Have you been getting conflicting information about how much a kitchen remodel costs? How is it that your realtor said that a kitchen remodel costs $60,000, Angie said that it would cost $40,000, and the contractor you talked to said it will cost $100,000?

Why do these numbers vary so much? Are some people lying? Are others trying to rip you off? Are they even talking about the same thing?

Does it leave you wondering what factors affect the cost of a kitchen remodel? What will cause a kitchen remodel to be more expensive? What will make a kitchen remodel less expensive? How will you know that you are getting a fair price for a kitchen remodel?

That’s what we are here to talk about! We will explain what will cause a remodel to be more expensive and what will make it less expensive. That way, you will know what to expect when you decide to remodel your home!

What factors will affect how much my kitchen remodel costs?

There are many factors that affect how much your kitchen remodel will cost. The biggest factors are as follows:

• The location of your home

• The size of your kitchen

• Your building material choices

• The complexity of the project

• The timeline of your remodel

• The type of contractor you hire

Let’s dig into each of these to see how they all play a part in your remodeling costs.

Does the location of my home affect how much my kitchen remodel costs?

Just as a home in Portsmouth, NH will cost more than an equivalent home in Durham, NH, remodeling costs will vary based on your location. 

These effects mostly happen on a regional level and the reasons why a remodel is more expensive in New England than it is in the midwest is a little different from why a home in Hampton is more expensive than a home in Madbury. Even though the causes are different, your location will affect your remodeling costs.  

So, what are the factors that cause remodels to be more expensive in one location and less expensive in another? 

The availability of local construction workers will affect the cost of a kitchen remodel.

One of the reasons remodeling costs are higher in the Northeast than they are in the Midwest, for example, is the availability of skilled tradesmen. Most people in the Northeast are white-collar workers. This means that fewer people have the blue-collar skills necessary to complete a remodeling project and more people need their services. This situation causes the market to value these services at a higher price. 

In places like the Midwest, the opposite is true. There are a lot more people who work blue-collar jobs, and there are fewer people who need their services. This makes their value in the market less expensive. 

This market reality plays out a little bit on the local level. You will find that many blue-collar workers in the Monadnock region will be valued less, by their market, than the same workers in the Seacoast region. They will, however, still be valued more than workers in many other areas of the country. 

The cost of living in your area will affect your remodeling costs.

We all need to be able to afford to live. Some of us may make a bit more money and some of us may make a bit less, depending on our career skills and other factors. But, at the end of the day, if a person can’t afford to live in a particular place, they will either need to make more money or leave, taking their skills with them when they go. 

So, when a person lives in a high-cost-of-living area, like southern New Hampshire, they will need to make more money than a person in a low-cost-of-living area would. 

Likewise, the local companies in a high-cost-of-living area will need to charge more money, so that they can pay their employees an appropriate wage for their area. This reality makes services more expensive in high-cost-of-living areas.  

How does the size of my kitchen affect how much it costs?

The size of your kitchen will definitely affect the cost of your kitchen remodel. Twice as many cabinets will cost twice as much money. This makes sense. 

But, not everything in your remodel works this way. The dumpster, for example, will cost the same whether it ends up half-full or completely full of demolition debris at the end of the project. 

The labor aspect of a remodeling project works the same way. Adding one outlet may require the electrician to run 100 feet of new wire all the way from the panel box, but adding a second outlet will only require running 10 feet of wire from the first box to the second! 

So, not every cost is directly related to the size of the room.

This is why many contractors shy away from giving square-foot prices for kitchen remodels. There are just too many factors to consider that aren’t directly related to the size of the space. 

Which remodeling costs are directly related to the size of my kitchen?

These costs are directly related to the square footage of the room or the area the products cover:

• Cabinetry

• Flooring

• Countertops

• Backsplash 

• Drywall (if it is being completely replaced)

Which remodeling costs are somewhat related to the size of my kitchen?

These costs are somewhat related to the square footage of the room or the area the products cover:

• Demo costs

• Drywall (if it will only be replaced as needed)

• Plumbing work

• Electrical work 

• Painting

• Waste removal costs (dumpsters)

• Permit costs

• Project management costs

Which remodeling costs are not related to the size of my kitchen?

These costs are mostly uniform, and are not related to the square footage of the room:

• Appliance costs

• Surface protection/ jobsite set-up costs

• Post-project cleanup costs

How do my material choices affect how much my kitchen costs?

