice: Hidden Kitchen Renovation Costs
How much does it cost to remodel a kitchen?
Everybody gets excited about the thought of a kitchen remodel (or at least most people do!). In a typical kitchen renovation project, you can expect most of the costs to go toward the following must-haves: The demolition of the space, the replacement of the kitchen cabinets, the replacement of the plumbing fixtures, and any potential electrical wiring that with the any professional labor costs that might be included. You’ll also need to consider the average cost of whatever new materials you want to apply to the floors, backsplash, and kitchen countertops and kitchen island (if you have one).
Depending on how the size of your kitchen remodel project, both labor and other unexpected costs can stretch your project cost beyond its breaking point. Many homeowners go into a kitchen remodel without realizing how their choices of finished products will affect the final cost of the project. These include the average cost per square foot of tiles, flooring, and countertops. Custom or semi-custom cabinets or even simple pre-made cabinets all add to your budget. So it is important to try to keep in mind these hidden costs are important to bear in mind when planning your kitchen renovation. Approaching kitchen remodelers for free estimates is a good way to establish a base cost and work with your funds from there.
Here are some of the hidden costs you may run into:
1. Wasted Materials
's extremely important to identify your desired kitchen remodel end goal before you begin to demo any space in your home. Consider what you want the space to look like when the kitchen remodel is complete and the final touches are put into place.
If you are unsure of where you want your kitchen renovation to end up, you stand the risk of demolishing, removing, or trashing items that you or your kitchen remodel contractor would need or could reuse in the newly designed space.
For example, instead of gutting all of your kitchen cabinets – especially if they are solidly constructed and the overall configuration of your kitchen layout is correct – you can make cosmetic changes to their appearance to give them a more custom or semi-custom look. Cosmetic changes like repainting the kitchen cabinets and changing the hardware while keeping your current floor plan and kitchen countertops can mean that your project falls between $3,000 and $5,000, especially if you are a do-it-yourself type home owner. A simple renovation like this is a budget-friendly choice that can make big impact in a small kitchen.
If you are in search of a more streamlined look in your kitchen, you might be able to simply refinish the doors or replace them at a fraction of what you would spend to have all new custom cabinets built for the kitchen. Having the doors on your kitchen cabinets replaced can add another $2,000 to your project budget.
Our sample homeowners moved their sink from the wall under the window to the kitchen island. Making this change required more extensive plumbing work than if they had kept that feature in its original place. Due to the fact that new plumbing and rough-in pieces had to be installed to connect the new sink to the water source. This change alone increased the kitchen remodel cost increased by about $2,500, even before any high-end fixtures or finishings were installed.
Many homeowners are shocked at how moving the sink can be a major cost driver, because they underestimate the material and labor costs this adds to the kitchen remodel project budget.
So if your new kitchen design includes rearranging of fixtures and plumbing, make sure the move is worth the cost it will take to ensure a professional-grade result.
It is important to understand exactly how your new kitchen appliance selections will work with your existing cabinetry. If not, you could potentially choose appliances that don't fit.
This cost impact can be seen in the form of time wasted because of having to purchase, return, and replace appliances, forfeited delivery and installation fees for those replacements (which can sometimes represent up to $300 in cost), or worst-case scenario having some of the cabinets remade to fit a new appliance that you’ve fallen in love with or can’t return (which represent thousands of dollars in costs).
These are just some of the hidden costs you can find in kitchen renovation projects, but having a very clear picture of where you want to wind up can help you develop a contingency plan for how to keep these costs from blowing your budget.
Award-winning, Baton Rouge-based interior designer and content creator Arianne Bellizaire has been named a High Point Market Authority Style Spotter (2015), Perlick Ambassador of Cool (2017), Villeroy & Boch Color Challenge Winner (2017), Modenus Blog Tour invitee (2016 & 2019), and Modenus DesignHound (Spain and London 2016, Surfaces 2018). She was also selected as an Ambassador for NYDC 2020 What's New What's Next. Her work and expertise have been featured in Forbes, Rue Daily, House Beautiful, Good Housekeeping, Business Of Home, and USA Today.
