How Much Does it Cost for a Kitchen Renovation - Plus Labour?
‘How much does it cost for a kitchen renovation?’ is one of our most common questions on Fifi McGee, up there with how much does it cost to renovate a house.
We’ve really been through the mill on this topic. We’ve worked 1-on-1 with clients who have had budgets varying from £10–50,000. So let us be the tenth person to tell you – costs for a kitchen renovation varies massively. Don’t worry, we’ll show you a process to easily calculate yours in this post.
The topic of kitchen renovation costs are pretty dear to our hearts. We decided to ditch our £80K kitchen extension in favour of a remodel and in the process saved thousands on our project. For more on that story and how we did it, read this post.
Costs for kitchen renovations – where to start
Part of calculating the overall cost of a renovation can mean needing to work out the cost of a new kitchen first. But where do you even start? There’s so many unknowns when it comes to the cost of a new kitchen.
Yes, calculating the cost of a new kitchen is tricky – and not a quick job to get an accurate estimate - but we’ve put together this guide to help you work out realistic kitchen costs for your space and requirements.
What this guide covers:
How much our kitchen costs were – we own an average 3 bed semi detached 1930s house with a mid range kitchen from Howdens kitchens
How much do new kitchens cost?
How to calculate your new kitchen costs?
How much do new kitchens cost to fit?
How to prevent your kitchen costs from spiralling – you’ll need to read this to make sure your money stretches
What were our kitchen renovation costs?
We bought a 1930s house which is an average sized 3 bed semi detached and knocked down a wall between the existing galley kitchen and dining room.
We created a large open plan kitchen diner with all new appliances, cooker, sink, taps, you name it.
So take our kitchen costs for example – we put together 2 estimates at first. One was the kitchen costs for a kitchen extension, another was for this smaller knock-through, and they both varied in costs widely with one being much bigger than the other.
We ditched our £80K kitchen extension idea and went with the more affordable kitchen cost (pictured above) proving that you CAN create a comfortable kitchen with the 4 walls you have at a fraction of the kitchen costs an extension will command.
Our kitchen costs ended up as approximately £8,000–9,000 to supply only. That includes appliances, worktops, sink, taps and excludes the cooker, electrics, tiling, plastering, window fitting or labour to fit the kitchen. Other companies cost between £3,500 for something basic, up to £80,000 for higher-end brands.
If we’d have gone with our original more ambitious idea, aside from the actual kitchen extension costs the kitchen bill would have been at least a 1/3 higher.
There’s no doubt about it, planning a kitchen can make you ask really tough questions about how you are going to use the space and often you need costs to be able to make important decisions like we did.
To help with calculating kitchen costs we also have a post that answers the question “how much do kitchen worktops cost?” And if you’re stuck with ideas for kitchens galley kitchen ideas, kitchen diner ideas and kitchen extension ideas.
Now we’ll look at “How much do new kitchens cost?” – and specifically, how to put your costs together
Obviously your kitchen costs will vary from ours depending on the materials you choose. You have a different sized space, different needs and tastes, and you may choose to go with a more or less expensive kitchen supplier.
When I run projects with clients I tend to find that kitchens are the most difficult room in your house to cost for – simply because there are so many variables that can make the price higher or lower. It really is in your hands how much you spend, and if you aren’t sure what look you want, this can make it harder to estimate.
Aside from the supply of the kitchen itself, which a kitchen supplier will be able to quote for you, other kitchen costs you will need to consider are:
The quality and finish of the kitchen, and whether you’re moving it from one room to another – are you tiling? plastering? installing new electrics? replumbing?
Labour costs to fit the kitchen – which depends on your area of the country (south of the UK is generally more expensive for labour costs)
The state of repair your building is in – you’ll need to budget a contingency for unforeseen work you may find lurking behind the wallpaper and under floors
Whether structural changes are required - if supporting walls are going to be removed, this will increase the price
If an extension is being planned - again, building onto your existing property will increase your overall kitchen costs
How much of the renovation work you plan to do yourselves - if you’re a confident joiner or carpenter, you should make a huge saving doing the kitchen fit yourself
Calculating what your new kitchen costs will be…
It’s the hardest part when you’re making home improvements. How do you forecast what the total costs will be without actually instructing tradesmen and ordering items?!