Fixtures and finishes are a huge piece of your remodeling budget. On large, high-end projects, material costs can be the largest cost involved in a kitchen remodel. On smaller projects, labor tends to be the biggest piece of the budget, but finish materials still add up to a lot of money.

Your material choices will affect your remodeling costs in two ways: the labor required to install the materials and the cost of the materials themselves. 

Why are some building materials more expensive to install than others?

Similar materials can require different installation methods, which can vary in both the time to install and the waste generated in the installation. 

A great example of this would be the difference between a vinyl tile floor and a porcelain tile floor. The flooring itself often comes at a similar price point, somewhere around $6 per square foot, for quality-grade flooring. But, the installation methods of these products are very different. 

Vinyl flooring is installed over a ¼” sheet of plywood that is stapled to the subfloor. The vinyl tile is then glued to this plywood. Vinyl flooring is easy to cut, you can cut it with a knife, and a skilled installer can install it very quickly. A typical EVT (engineered vinyl tile) or LVT (luxury vinyl tile) kitchen floor can be completed in a day.

Porcelain tile, on the other hand, is installed over a special backer, called an “uncoupling membrane”. The installer needs to mix up mortar and spread it over the subfloor. He then has to install the uncoupling membrane into the mortar. Now, he gets to mix up more mortar, spread it over the top of the uncoupling membrane, and set the tile into it.

Porcelain tile is very hard, and it needs to be cut with a special saw. Also, the manufacturing process of porcelain tile leaves the tile bowed, which makes it necessary for the installer to use a leveling system to make the floor flat, and the tiles level with each other. All of this complexity makes a porcelain tile floor much more labor-intensive, and about three times more expensive to install than vinyl tile flooring.

This is just one example of how your choice of materials can affect the installation costs in your kitchen remodel. Some common areas where different materials will require vastly different installation methods are these:

• Vinyl tile vs. porcelain tile vs. hardwood flooring

• Laminate vs solid surface vs. stone (granite, quartz, marble, etc) countertops

• Ceramic tile vs. full-height stone backsplashes

• Electric vs. gas appliances

How does the quality of building products affect the cost of a kitchen remodel?

For obvious reasons, the quality of the building products you select will have a huge effect on the cost of your remodel. Obviously, low-cost materials will cause your project to cost less, and more expensive products will cause it to cost more.

One thing that we need to address, though, is that the cost savings that result from choosing inexpensive products can be limited. You can definitely save a lot of money by choosing quality-grade materials instead of high-end materials. But, once you start dropping below quality-grade products and into builder-grade products, installation costs could rise unexpectedly! 

(To learn more about the differences between builder-grade, quality-grade, and high-end building materials, read the article here)

You see, the goal of manufacturing builder-grade products is to create a product as cheaply as possible. Often, when manufacturers are creating these products, they cut costs in ways that make the installation of these products more difficult. Sometimes this means that by the time a homeowner gets done paying a contractor to install an inexpensive product, they could have had a better quality product installed for the same money!

This is why we feel that it is very advantageous for contractors to guide their clients through the material selection process, to help them avoid making mistakes that will cost them more money than they realized!

Why are custom cabinets more expensive than standard cabinets?

Custom products are considerably more expensive than standard products. Cabinets aren’t the only place this is true, but cabinets are where it comes up the most in a kitchen remodel.

The reason for this is pretty simple: when a manufacturer, large or small, is making a product, a lot of time, energy, and expense goes into designing the product and planning out the manufacturing process. If the manufacturer can make a lot of these products after the planning process is complete, he can spread these costs over the many pieces he made. If, on the other hand, he can only make one of these products with the plan he created, he will have to capture all of these costs from the sale of that one item. 

This is exactly the situation with cabinets. A manufacturer that is building stock, or semi-custom cabinets can build multiple cabinets from a single plan and a single order of cabinet-building materials. 

A custom cabinetmaker doesn’t have this luxury. He has to spend just as much time planning the project, ordering the materials, and setting up his machines, but he is only producing one set of cabinets, instead of 100. This means that whoever is buying those cabinets has to pay for all of the planning and shop setup, instead of just a small piece of it. 

How does the complexity of a kitchen remodel affect its cost?

