10 Ways to Budget for a Kitchen or Bathroom Remodel

A home remodelling project is always exciting; getting the chance to truly make your space your own is something that doesn’t happen often enough. As exciting a time as it might be, renovation projects can be very stressful, particularly if you haven’t taken enough time to plan it out. This article aims to remove some of that stress by providing you with a list of ten items to consider when planning your kitchen or bathroom remodel.

Decide how much you want to spend, and stick to your budget. This seems like an easy thing to do, but many homeowners end up blowing their budget out of the water. Why? The reason could be the result of several factors, but the most common one can be pegged to a simple lack of understanding how much a typical remodel costs. On average, a typical high-end kitchen remodel can easily approach the $100K mark. Depending on what you want to have done, you may need to reevaluate when the project will be completed or scale back the project. If you aren’t sure how much you should spend, a good rule is to only spend an amount you feel comfortable with, but you should also consider how long you plan on remaining in the house and the area you live in before you make your decision. For example, if you plan on selling your home in the next year, a significant remodel will certainly add to the value of the home. If you live in a middle-class neighbourhood and your kitchen remodel is less modest and more high-end, you could very well end up losing money when you sell your home in spite of your hard work. 

 

Know how the costs will break down. As you nail down your budget, it’s good to know how you should allocate funds for your project. Certain expenses, like labor, can represent the lion’s share of what you’ll be spending on the project—but that too can vary. Here’s a breakdown of how the costs should be allocated for an average project. 

 

35% – Custom cabinetry

20% – Labor

20% – New appliances

10% – Windows

5% – New fixtures

3% – Fittings

7% – Miscellaneous

 

Set aside 20% of your budget to handle the unexpected. There’s rarely a situation where preparing for the unexpected turns out to be a waste of time. If you aren’t prepared to handle fluctuations in your budget, you may have to compromise your vision or delay the date of completion. Anticipating and allocating funds for things like needing to update the electrical or plumbing will make having to complete this work a little easier to swallow. 

 

Make a list of your renovation priorities. Since renovation projects can encapsulate many different things, it’s important to classify which renovations you consider as non-debatable must-haves versus nice-to-haves if there is money left in the budget. You might be inclined to say that everything from new cabinets to updated appliances are equally important, but in reality, writing everything down and evaluating each item against the others will yield everything you can’t live without. For each item, ask yourself how important it is when compared to the overall look and function of the kitchen or bathroom. Will it make or break the remodel, or will a more modestly-priced alternative work just as well?

 

Understand how you will pay for your project. Unfortunately, many homeowners simply don’t have the cash on hand to fund a major home renovation. In fact, most homeowners rely on home equity loans, which they pay down over a predetermined amount of time. Alternately, you could take out a personal loan or refinance your mortgage; the best solution is the one that ends up costing you less. Remember that personal and other types of loans could end up costing you a considerable amount in terms of interest and you may be tempted to pull money out of an investment fund to pay for it. It wouldn’t make sense to deplete an investment account making you 10% when you might only pay 5% interest on your personal line of credit. If you’re in doubt on the best course of action to take to fund your project, you can’t go wrong by speaking to your financial advisor. 

 

Decide whether you’re going to stay in your home while renovations are taking place. 

If the project is small in scale and won’t disrupt your family’s day-to-day goings on, you can certainly put up with living through a home renovation project. If however your project is massive in scope and will prevent you from using your kitchen or bathroom for several days or weeks, you may need to pony up some money to move your family into a hotel. Since hotel accommodations aren’t cheap and can wrack up quickly, accounting for this expenditure in your budget is a good idea. 

 

Factor in the cost of eating out. No kitchen means you can’t prepare a family meal and that means that you’ll be spending a lot of time in your favorite restaurants. Sure, it might seem like a nice treat to not have to prepare a meal and clean up afterwards, but the cost of eating out can escalate. Like hotel accommodations, if you anticipate losing access to your kitchen, make sure you allocate some funds for dining out. 

 

Create a spreadsheet to track your budget and check it often. Having a budget is one thing, but it should be in a format that is easily reviewable and revisable as the project progresses. A spreadsheet allows you to list out each item of your budget and assign it a cost. Reviewing the file often can help you see if something is about to blow your budget, but it can also allow you to see where you’ve spent less than anticipated, which in turn can allow you to re-allocate some funds to something else.

 

Do some of the small work yourself to lower your costs. Even if you aren’t particularly handy, you can still do some of the work to save on labor costs. Demolition, for example, doesn’t take a great deal of construction acumen, so roll up your sleeves and remove your cabinets, old flooring, and tile before the contractors arrive. 

 

Avoid any temptation to add to your budget mid-project. As your project ramps up and you’re up to your elbows in swatches and design magazines, you may be tempted to add something to your remodel that wasn’t part of the original scope. Do your best to keep yourself in check—late additions will most certainly destroy your budget! Remember that if it wasn’t something that made your list of must haves after careful consideration and planning, you can probably do without. 

 

A full kitchen or bathroom remodel can be stressful, but you can easily eliminate a lot of this stress by knowing your budget and sticking to it.