Establishing Your Kitchen Remodeling Budget

For those who want to focus on dollars first and kitchen features second, there are two basic questions that will help set an overall budget.

• How long do you plan to live in the home?
• If you cut back on your remodeling budget, how might you use the money?

If you are not planning to stay in the home at least five years, the remodeling budget should lean towards the lower end of the range. It’s simply harder to recover a remodeling investment in a shorter period of time. And of course, the shorter your time in the home, the less time you’ll have to enjoy the space with friends and family.

Another consideration is how the money might be used if you chose to steal ten or twenty thousand from the renovation budget. Would the $10,000 saved by downgrading your expectations be enjoyed more traveling to Europe or perhaps sitting in your retirement account?

Here’s My Budget and This is What I Want

Once an overall budget has been established, our suggestion is to visit with a designer. To worry about how much you will spend on cabinetry or appliances at this stage is putting the cart before the horse. A skilled kitchen designer can take any reasonable budget and optimize it against your list of needs and wants. This is where the experience and expertise of a Certified Kitchen Designer (CKD) really makes a difference.

That being said, reality TV has led us to believe that all of our wishes can be met, no matter the budget and often in 30 minutes! And truthfully, anyone looking to remodel their kitchen wants to get at least an inkling of how much they can spend on a new range or marble countertop.

Kitchen Budget Calculators and Worksheets

To scratch the “what if?” itch, below you will find a selection of worksheets that will allow you to model a number of budget scenarios. To get you started, here are the 2019 NKBA average expenditures by category.