Most of the time, labor is the most expensive part of a kitchen remodel. So, when more work is required to complete the project, the costs will rise very quickly. Complex projects require more work than simple projects do, so complexity will add cost to a remodel project very quickly.

What factors will add complexity to my remodeling project?

There are quite a few things that can add complexity to a project. The most common of these are as follows:

Making structural repairs/ structural changes

When structural repairs or changes are necessary, the project will be more complex, and therefore more expensive. 

Most of the time, when a structural repair is necessary, it means that something was built improperly. It can be difficult and time-consuming to find a solution that will work within the existing, improperly built structure.

The same goes for structural changes, like removing walls or adding doorways. Sometimes these projects are quite simple. Other times, they will require unique solutions that are tailored to the specific conditions of the home. This additional complexity will add time and cost to the project.

Using custom products or products with complex installation requirements

Many products are fairly standardized. An outlet from any manufacturer will fit in a standard outlet box, a sink drain is the same size regardless of the manufacturer, etc. The tradesmen building or remodeling your home know how to install these standardized products quickly and efficiently. 

But, when a designer comes along and says “Why don’t we do this differently?” the person installing the product has to learn how to do their job all over again, in a different way! 

This tends to happen the most in the high-end market where homeowners are looking for something unique, and manufacturers are trying to meet this need.

Anytime a product requires a unique, or complex installation method, it will add to the cost of the project.  

Poor site access

A typical kitchen remodel requires a lot of materials, tools, and supplies to be moved in and out of your home on a daily basis. 

If your home is easily accessible, this can be a simple process. The dumpster sits in the driveway, and the material delivery trucks and worker’s vans have space to be unloaded in front of your home. 

But, if you live somewhere with less access, these tasks can become a lot more time-consuming. Your contractor may struggle to get the demolition debris out of your home and the materials and tools into it, as he needs to. When accessibility issues require additional labor and time, the cost of your remodel will rise accordingly.

How does the timeline for my kitchen remodel affect how much it costs?

There is a common saying in our industry that goes something like this: Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two, you can’t have all three. 

We dislike this saying because it gives the impression that if you are patient enough, you can get a good product for an inexpensive price. Anyone who has done any remodeling work, or hired someone to do remodeling work, knows that good products and good work never come cheap!

That said, there is a lot of truth to this saying. And, it is true that if a project has to be done quickly, it will cost more money. 

Why is this? Is it because contractors love to overcharge people when they think they can get away with it? You might think that this is the reason why it costs more to have things done quickly. But, there is more to it than that. 

A good contractor will work very hard to save his client money where he can. One of the ways he does this is by getting the work done as quickly and efficiently as possible. This requires detailed planning, proper sequencing of workers, and reasonable timelines.  

If a project needs to be done faster, it may become necessary for a contractor to change up the sequence of trades, and have multiple trades in the home at the same time. This makes each trade less efficient because other trades are getting in their way. This loss of efficiency will come at a cost, and the contractor will have to charge more money to make sure everyone gets paid for the extra time they spend doing their tasks. 

This is one reason a project with a short timeline will cost more money. Another way that speeding up a job could make it more expensive is that a contractor may need to utilize rush delivery services from his suppliers, which will come at an additional cost, in order to meet a tight timeline. 

Your contractor may also need to push back a job that has already been scheduled, in order to fit a “rush” job into his schedule. This will require canceling all of the material orders and workers for the first job, rescheduling them for the new “rush” job, then once the rush job is complete, he will need to schedule everything for the original job all over again! This is a ton of work, and a wise contractor won’t do it for free!  

Why are some contractors more expensive than others?

We would be remiss if we didn’t address the difference in cost between contractors. Which contractor you choose to hire will definitely have an effect on the cost of your remodel. Sometimes this factor will affect your cost more than any other factor!

The explanations we have heard for why some contractors are more expensive than others are: “Less expensive contractors do lousy work.” And, “more expensive contractors are ripping people off.” We find these explanations to be reductive, at best.

In reality, the primary difference between contractors’ pricing is not how honorable the contractors are, it is the level of service you will receive when you hire them.

Some contractors will expect you to go to the store and pick out all of the materials for your project. They will ask you to purchase these products and pick them up yourself or have the supplier deliver them for you. These contractors will often have you schedule your own trade contractors, like plumbers and electricians. You may even have to pay these trade contractors directly! Basically, these contractors will ask you to do the project management work, while they focus on doing the building tasks. Contractors that work this way will be able to give you a lower price because they will not need to provide design, planning, material handling, or project management services.

