Our Kitchen Renovation Plan and Budget
Our Kitchen Renovation Plan and Budget
Wow, is it time for the One Room Challenge already?! I’m still recovering from the stress, I mean, excitement, of our first ORC this past Spring. I wrote an entire blog post on what I learned the first time around, and you can read all the juicy tips here. We’re loving our master bathroom (you can see the reveal here), and it’s time to move on to the kitchen. Yup, we’re really going for a marriage-tester here.
In this post I’m going to get down to the nitty gritty- the design and our budget. But first, if you’re new here, welcome! You’ve arrived at the perfect time- nothing like cramming a 12-week renovation into 6 weeks. Let me catch you up to speed. My husband and I bought our current home on the North Shore of Oahu back in December 2019 and are fixing it up ourselves. We thought we would have been done after 6 months, but alas, here we are almost a year later (darn you, Covid).
This is the second home we’ve purchased together, our first home was a termite- infested total gut. Yeah, it had live termites and we had to get it tented and everything, it was a pain (but because of it we got a good deal on the house thank you very much). We tore it down to the studs and gave it a huge face lift then sold it for a teensy profit.
This was the kitchen at our old place.
It was a tight galley kitchen, we basically extended it so it stretched the whole length of that back wall. We gave up a formal dining area, but made the island so you could fit 6 seats there. One of my favorite things about that kitchen was the Serena & Lily pendant and farm house sink.
A QUICK WORD
Before I get into all the planning and money talk I’d like to take a second to touch on the cost of living + cost of renovating in Hawaii. While I am going to share some numbers, I want you to take it with a grain of salt. We have to pay a premium for building materials and finishes here because we live on an island and everything has to get shipped in. Don’t get discouraged when you see the quotes we received, I can basically guarantee you that you can find cheaper materials and labor where you are since you don’t have to pay for shipping across and entire Pacific Ocean.
THE DESIGN PLAN ELEMENTS
PLASTER RANGE HOOD & OPEN SHELVING
NEUTRAL CABINETS
DETAILS
THE PROJECTED COST
Kitchen Cabinets $4, 500
Installation DIY
Quartz Material $6,000
Quartz Fabrication $5,000
Hardware $1200
Faucet
Pot Filler
Cabinet Hardware
Utility rack
Kitchen Sink $900
Lighting $1,000
Barstools (x4) $400
Electrical $2,000
Plumbing $500
Appliances $10, 000
Backsplash Tile $2,000
Open Shelving $500
New Windows $2, 000
VELUX Skylights $4,000
Contingency $3,000
T O T A L
$43,000
Yikes, I get a bit of a pit in my stomach when I see the total number written out like that. While I tried to overestimate, there are unforeseen costs I am sure I’m missing, hence the $3,000 contingency bit. The biggest area for us to cut costs would be the quartz material + fabrication cost. We had included a large waterfall island in our original design, but may re-think that due to budget reasons. If we decide to NOT go with the waterfall, that will save us about $3,000 for the cost of a slab and fabrication. We also decided to add VELUX Skylights to brighten up the dark coner, however, we are partnering with them and therefore receiving some discount on the cost of the material.
THE TIMELINE
Ok, full transparency here. We demo’d about a month ago, got rid of an old bay window, and tidied up our electrical and plumbing. There’s no way we could get this all done in 6 weeks, and quite honestly I’m s till not sure we will make it, but cheers to lots of late nights trying our darnest. Ok so here’s what we started with, and here is where we are at now.
ORIGINAL KITCHEN
CURRENT VIEW
See? Nothing crazy right? Ok, so here’s our plan.
Week 0 (aka, already done)- Demo, electrical, Plumbing
Week 1 - Install Flooring
Week 2 - Install Velux skylights + start range hood project
Week 3- Cabinetry Painting (DIY) + Install
Week 4- Quartz Measurements + Finish DIY Range Hood
Week 5- Quartz Install +Tile + Shelving
Week 6 - Install lighting, touch up painting +Staging + Photos
Alright, friends. Are you ready to see this project get going? We sure are, and we’re excited to be participating in the One Room Challenge again. We’ve got a couple of great DIYs to share, if you’re on the email list I’ll send you all the deets. Are you ready? (Cue “Eye of the Tiger”), this is going to be a good one.
Make sure to check out the other Guest Participants and Featured Designers!