How to Budget a Kitchen

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When budgeting for a kitchen you need to figure out what is a reasonable amount to spend on your kitchen. If Spending 50,000 dollars on a kitchen in a house that cost 90,000 then it is safe to say your over doing it. A good rule of thumb is 20% or less of a homes value for a kitchen budget.

As an example we will take a middle of the road house that is worth $305,000. 20% of $305,000 is around $60,000, seems a bit much when you think about it.  Maybe we'll start with 50,000 for a start in your kitchen pricing which equals around 16%. 50,000 sounds like a lot to but is easy to do if not doing any of the work yourself, and using upper end materials. Please visit the How to Save Money Kitchen Remodeling page for kitchen remodeling ideas with a skimpy budget.

Let's say you have $50,000 set aside just for a kitchen remodel. Saving a chunk for unseen problems, design changes, or material upgrades is a must. 20% off of your $50,000 = $40,000 to be divided up on the different labor and materials categories. Depending on what is important to you will decide how much gets spent where. To get an idea of the cost of each of the different categories you need to start pricing out the materials, and getting bids on the labor. Putting together an accurate kitchen remodeling budget is a bit of work. 

17.5% Appliances = $7000
2%   Paint/Drywall = $800
4%   Plumbing = $1600
17.5% Counter tops = $7000
5%   Electrical = $2000
12% Back splash/Flooring = $4800
42% Cabinets = $17,600

All this equals a $40,000 kitchen budget for materials, and labor.