Kitchen Remodeling Costs

Just recently we decided it was time to do a few home remodeling projects, change things up and do some updates. As we sat looking around the main floor of the house we quickly realized that kitchen renovations were the first thing that needed some updating. It's the place where we spend most of our time when we're in the house, preparing meals, eating them, cleanup etc. Not to mention that the kitchen always seems to be where people gather when guests are over, while there is always more comfortable seating in other areas people can't stay away from the kitchen. So we started to research kitchen remodeling costs, and made some priority adjustments in the process. Remodeling the kitchen was not going to be a cheap endeavor There were a ton of hidden expenses that all came into play when adding up the kitchen remodeling costs.

Our first step was meeting with a local kitchen contractor to receive a quote on having the kitchen remodeling plans done by a professional. The first question he had for us was to put together a dream list of items we wanted done to our kitchen, and then rank them from a most wanted to not so important. This was a helpful exercise and allowing us to see what exactly it was we wanted, also with our kitchen remodeling costs coming in a high as they did it allowed us to shave down that list. At the very top of our wish list was new kitchen cabinets. The ones we currently had were made from a very dark wood, and our small kitchen seemed even smaller because of them. We also wanted tile to be installed on our counter top that matched the tile we had on the floor. A brighter window area above our sink so more light was let in was next, also wanted to tear out the wallpaper in the room, and add a new stove exhaust hood.

The appliances we currently had were good neutral colors, so there wasn't any need to swap those out how ever we had always talked about converting the range we had now to a gas one, so now was as good of time as any to do so how ever it all added into the cost. We felt we had a firm grasp on what it was we wanted to do as we passed our wish list over to the contractor, we were also fairly confident that the fund we had saved up would cover the kitchen remodeling costs.

When the kitchen remodeling costs quote came back to us from our contractor we were shocked to say the least. To cover all of the renovations to our kitchen on the list we were going to have to take out a small loan. So we began looking at other alternatives to bring the kitchen remodeling costs down. We started looking at what we could do on our own. We discovered how to prepare the cabinets surface for painting. By painting our own cabinets we were able to lighten the color and make the kitchen a lot brighter without the intense cost of new cabinets. We purchased new hardware for all the doors and drawers, that was a wonderful transformation in itself. To create a some what larger window area we removed the curtain that had hung in front of the sink. By painting the cabinets we found that our counter top look revived from what it onces was so we skipped changing it over and placed a back splash of tile in behind to brighten things up even more. Learning to do these projects on our own saved us a ton of money, and allowed us to do all the remodeling ourselves.

We next removed the wall paper that was once there and repainted the walls a brighter color, the exhaust fan we wanted replaced we did ourselves and purchased one to match the color we painted the kitchen cabinets. Now our kitchen looks wonderful. We are very satisfied with the work we handled on our own and we kept our kitchen remodeling costs way down. While we didn't use the local kitchen contractor we first considered he did play a big role in helping us see how expensive the kitchen remodeling was going to be and motivate us to look at other options to keep the remodeling costs down.