We recently decided to do some home remodeling projects.  As we sat in our living room and looked into our kitchen we decided that the kitchen would be the ideal place to start.  Most of our time that we are home together is spent in the kitchen with meal preparation, cleanup and eating.  Also it seems that guests tend to congregate in the kitchen area.  We started researching kitchen remodeling costs and quickly had to make some adjustments in our priorities.  This was not going to be inexpensive.  There are many hidden expenses when it comes to tallying up kitchen remodeling costs.

We talked with a local contractor to get an estimate on having the remodeling professionally done.  He asked us to come up with a wish list of things we wanted in the kitchen and to rank them in order from “have to have” to “it would be nice”.  This was very helpful because with kitchen remodeling costs as high as they are, you can quickly pare down your wish list.  The top of our wish list was to change our kitchen cabinets with new ones.  They were very dark wood and made the kitchen seem small and closed in.  We also wanted to install a tile countertop to match the tile on the floor.  I wanted to expand the window area by the sink to let in more light.  We also wanted to remove the wallpaper and change out the exhaust hood above the stove.  Our appliances were neutral colors and worked well, however my husband wanted to convert the electric range top from electric to gas.  We felt confident as we handed our list to the contractor that we would have enough money in our savings account to cover the kitchen remodeling costs.

We were shocked when the estimate for the kitchen remodeling costs came in.  We would have to take out a loan to complete everything that we had put on the wish list.  We started looking at alternatives to keep down the kitchen remodeling costs.  We learned how to prepare the surface of the cabinets for painting.  By painting the cabinets an almond color the kitchen was much brighter.  We bought new hardware for the cabinets and the transformation was wonderful.  To make the kitchen window area look larger I simply removed the curtain that I had hanging in it.  I had taken the curtain down during the painting project and found that without it there was more light streaming into the room.  Our counter top also looked revived with the lighter cabinets, so we kept it and put up a tile back splash instead.  This was much more cost effective and was a part of the remodeling that we could do ourselves.  Next we removed the wallpaper and painted the walls a lemon yellow.  We replaced the exhaust fan with one in an almond color to match the cabinets.  Our kitchen looks beautiful, we had the satisfaction of completing the majority of the work ourselves and our kitchen remodeling costs were kept to a minimum.  We did not use the local contractor but he certainly helped us have an affordable new kitchen.