Kitchen Renovation Budgets – How to Stay on Track

Kitchen renovation budgets can be a tricky thing to determine if you’ve never done one before, and in our experience, adding is a lot easier than subtracting. If you worry about being surprised by a high quote, knowing what some of the budget busters are before you go in can help you determine your must-haves, your nice-to-haves and the extras you can do without.

When you’re planning a kitchen renovation, it’s common to gather quotes from a few different companies, and everyone has a different method of calculating the cost. At Gateway our goal is to be as accurate as possible right from the initial quote, and transparent about the details, but we still find that often people are surprised about some of the individual costs and how they add up.

In this article we’ll explore some of the unexpected costs our customers have been surprised by so you can feel more confident when setting the budget for your kitchen renovation.

Kitchen Reno Budget Buster: Plumbing and electrical changes

Change is good, and when you’re starting a major renovation, it can be tempting to make changes for the sake of changes, but it’s best to be strategic about which ones you’re making so you don’t blow your budget unnecessarily. Drastically changing the layout of your appliances and fixtures can make your kitchen feel like a whole new space, and if you’re already changing the cabinetry, it’s the right time to do it, but we recommend being smart about it, especially if your budget has little wiggle room.

Trade work like plumbing and electrical can add up very quickly when you understand the costs. For plumbing alone, a basic kitchen project with minimal alterations can start at $900 and go up from there, quickly reaching upwards of $2000. For electrical, costs for a kitchen renovation can range between $1000-3000.

*How do we choose which tradespeople to work with? Great question! At Gateway value is important to us, but we also choose to balance the cost with high-calibre workmanship, reliability and integrity. We have worked with many of our tradespeople for decades and in order for us to allow anyone to enter your home under our name, we need to trust them and expect a high level of professionalism. This tends to result in a higher cost than hiring your own tradesperson, but it’s important to us that you can rely on them to respect your home, do their work precisely and keep your project on schedule.

Another point to remember when making a budget…  doing less might not actually help you save money. Most tradespeople have what are called “Trade Minimums” or a minimum cost for them to come out to your jobsite. Whether the actual work you require has that value or not doesn’t matter, you’re going to end up paying the minimum.

Kitchen Reno Budget Buster: Add-ons and Special Features

We know you’ve seen them on Instagram reels and we love a good storage add-on too, but added features like pull-outs, sliding shelves, appliance lifts, organizers and lazy-susans can make your kitchen renovation costs skyrocket quickly. Even though they’re hidden from view most of the time, the hardware and mechanics behind those handy gizmos can be pretty expensive, and when you start adding all of them, you’ll find your budget start to go sideways.

*Note: we know that there are cheaper versions available for many of these items, but in our experience, many of them are flimsy, don’t move smoothly or have cheaper parts that are susceptible to breakage. At Gateway Kitchen + Bath, we stake our reputation on building cabinetry that will last for the long haul and the hardware we offer is chosen based on what we believe will give you the best overall experience and longevity.

Kitchen Reno Budget Buster: Taking out a wall

Opening up a space can change the entire look and flow of your home, and is often what gets people started on a kitchen renovation in the first place. Whether you’re taking out a wall to make use of an under-utilized space (formal dining room?) or just changing the layout and footprint of your home to something that suits you better, the final results can be impressive. However, be prepared for the cost.

Not all walls are created equally, and it’s rare that a wall is just a wall. Many systems that keep your home working properly are hidden inside walls—HVAC, electrical and plumbing to name the major ones. In order to remove a wall that has wires or pipes or ducts running through it, we’ll need to remove, relocate or rethink.  If you’re considering removing a wall, check for outlets, heat registers, or cold-air-returns to get an idea of what systems might be hiding inside. If you can track your home’s plumbing, even better. If not, we can help!

Some walls (called “load bearing walls”) are crucial for the structure of your home and help to carry the weight of the roof or any floors above. Removing a load-bearing wall generally requires that a beam is added into the ceiling to support the weight that the wall would have held. If you aren’t sure which walls in your home might be load-bearing, there is an easy trick to help you narrow it down. If you have an unfinished basement ceiling (or a suspended ceiling so you can pop out a tile), take a look at which direction the floor joists are running. Load-bearing walls would be the walls that run perpendicular to your floor joists. So if your floor joists are running from the front of your home to the back… the load bearing walls would be the major walls that go from one side to the other.

