Remodeling Your Kitchen? Follow These Tips to Avoid Spending too Much

Remodeling your kitchen is no easy thing. And it’s definitely not cheap. Sure, you can plan out everything you want in your kitchen and try to have things go exactly how you want them to. But as someone once said – life is all about balance.

Sure, they probably were high when they said it, but it’s true. You want to make sure that you’re making as few mistakes as you can while also ending up with the kitchen you always wanted. That also means you want to end up spending as less money as you can.

I mean, if you can buy a brand new car for $5000, would you still pay $10,000 for the same car even after knowing that you can get the same thing for half the price?

Probably not. And I know that’s a hypothetical scenario because there’s no car worth $5000 brand new.

Either way, you get the point.

That’s what we’re going to cover in this article – how to spend less money when remodeling and also trying to spend less money if you can.

1. Get all the free advice you can get

Most people never do this. And as professional kitchen remodelers, I can tell you that there’s nothing worse that just going with the first contractor that you find. You want to sit down with several contractors and get their advice on what they think is the best way to go about things.

This will give you an insight of how each contractor works, and you’ll also be able to find the best contractor that works the way you would want them to.

Usually, big kitchen renovation companies have the best tech available to them. Things like 3D modeling of your kitchen so you can visualize how things would look after the remodeling job is done, and they’ll also have architects and designers on-site to help you decide which design you should go with.

So take advantage of it right in the beginning so you can find the best contractors for your project and you’ll also give yourself a good chance of spotting red flags with different companies. So you won’t have to deal with the headache later down the line.

2. Never mess with the plumbing

We wish people had known this already. We see so many people wanting to change the entire layout of their kitchen just to get the exact design they want. Even when they have the option to keep almost everything the same while still achieving the vision that they have.

Here’s the worst part about changing the plumbing, not just of your kitchen, but of any room in your house – it will always cause more issues.

We had a client that changed their entire plumbing in the kitchen and they couldn’t figure out why there was always water coming out from under the sink. The pipe underneath the flooring was leaking.

That’s what usually happens.

Your plumbing job will never be as good as you had it done when your house was being built from the ground up. And there will always be issues that come up when you redo it. And you also have to make sure that it connects with the plumbing network of the entire house which is another headache in itself.

Not to mention that you’ll end up spending double the amount of money on the remodeling project that if you hadn’t redone the plumbing.

Short explanation – try to keep the plumbing the same and adjust some things in your design so you can still achieve your vision. Save that money and spend it on buying better materials.

3.  Order appliances first

We see people make this mistake all the time. They’ll go through the entire remodeling project and then order the big appliances like the refrigerator or the oven. That’s a huge risk because if there’s an error of even an inch, you’ll have to spend more money to fix it.

Buying these appliances before your contractor starts working on the project is the best way to go about it. That way, you’ll have all the measurements you’ll need on hand and your margin of error vanishes.

At the end of the day, that’s what we’re looking for – to make as less mistakes as we can while making sure that we can get the project done within the budget that you set out with.

4. Spend more on materials

I know this tip goes against what we start off with, but this is worth it in the long run.

You want to spend more money on high quality materials so they last you a long time and not give you any issues. Things like unbreakable quartz countertops instead of marble, or good quality wood for cabinets, etc.

Sure, the price would look outrageous at the time of purchase, but trust us, we’ve been remodeling kitchens for 2 decades now. And the number 1 complaint that most homeowners have, is they wish they would’ve spent more money on these things and just bought the good materials.

Because marble can get stained easily, but replacing it is a huge headache. Not to mention how much it will cost you.

It’s better to have something that doesn’t stain easily and also doesn’t break easily. That way, you can be worry free around it, especially if you have kids at home.