Other contractors handle all of these management tasks for you, in addition to providing building services. They will guide you through the product selection process. They will order all of the materials and get them to the job site. They will manage all of the workers and trade contractors for you. Basically, after you select the products you want in your new kitchen, you will cut them a check and they will handle everything for you! When you hire this type of contractor, you will need to pay for the project management services and the higher level of customer service they are providing you.

Each of these contractors fills a different need for homeowners. Some homeowners wish to save as much money as they can, and they are okay working on their project themselves, in order to save money. Other homeowners don’t have the time, experience, or desire to do this work themselves, so they would rather pay a little extra to have a professional do it for them. Neither of these approaches is wrong. Each homeowner has a different need, and they will each be best served by a contractor who will meet their specific needs.

Where people get in trouble, is when they think that both contractors will provide the same level of service, and they end up hiring a company that doesn’t provide the level of service they were expecting! This is why clear expectations, and written contracts outlining these expectations, are so important! 

What level of service does Rothrock Kitchen & Bath Remodeling provide?

At Rothrock Kitchen & Bath Remodeling, we have seen too many homeowners stressed and disappointed when they tried to manage their own projects.

So, we have chosen to offer a high level of customer service and project management. We guide our clients through the design and planning phase of the project, and we completely manage the build phase, so they don’t have to worry about anything! 

Our prices reflect the level of service we provide. 

What other factors can affect the cost of my kitchen remodel?

We have discussed the largest factors that affect the cost of a kitchen remodel: the location of your home, the size of your kitchen, the fixtures and finishes you choose, the complexity of the project, the timeline for your project, and the level of service provided by your contractor.

Some other factors that can affect the cost of a remodel are local laws and regulations and the volatility in the building material market. These issues are a bit more localized, so they are difficult to address without knowing your specific situation. 

Before we wrap up, let’s go over the things we’ve learned today:

What will cause my kitchen remodel to be more expensive?

Living in a high-cost-of-living area

Your kitchen remodel will be more expensive if you live in a high-cost of living area or an area where there is a shortage of tradesmen.

Having a large kitchen

Your kitchen remodel will be more expensive if you have a large amount of cabinets, flooring, countertops, or backsplash to purchase and install.

Using high-quality Building materials

Your kitchen remodel will be more expensive if you use high-quality fixtures and finishes, like high-end appliances or plumbing fixtures. Building materials that require more time or skill to install will also increase your remodeling costs.

Elements or conditions that add Complexity to the project

Your kitchen remodel will be more expensive if your home has unique elements, requires structural modifications, or has poor accessibility.

Short timelines

Your kitchen remodel will be more expensive if it needs to be done in a short amount of time.

Hiring a premium contractor

Your kitchen remodel will be more expensive if you hire a full-service general contractor who will handle all of the project management for you.

What will cause my kitchen remodel to be less expensive?

Living in a low-cost-of-living area

Your kitchen remodel will be less expensive if you live in a low-cost-of-living area or an area where there is an abundance of tradesmen.

Having a small kitchen

Your kitchen remodel will be less expensive if you have a small amount of cabinets, flooring, countertops, or backsplash to be installed.

Choosing low-quality Building materials

Your kitchen remodel will be less expensive if you use inexpensive fixtures and finishes, like builder-grade countertops, flooring, and plumbing fixtures. Building materials that require less time or skill to install will also decrease your remodeling costs.

Simple elements and good site conditions

Your kitchen remodel will be less expensive if your home has standard “cookie cutter” elements, requires no structural modifications, and has good accessibility.

reasonable timelines

Your kitchen remodel will be less expensive if all of the workers have plenty of time to get their work done efficiently.

Hiring a low-cost contractor

Your kitchen remodel will be less expensive if you hire a contractor who doesn’t provide a high level of project management or customer service.

In conclusion

Thanks for reading! Hopefully, you now have a good understanding of the factors that will affect the cost of your kitchen remodel!

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our article: How much does a kitchen remodel cost? To learn what an average kitchen remodel costs in southern New Hampshire.

If you have any questions or need some help navigating your kitchen remodel, we would love to help! Just click fill out the form on our contact page, or give us a call! We would be happy to help you in any way we can!