Kitchen Design - A Little Bit of Sticker Shock

If you have been following my blog, you know that we want to redo our kitchen. Yesterday my daughter and I visited The Home Depot and sat down with one of their certified kitchen designers. Here is what we learned:

The Budget:

When you budget for a new kitchen, plan to spend 5% - 15% of the home's total value
One third of the budget will be spent on cabinets
One third will be spent on labor
And finally, one third will be spent on everything else including faucets, appliances, sinks, countertops, appliances, flooring, backsplash and lighting

The bad news is that cabinets cost way more than I had anticipated and that labor costs totally blew me out of the water but the good news is that we don't need appliances (although we are going to try and squeeze in a new range); we don't need flooring, faucets, or lighting. Lighting would be nice but it is just not in the budget. If we demo ourselves we can save between $1000 and $1500. I think we will demo ourselves!

Time Frame:

How long will it take?

Interesting that once the cabinets are ordered, they take anywhere from 4 - 6 weeks to come in. That's fine because you don't demo until a date is scheduled for the work. Cabinet installation will take about 2 days. Not bad, I thought. However, the bad news is that once the cabinets are installed, the countertop people come in and do their thing. They measure and make a template. Installation of the countertop will happen 20 - 30 days later. So basically you are without a kitchen for a month give or take.

Our New Wish List: