Musings by Candace Jean: How We Renovated Our Kitchen With $10,000 Budget

This is a wrap up of the Kitchen Remodel Series I put together over the past 3 weeks. You can find my post regarding floors here, the second post detailing cabinetry, countertops, and backsplash here, and the last post detailing the space opening, painting, and lighting here.

I was able to find some original pictures of the kitchen and dining room so you can better appreciate the difference the remodel has made in our home. I really think that we've created a modern, clean look that brings our home into 21st century.

In this first picture, you can see the wall that was between the kitchen and dining room.

This is the view of our dining room from the entrance way closest to the front door. They had wall paper trim, which I had a blast removing (I say that with complete and utter sarcasm) and you'll notice the vent in the center of the wall. That is where the heating ducts were located.

This is the dining room view from the kitchen entrance way.

BEFORE & AFTERS

SLIDER

CABINETS BEFORE

CABINETS AFTER

updated kitchen with white cabinets, black countertops, and stainless steel appliances

updated kitchen with white cabinets and black countertops

DINING ROOM

BUDGET BREAKDOWN

I put together a table reflecting all of our costs for materials & labor. Total cost for materials & labor equaled $10,150. As I mentioned, we worked on this renovation for 11 months so that spread out how much we were spending. I think this is a huge benefit of doing it yourself with the downside being you're living in a renovation zone for a longer period of time. The first chunk of what we did - floors, slider, cabinets, backsplash, and countertops had to happen in a shorter time frame than the rest. We needed the cabinets out to the pull up the old floors and couldn't put appliances in and have a functional kitchen until cabinets and countertops were in. That total part of the project was $4100. The wall removal was the second big chunk of spending at $2000. After that, we didn't do anything for a couple of months while we waited for things to settle down with Dean. During that lull, we purchased the soffit and duct materials as well as the lighting. Last, we followed this by having someone come in and do the painting. This is where we could have saved money, but for another person who doesn't have a handy husband, might have spent the money on getting the electrical done. Ours included 4 recessed lights in the kitchen, light fixture over the sink, and the dining room chandelier. Mark put in dimmer switches for all 3 types of lighting and there are two dimmer switches for the kitchen - 1) by the slider entrance and 2) in the hallway before you reach the kitchen.

Our floor, backplash, and slider were purchased at Home Depot. Cabinetry and countertops were vetted through the same company. For granite, we went and picked out the piece of granite we wanted as the granite supplier (MSI Stone in Norwood) was local. Lighting came from Pottery Barn and our paint was Summer Shower by Benjamin Moore. In looking at other kitchen remodels, I came across some other great renovations.