From periodextensions.com.au
When we thought about our kitchen and master bedroom remodel, we thought about how much we were willing to spend not how much we “ought” to spend. We committed to spending cash and not putting anything on credit cards (made easier since we don’t have any :).)
We had to wait a year for our previous home to finally sell and when all was said and done we had about $42,000 to work with. Typical remodels of this magnitude cost $100,000. We knew that meant we would be doing more of the work ourselves and bargain shopping for materials.
Even though we got it at an amazing price, our home is in an affluent neighborhood. So whatever we did we wanted to be quality. Real stone counters, real wood floors. But that didn’t mean we decided to pay high end prices for our high end stuff.
To help make budgeting easier, I opened a clean spreadsheet in excel and brainstormed a list of things that we would have to spend money on. Then I researched via the internet what average things cost and dropped a number in.
Here’s an example. The center column with numbers in it is stuff that comes out of the $42,000. The stuff on the right are things we can do much later as we save up money for it. The blank lines are for things that we will do ourselves or are budgeted in a lump with another line. And the negative number for tearing out cabinets means I got someone to pay me for the privilege of tearing them out and taking them home. (Slick, I know ;).)
This is just a snapshot of the whole project. We have other rooms included in our $42,000 budget. The bottom of the middle column is set to automatically sum so I can see if we are on budget or not. As soon as we spend something, I plug that real number in to make the budget more accurate. As always, my goal is to spend less than budgeted to make some room for extras at the end.
By budgeting this way, I could see right away that either my wood look tile floors or gas range were going to have to go–possibly both. (We found a Cragislist range and traded in the tile for real wood that can go through the whole main floor of the house.) I also saw that things like drapes, area rugs, and furniture might be years into my future, or come out of extra money that I earn by selling stuff or spending less on other budgeted remodel items.
How about you? Have you planned out a project big or small? How did you do it?
We re-did our kitchen last year which required gutting it down to the studs. We hired a plumber (we got two estimates and they were with in dollars of each other) and electrician (3 estimates) but all the other items were done by my husband and friends. I checked out cabinet prices from three different suppliers as well as my appliances. We bought our Jennair double oven from a church rummage sale for $200, normally $2400. Since it was stainless steel, that set what the rest of our appliances would look like. We got our cabinets and appliances from a local family-owned business. They were cheaper than the big box stores by $4,000. My husband watched YouTube videos on installing kitchen cabinets. The countertops we also got through our cabinet/appliance guy. We went with quartz because of it’s durability. I LOVE my kitchen. Start to finish, we were done in 2 mos. with all the major work. There are still a few things we need to finish but it’s beautiful.
Lynette, That sounds beautiful! And you were so smart and frugal the way you did it without compromising on quality.
Did you put drywall over the brick? We have brick in our kitchen and we’ve been thinking about putting drywall over it.
Any tips?
Cheryl, We didn’t drywall over it. We were going to, but we were going to lose some space from the thickness of the studs and drywall. It was an added expense, and I like the texture of the brick just not the color. So we decided to paint it :).