A kitchen can be the most expensive room to remodel in your home, and even partial upgrades like painting the existing cabinets and walls, replacing the sink, or upgrading the electrical system can cost thousands. If you have to knock down walls, rearrange the layout, buy new appliances, and add cabinets and countertops, the price of your kitchen remodel can skyrocket. So before hiring a pro or tackling the job yourself, read our spend-smart tips—from easy upgrades to a total gut renovation—and get the kitchen you dreams of that fits within your budget.
Budget-Friendly Strategies for Your Kitchen Remodel
Paint and Save on Cabinets
New cabinetry can account for between 30% and 40% of your kitchen remodel costs. So, if you’re happy with their location and functionality, consider painting your cabinets instead of replacing them. It’s a fairly labor-intensive but doable DIY project, and your wallet will thank you. Even hiring a painting pro will cost you a fraction of new custom cabinets.
Style Tip: For a fresh, airy look, remove the doors of some uppers to create open shelving.
Splurge on a Quality Faucet
The faucet is the hardest working part of the kitchen, so go for quality and convenience—meaning a premium brand and single-handle operation. If your sink is in front of a window, check the faucet and handle clearances to make sure it fits—and you won’t bash your knuckles on the sill. When choosing a sink to partner with it, simple is best. Go for a single basin, as big as you can fit and no deeper than 10 inches so you aren’t forced to stoop to do the dishes.
Prep Before You Paint
Whether you’re doing it yourself or want to monitor your painter, these tips will help you get your painting job done right.
- The sheen (or shininess) of the finish impacts how easy it is to clean. Go for semi-gloss on all trim, satin for painted cabinets, and eggshell for walls.
- Prep before you pick up a paintbrush. No amount of paint or primer will cover up cracked walls or nail holes. Sand out uneven spots, fill nail holes, and caulk all seams. If you’ve hired a team, make sure your contractor clarifies who is responsible for doing that work.
- The best time to paint your kitchen comes earlier than you might think. Do it before the cabinets and backsplash go on the walls to reduce labor costs, eliminate paint drips on the cabinets and tiles, and ensure a perfect line where they meet the wall.
Choose a Functional Backsplash
Think of the section of wall between the countertop and the cabinets as a canvas on which you can express your personality. Subway tiles offer a traditional look unless they are oversized. You can lay them vertically or arrange them in a herringbone pattern. Tiny mosaic patterns are pretty, but the grout lines are harder to clean.
Of course, there are many other options, including glass, metal, stone, mosaic, embossed ceramic, and other tiles—and non-tile options such as beadboard paneling or metal ceiling tiles. Choose something that reflects your taste but that’s also widely appealing and easy to maintain so it won’t turn off buyers if you put the house on the market someday.
Don’t Scrimp on Lighting
There are three different types of light fixtures to choose from for your kitchen. All of them will be useful, but if you can have one type of fixture doing double duty, you can save some money.
- Recessed ceiling fixtures: Install these over open floors pace to provide ambient light where people will stand and work
- Under-cabinet lighting: Use this to provide task lighting over the countertops—and to highlight the countertop, backsplash, and cabinetry when it’s the only light that’s on
- Pendants/ceiling fixtures: Brighten work zones like islands, peninsulas, and sinks with decorative pendants that provide diffuse light without creating shadows
Think About Wood-Look Flooring Alternatives
Wood offers natural, traditional beauty, but it scratches, dents, and wears under kitchen conditions—and it’s expensive. Easy-to-clean porcelain tile comes in a wide range of designs, including convincing stone and wood looks, but most things that drop on porcelain will break.
Consider softer alternatives such as luxury vinyl and laminate flooring (shown here). These options are durable, comparatively soft and forgiving, and come in a wide range of wood looks that people may think is the real thing. Most importantly, it’s a lot less expensive than real hardwood.
How To Set a Budget for a Major Kitchen Remodel
Three factors should come into play when determining how much to spend on your kitchen remodel:
- How much you must pay to get the kitchen you want, and what you can afford.
- The quality of kitchens in other houses in your neighborhood.
- How long you plan to stay in your home. If you’re looking for payback at resale, consider the value of your kitchen as a percentage of your overall house value.
Tips For a Kitchen Gut Job
Tearing everything down to the framing makes it easy to change the locations and sizes of doors and windows, run new electrical, plumbing, and heating and cooling lines, identify and repair any rot or insect damage, and insulate.
But demolition labor, disposal of the old materials, and replacement of the wallboard and trim will add significantly to your project costs. Talk to your contractor about the pros and cons for your particular project. If you do decide to proceed with a gut job, these tips can help.
Insulate Well Before Putting Up Walls
Spray foam insulation provides the best block against outside temperatures and drafts, but if you’ve gutted the kitchen, you also have the lower-cost option of using fiberglass batt insulation or stone wool—potentially saving thousands of dollars.
Another step before the drywall goes up is to make sure your contractor furs out the ceiling to make it perfectly flat (if the joists aren’t aligned) and uses only screws (no nails) to install the wallboard to reduce the risk of nail pops.
Get the Look of High-End Cabinets for Less
Unless you’re looking for something truly offbeat, you can find the cabinet look you want without the high cost of custom cabinets—which are made to order to your exact design and size specs.
Consider stock cabinets, which are the least expensive and fastest delivered. Each manufacturer offers a limited menu of styles and finishes in 3-inch width increments. The middle-ground choice is semi-custom cabinets, which are made to order from a company’s established designs and finishes, in 1-inch size increments.
Invest in New Windows
You don’t need to gut-renovate your kitchen to replace the windows and doors, but relocating them—or making them bigger—will require down-to-the-studs demolition, at least in those areas.
The cost of replacing windows can pay off because it will improve your energy efficiency. Don’t make the mistake of swapping out high-quality wood windows for cheap vinyl replacements, however, especially in an older home with lots of character.
Our Conclusion
A kitchen remodel is one of the most expensive home improvement projects you can do. Depending on what needs to be done, however, you can save some time and money. Things like painting the cabinets instead of replacing them and using lower-cost materials for less essential fixtures and features can go a long way toward saving you money.