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5 things before building a kitchen

kitrchen design

5 THINGS THAT YOU NEED TO
CONSIDER BEFORE BUILDING A KITCHEN

KEEP YOUR OUTLAY IN SYNC WITH YOUR HOME

For budgeting purposes, figure about 30% on Cabinets, 14% on appliances, 10% on countertops, 5% on lighting, 4% on plumbing fixtures, 2% to 3% on paint, 1% to2% on tiles, and 35% on construction costs such as windows, flooring, and labor.

IT PAYS TO PAY FOR YOUR DESIGN

Since your project will only be as good as its design, skip the freebies and hire a veteran designer without any conflicts of interest. Expect to pay 3% to 10% of your project costs for design- A fair price for a design that really works.

EXPAND THE KITCHEN WITHOUT BUSTING THE BUDGET

Steal space. By re-purposing square footage from an adjacent hallway or a no-longer-needed chimney, closet, or porch, you can expand your kitchen at perhaps half the per-square-foot cost so fan addition. Open the floor plan. Even if you don’t expand the kitchen at all, you can make it feel much bigger by taking down a wall and creating an open floor plan between the kitchen and adjacent dining, family, or living room.

TO CUT COSTS, HOLD ON TO WHAT WORKS

You can slash the price tag for any kitchen renovation by limiting how much of the old kitchen you replace. Keeping original windows can save you $500 to $1000 per window; keeping the original wood floor hiding underneath all of those layers of linoleum and vinyl could save you $2,000. And simply keeping the plumbing fixtures and appliances in the same locations likely means you can reuse existing plumbing, saving you perhaps $200 to $500.

STAY SKIN DEEP IF YOU’RE MOVING ANYTIME SOON

If you expect to put your house on the market within a decade, skip the $60,000 renovation and go for a cosmetic upgrade instead. You can have old cabinets painted for $1,000 to $5,000 or refaced with a new wood veneer and new doors and drawer fronts for some $5,000 to $7,000. A new faucet and fresh cabinet hardware can be yours for under $500, and new lighting for $500 to $2,000.