How To Budget A Kitchen
To budget a kitchen first think how much a kitchen should cost to how much your house is worth. A 100,000 dollar kitchen does not fit in a 300,000 dollar house.
Let's take a middle of the road kitchen remodel. Your remodel will be different than this example because you may want fancier appliances, or cheaper cabinets, (ect). Your house is worth say, 500,000. Your kitchen should be 20% of that, or lower. Let's start with 16% which equals around 80,000 for a start in your kitchen pricing labor and materials.
You have 80,000 in the bank ready to go, so you start your project budget at 10% less than your total cash, or loan amount, =72,000. Most remodels have design changes, or unforeseen expenses found only when working. Leave yourself plenty of room for changes later to your kitchen cost estimate, at least 10%!
42% Cabinets = $30,240
17% Appliances = $12,240
15% Counter tops = $10,860
4% Plumbing = $2880
5% Electrical = $3600
15% Flooring/back splash = $10,860
2% Paint/Drywall = $1440
= 72,000 including labor
Of course every job is different and the individual trades need priced to the job specifications.
Saving Money On a Tight Budget Kitchen Or Bath
If you are on a tight budget keep it simple. price goes up quickly if you start moving walls, moving rough plumbing, and adding lots of new electrical. Moving things also leads to a lot of drywall and floor repair.
Saving money on materials boils down to searching out the best price whether on line, or in stores. Sometimes the best deal can be found in a store with a slightly damaged appliance, or a display model.
Saving money on Labor means doing whatever you can yourself. Tell your contractor that you will take care of the materials being on site ready to go; for instance in a kitchen if you have all the appliances, cabinets, flooring, plumbing, lights at your house then the job is just an install- price wise. Do any trades you feel comfortable with, and take care of trash removal.
Get a two or more bids to get an idea of what it should cost. Be aware of contractors that leave things out, and add them later to keep the bid low. Make sure the bid is broken down into activities and what they individually cost.
Beware of a too low or too high bid, something is wrong. Beware of the big box store installations, quantity not quality is their mantra, and they tack on 30% to what they are paying the contractor. If the contractor is not being paid a reasonable amount the result is short cuts.
Environmentally Friendly Options For Kitchen and Bath Remodels
The first step to remodeling in an environmentally way is to see if your old materials or appliances can be used by someone else, or recycled. Habitat for humanity takes old cabinets if not in too bad of shape.
1. Buy energy saving appliances
2. Buy environmentally friendly materials like bamboo flooring
3. Use low energy lighting like compact fluorescence, or LED
4. Low VOC paints
5. Put in dimmer switches
6. Use recycled Materials like glass composit counter tops
7. Buy from local manufacturers to save on shipping energy
8. Buy low water fixtures
9. Recycle that cardboard!
10.Some styrofoam is recyclable
www.greenerchoices.org
Boulder County and Colorado links
Here are some local links:
Building Departments
Boulder County Colorado Building Department
Boulder City Colorado Building Dept
Longmont City Colorado building Dept
Appliances
www.appliancefactoryoutlet.com
www.mountainhighappliance.com
Counter Tops& Natural Stone
Flooring and Tile
Houzz 2018
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