The most expensive room in any house to remodel is the kitchen. Hands down, there is no other room in the house that will ever cost as much to redo as the center hub of your cooking and eating habits. Once you know why it’s the most expensive, you can choose to remodel it in parts or remodel a different room entirely.
When You Remodel a Kitchen Entirely, You Gut It
Stop and think about it. You want to overhaul the kitchen, but to do that you have to gut it. All the cabinets go, the appliances are removed or temporarily relocated, and the flooring is ripped up. That’s just if you are going to do a basic remodel and not add features where there were none before or take out a wall. All that debris from stripping the kitchen down to the bones isn’t cheap.
Cabinets, Electricity, and Plumbing
Cabinets are the most expensive feature in a kitchen. Even if you use pre-fab cabinets, it will not be cheap. Since your cabinets are necessary for storing everything you need in your kitchen, it’s not something you can just skip for a remodel, although you can put the cabinets on hold for later.
Electricity, particularly if you are rerouting wiring for different lights in the ceiling, is another big cost. Follow it up with new and updated plumbing, and/or plumbing for new sink features (e.g., a boiling hot water spigot for instant tea and coffee), and you are looking at some big expenses.
Flooring and Paint
Flooring, particularly when you are tearing out the old flooring to add new, can get pricey. You could choose less expensive options like vinyl or vinyl plank instead of hardwood, but it’s still an expense you have to consider. Paint is one of the few expenses that doesn’t cost as much and can transform the look of your kitchen quickly.