Well, before we renovated our 1930s kitchen diner, we itemised every single potential cost by obtaining estimates both online, by calling tradesmen and by working on multiple designs with different kitchen suppliers (which they often offer free of charge).
Our advice for budgeting kitchen costs:
Have an early stab at the costs (research online, ask neighbours if they’ve done the same level of work)
Set a healthy contingency (anything from +10% – +25% of the total project fees is a good rule of thumb)
Get quotes in nice and early (tradesmen, the good ones, get booked up quickly and you don’t want to be on a long waiting list if you’re ready to get started)
Track actual costs as they come in (so important! Document everything from the cost of the worktops, to the cost of the paintbrushes so you can see exactly how much you’ve spent vs how much you have left to play with)
It can be hard to keep track of costs and estimates, but we found a tried and tested method that worked perfectly for us which we now teach others in our How to Renovate a House Online course. We have a whole module dedicated to Budgeting, forecasting your costs, with video tutorials, a workbook and a step by step approach to follow to cost up your whole projects with confidence.
So if you’re really stuck on costing up your kitchen project, extension project or overall house renovation then take a look at our online course and shop full of digital tools to help you.
How much do kitchens cost to fit?
We can only share what we know which is how much our kitchen cost to fit. Sites like mybuilder.com offer some great articles with average installation costs you could check out.
Our kitchen cost approximately £3,500 to install. That excludes structural costs, electrics and flooring installation. We’re based in the South East where labour costs are notoriously high, similar for projects in London. We see averages of between £3,500 up to £10,000 depending on where you are and how complex the job is.
We share all of our costs itemised within our Budget Planner which is part of our How to Renovate a House Online course. So take a look around our shop to see as there is a lot we can help you with when it comes to costing up your kitchen project.
How to prevent your kitchen costs from spiralling
Each year, thousands of renovators go into projects unprepared. In fact 4 out of 10 renovators end up going over budget and it’s normally lack of preparation that is the cause.
Having helped hundreds of UK renovators now, it’s true… the success is in the planning.
Don’t just launch into a kitchen renovation without a firm idea of how much you’re willing to spend in total, plus contingency if things were to go wrong.
Recently we spoke to our plasterer about helping renovators, his words “well they sure do need it”. His thoughts were that that many renovators completely underestimate what is required before and during a renovation but you can get prepared. We wrote all about how we used our own online course to do our master bedroom budget and layout and it helped us systematically work through our budgets step by step.
How should I design a kitchen?
This is my absolute bread and butter. I love working with clients to understand their needs, tastes and space to form the right layout and design. Often if you’re looking at costing up a kitchen project, the design closely informs final costs, so it’s sensible to understand what style kitchen you want early on. You may need assistance with designing your kitchen and we have some really handy, quick-to-read downloadables to help you.
First, How to design and order a kitchen (and why we opted for Howdens) – download this for free and you’ll learn the step by step way to design and order your perfect kitchen.
Next, if you’re designing several rooms or doing a bigger project such as an extension, you may enjoy signing up to my How to Design Your Dream Home 3 day email series which is helping homeowners nail their layouts and achieve a cohesive design that you and your partner/family like.
So, what are costs for a kitchen renovation?
You’re going to hate the answer to this - but it really depends. There are too many factors to give an accurate figure. If you like the look of our kitchen diner and you’re looking to knock down a wall, moving the kitchen into the existing dining area the our renovation costs post might help, you can find a guide where we’ve itemised not just our whole kitchen costs, but our whole house costs which you can refer to.
Summary
In conclusion, Neil + I both believe that budgeting your kitchen renovation costs is all about research, planning, lateral thinking, and getting clear on your design requirements early so that you can understand the whole picture to establish an accurate estimate.
If you’re renovating more than just your kitchen we’d recommend doing provisional estimates for the whole of your house renovation at the same time if possible so that you can understand whether you need to compromise and how you will afford the rest if the money runs out.
Nowadays we have so much information at our finger tips that sometimes it can feel both overwhelming and empowering, which is why we’re sharing the tools that helped us and our advice – to save you time and plan accordingly.
We hope this post helped you, and happy kitchen shopping! It’s got to be one of the best projects you’ll do in your home! Our kitchen makeover was life changing :)
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