Designer Kitchen on an IKEA Budget?

We're planning on renovating our kitchen, but we don't want to break our budget. Is it possible to have a designer kitchen on an IKEA budget? We’ll find out today! 

Kitchen Reno on a Budget

One of our big goals for 2020 is finally updating our kitchen. When we moved into our house four years ago, we knew there were going to be some projects. 

While the house definitely had some great bones and had a timeless quality to them, there were rooms that felt a bit…well dated. 

You got the stylish parquet floor in the dining room butting up against the dingy tile in the kitchen. 

While a kitchen update is in itself a challenge, there are some factors that came into play to require some more creativity with both the budget and design. 

For one, our original plan was to work on the kitchen this winter and then come summer we were going to buy a replacement commuter car for my husband. 

There’s a lot to juggle and besides having a kitchen we love, we also want to keep it affordable. 

Today Barret Teague, Consumer Lending Analytics Manager at Coastal Credit Union, is going to help us crunch the numbers. 

In this episode we’ll look at:

• How to figure your kitchen budget + ways to finance your remodel
• Finding a wonderful contractor  
• Ways you can save and make your dollars go further

Let’s get started! 

Resources to Make Your Home Renovation Project More Affordable

If you’re planning on doing a home renovation project and you want to keep it stylish and affordable, here are some resources to check out! 

• Best Budget and Money Apps: Personal Capital, Tiller, Mint
• Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money
• Renovate, Remodel…Relax!
• 8 Ways to Save on Home Renovations

Thank You to Our Partner Coastal

Support for this podcast comes from Coastal Credit Union!

If you’re living in the Raleigh Durham area and you’re at the stage where you’re planning and saving up for your home project, you really want to check out Coastal.  

Besides having competitive rates with savings, they also have loan options for home improvements, including a home equity line of credit (HELOC)!  

How to Budget for a Kitchen Renovation

Let's start off with the biggest question we had and you're probably thinking – how much is this renovation going to cost?

The answer is …it depends.

Whenever you are tackling an entire room or area like we are with this kitchen, there are several factors at play. You have to consider, for example, the materials that you're going to be using.

With our kitchen, some decisions we had to make were:

• what cabinets are we going to be using
• what countertops do we want?

Since we're dealing with a kitchen. we also consider appliances. Are we going to go for top of the line or something more affordable but still stylish and functional?

And then, of course, the layout. If your house has a good flow to it, you might just want to let it be there.

We do like how the cabinets run in our kitchen. So the new cabinets are basically going to be in the same spot.

If you do decide that you're going to shift things around the room, just also consider you may have additional expenses like permits.

Finally, you may decide that this is going to be a major renovation, which includes breaking down, moving, and shifting walls.

In that case, if you're opening up walls, there's a good chance that your expenses are going to be higher because you're more than likely going to need permits in skilled trades, like electricians and plumbers to move and run these new lines.

So your decisions on these factors can either keep whatever renovation you're doing affordable or have it balloon past your initial budget.

Pay Attention to the Details (They Can Quickly Add Up!)

Now, for our work in the kitchen, we are actually focusing on a few minor adjustments that we think will have a big impact.

We're going to be unifying and having the same flooring in both the kitchen and the dining room. Ross going to be upgrading some of the appliances and fixtures.

Even though we're keeping the same layout with the main cabinets, we're actually going to be losing some uppers on the opposite walls.

We're taking advantage of better storage options that are now available with the new cabinets and we're putting in a pantry.

So with these choices, our kitchen renovation is going to be on the lower side than what's typically given for the range, which is currently $13,000 (updating your space) to $37,000 (renovating your kitchen).

And just doing this, walking through what you want in the kitchen can help you define the scope of the project so you can get a more accurate estimate of what you could expect for expenses. So how do you find those numbers? It's by going online and offline, as Barrett explains.

Barrett Teague: You know, really the best thing to do is to just go big and kind of map out what you want and get in touch, reach out to some contractors.

I prefer personal referral myself. Like, you know, you reach out to on your maybe your neighborhood Facebook page and see if there's someone else in the neighborhood who can testify that so and so does great work.

You know, invite them out, talk to them about what you want to do and just start getting some cost estimates, you know, and those cost estimates, you're either going to feel really good about the information that you get or you're going to realize that maybe you need to dial things back a little bit.

It really just starts with getting some numbers from some real people that are going to do the work.

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Music Credit

Like the music in this episode? Music is by Lee Rosevere and Audiio.