Sharing the budget details of our Kitchen reno feels quite vulnerable but I love to be transparent about cost because I believe that knowing the details lets you have a clearer goal of what’s possible, so let’s get into it.

For anyone new, we bought this house in December 2023 and we knew that we would want to make some big renovations right away – either kitchen reno or basement reno so we got a renovation loan with our mortgage to make this accessible right away. After the mortgage numbers were worked out we had approx $43K as our renovation loan. The loan also came with a quick timeline to have the work done so we did our best to get quotes and research costs before and right after moving in. I had done my best in a short timeline and in my head we would be fine with this amount or just slightly over (we had some savings as a contingency in case things came up.)

The cabinet cost was our biggest expense and in any kitchen reno IT SHOULD be. Initially, I was still on budget but my design got a little more detailed and we added a few custom cabinets, but they are ones we use every day so it was worth it!

A quick recap of the renovations we had done: demoed the old kitchen, had new electrical run, added some plumbing for new appliances, built a couple of walls to case the entry to the family room, and then had all the kitchen details installed. If you want more final photos head to the Kitchen Reveal post.

Before I list the line items I should note that a few things sent us up on the budget from my initial estimations: I fell in love with a more expensive quartz and splurged on it, we added some custom details to the cabinets, hired out part of the flooring installation when we were having issues with it, and we hired out the tile installation. We were lucky there were no mold or structural issues that needed extra money, so for the most part, the items we went over were our choice.

Alright here are the number details.

Cabinet Fabrication – $24,156.88

My initial quote was around $21k but after adding in some organizers and drawers it added up quickly. It was so worth it to have a quality product and NOT have to build it! For the amount of cabinets we wanted IKEA was still about $20k and then I would still have to build and install them. No thanks!

Cabinet Install – $3800

Quartz Counter Tops – $8000

Appliances – $5877.82 (Fridge, stove, dishwasher and hood vent)

Electrical work – $2000 (New pot lights and pendants and plugs)

Plumbing – $200 (Moved water line and ran water line to Fridge)

Framing and Finishing on walls – $1000 (Framed two small walls and mud/taped drywall)

Flooring and Installation – $2200 (We changed the flooring in the whole main floor but this is the portion for the kitchen)

Paint – $200 (Again I did this to every room but only used about this much in the kitchen)

Sink and Faucet – $858

Tile and Installation – $1141.01

Light Fixtures – $474 (Pendants)

Bench Cushion Fabric and Supplies – $104.90

Island Stool – $125.98 (Found 4 for this price total!)

MISC supplies – $1123.32 (caulk, tape, tools, baseboard etc)

GRAND TOTAL : $51,505.00

Now you may be thinking woah that’s a lot! And it is, but I will add to that because I decided to be my own “General Contractor” and manage all the tradespeople myself I was able to save us another $20-30k on that alone! We considered having someone else in charge of it for our sanity and had several quotes from a few companies but most were around 60-80K AND that didn’t even cover all the things we wanted done. ( I like to remind my husband of those savings when he worries about going over budget haha.)

It’s also important to note this is not a “budget builder kitchen”. It is a mid-range cost kitchen – often referred to as “semi-custom”. We added custom cabinets and finishes to make it our dream kitchen but we were able to do it at a cost that was affordable to us. Most fully custom kitchens that you may classify as “dream kitchens” can range from $80-$150K. If I wanted to make a really low-budget Kitchen I would have used IKEA cabinets and kept the counters more affordable etc, but that was never the plan. I wanted to maximize style but minimize cost so the kitchen we created was a combination of that.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed seeing an inside look at the costs and I hope this is helpful when you’re planning your own kitchen renovations.