As far as the cost of removing a wall goes, there are a lot of factors as we described above, but depending on the size and any utilities that need to be moved, or whether or not the wall is load-bearing, the typical cost of removing a wall can range from $1500 to $6000

There are some budget busters that are easier to pinpoint in an article like this, and others that are impossible to determine the cost of prior to starting a renovation project. When we do an initial quote, we price out every piece that will take your project from conception to completion, and that is what we present to you. Under normal circumstances, that cost will not change as the renovation progresses.

Now, it’s important to note that there CAN be additional costs added during the process, some can be controlled by you and others can’t, but whenever something arises that together we weren’t expecting, we will work through it honestly and make the changes necessary to ensure that you’re happy with the outcome.  The next three factors fall into this category:

Kitchen Reno Budget Buster: Unexpected Complications

While we do everything we can to help you predict what might be behind your walls based on our experience and the age of your home, we are still sometimes surprised (especially if there has been a prior renovation at some point).

When uncovering something that does not comply with current building codes, (old wiring or plumbing) you are required to update them to bring them into compliance. We have also opened walls to discover things that could be dangerous if left as is (think water-damaged or rotting structural supports or rodent-damaged wiring that could be a fire hazard).

There’s usually not much that can be done to prevent budget overruns in this area, because it’s sometimes impossible to know until you open the wall, but knowing the potential and building some room into your budget is a smart plan if you need to hold to a firm amount. If a complication does arise during your renovation our Customer Care Team will thoroughly and carefully discuss your options so you can come to a solution that works best.

Kitchen Reno Budget Buster: The “while we’re at it” mentality

There is so much benefit to adding things to your renovation plan “while you’re at it” that it can sometimes be difficult to resist, especially when you’re renovating something as connected to the rest of your house as your kitchen.

The overall flow of your home is such an important focus when we help you plan the design of your kitchen that it usually DOES make sense to take a hard look at some of the more continuous finishes. For example, you might want to continue new kitchen flooring into other areas of your home, or update window trim or baseboards to match the new style you have in your kitchen. Replacing an older kitchen window before you put brand new tile around it makes complete sense.

While it generally works out to be cheaper in the long run to do everything at once, this can also cause a modest budget to go a little haywire. Again, doing your research and being realistic with yourself about what you’d like to accomplish are the first steps to keeping your budget under control.

Kitchen Reno Budget Buster: Changing your mind

Obviously, changing your mind mid-project is sometimes very necessary. If you see that first coat of paint go on the wall and realize you hate it, the time to change it is right away. Please don’t ever think you’ll probably grow to despise it less or that you don’t want to be a bother. The last thing we want is for you to not really like something you invested so much into. Just know that there are costs (both time and money) associated with making last minute changes, (especially if there are a lot of them).

To minimize the costs associated with changing your mind:

• Take some extra time with your finish samples.
• Put paint swatches on the wall and look at them at different times of day and under multiple lighting conditions.
• Take tile and flooring samples home and see how they look in your space.
• Plan plan plan. Explore as many options as you can and get as close as possible to your goals before the renovation starts.
• Be honest with yourself. Do you actually like what you’re choosing? Do you feel pressured in some way to choose something that isn’t your favourite, or something that might not benefit your lifestyle the way you’d like it to?
• Be open and honest with us. This is your home and while we’re happy to make suggestions, please never feel like you are required to choose anything because we thought it would be a good idea. If you’re not feeling something, we’ll help you find something else!

We hope this article helps you as you try to narrow down an appropriate budget range for your project, or at least get you thinking about how the costs work. We’re always looking for ways to provide as much information as we can so you can be confident in your choices whether you choose us for your renovation or not.

If you are thinking about starting a kitchen renovation and would like to talk to a member of our Design Team to explore options, we offer a free one-hour initial consultation where we can take a look at your project, explore samples and get more precise about what a reasonable budget looks like for you. To connect with us, you can use the contact form below, or schedule an appointment for a time that suits you using our online booking calendar.

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