You can spend almost anything on a kitchen. That’s part of the problem.
There are $400 faucets and $2,000 faucets. Stock cabinets and completely custom cabinets. $3 cabinet pulls and $50 cabinet pulls. Appliance packages that cost $8,000 and appliance packages that cost more than some entire kitchen remodels.
Spend money on the things that are difficult or expensive to change later. Save money on the things that aren’t.
I’d put money into the layout, what’s behind the walls, good installation, useful cabinetry and good lighting. I’d be much more willing to save on decorative finishes, hardware, trendy cabinet accessories and expensive materials that don’t actually make the kitchen work any better.
That’s how I’d build the budget.
This would be number one for me. If the kitchen doesn’t work, expensive finishes aren’t going to fix it.
Maybe the sink is in the wrong place. Maybe the refrigerator creates a traffic jam. Maybe there’s nowhere to prep food. Maybe the island is too big for the room. Maybe a wall is separating the kitchen from space your family would actually use.
Those are problems worth solving. Because once the cabinets, countertops, flooring and backsplash are installed, changing the layout becomes very expensive.
I wouldn’t spend $70,000 rebuilding a kitchen around a layout you already know you hate, just to save $5,000 or $10,000 in construction.
At the same time, don’t change the layout just because you’re remodeling. If it already works, leaving plumbing and walls where they are is one of the largest savings available on the whole project.
We go much deeper into that decision in Should you keep your kitchen layout or change it?
Nobody is going to walk into your finished kitchen and compliment the electrical wiring. That’s still where I’d spend the money.
If we’re already tearing the kitchen apart and we find outdated wiring, bad plumbing, poor venting or something else that needs corrected, now is the time to deal with it. Not five years from now, after the cabinets and backsplash are installed.
This is especially relevant in older Central PA houses. We’ve opened enough old houses to know that what was done during the last renovation isn’t always what you’d do today.
That doesn’t mean every old pipe and wire automatically needs replaced. It means we look at what’s there while we can actually get to it.
If something should be corrected, I’d rather put $3,000 somewhere you’ll never see than spend the same $3,000 upgrading from an already-good countertop to a slightly fancier one.
The countertop is easier to replace later than the wiring behind it.
If you own an older house, our articles on knob-and-tube wiring and how residential plumbing has changed over the years are worth reading before a major remodel.
This is probably the least exciting answer in the article.
Buy a $10,000 countertop and install it badly? It’s going to look bad. Buy beautiful cabinets and hang them poorly? Doors won’t line up, reveals will be inconsistent, trim will look wrong. Buy expensive tile and install it badly? Congratulations. You have expensive bad tile work.
Materials don’t overcome workmanship.
This is one of the reasons comparing kitchen estimates by the bottom-line number alone doesn’t tell you very much. You’re not just buying cabinets, flooring and countertops. You’re buying the work required to make all of those pieces fit together properly.
Bad work is expensive twice. You pay once when it’s installed, and again when somebody has to tear it out and do it right.
Notice I didn’t say buy the most expensive cabinets you can afford. I wouldn’t.
I’d spend enough to get cabinets that are well built, fit the room properly and give you useful storage. That could be stock cabinetry. It could be semi-custom. It could be custom. The right answer depends on the kitchen.
Where I’d be willing to spend more is on the things you interact with every day:
That’s money you experience every day. Paying thousands more because a cabinet line has a fancier name? I’m less interested.
We break this down further in Stock vs. semi-custom vs. custom cabinets.
Kitchen cabinet accessories are dangerous. Not because they’re bad — because they’re fun to add when you’re sitting in front of a cabinet catalog.
Pullout this. Organizer that. Special drawer for these. Mechanical contraption for those. Pretty soon we’ve added thousands of dollars of hardware inside cabinets.
Some of it is fantastic. Some of it you’ll use twice.
Design storage around the stuff you actually own. If you cook constantly and have fifteen pans, good pan storage might be worth every dollar. If you use three spices, you probably don’t need a custom 48-bottle spice system.
Spend on function. Skip the gadgets.
Lighting is one of the easiest things to underestimate. You can build a beautiful kitchen and make it feel terrible with bad lighting.
And just putting a bunch of recessed lights in the ceiling isn’t necessarily good lighting. You need to think about where people actually work — counters, sink, range, island — and then think about general room lighting and decorative lighting separately.
That’s really three different jobs happening in the same ceiling: light to work by, light to fill the room, and light that’s there to look good. Plan them separately and the kitchen works. Plan them as one grid of can lights and you get shadows exactly where you’re chopping.
I’d rather have a $300 light fixture in the right place than a $1,500 fixture in the wrong place.
Lighting is another thing that’s much easier to plan while the ceiling and walls are open than after the kitchen is finished.
This is where you can pull money back. You need good lighting. You don’t necessarily need expensive lights. There’s a difference.
If you absolutely love a particular pendant and it’s going to be a major feature over the island, spend the money if the budget allows. But don’t assume a more expensive fixture produces better light or a better kitchen.
Fixtures are also relatively easy to change later.
Get the electrical plan right now. Upgrade the pretty fixture later if you want to.
Modern kitchens use a lot of electricity. Coffee makers. Microwaves. Toasters. Air fryers. Mixers. Dishwashers. Disposals. Refrigerators. Ranges. Under-cabinet lighting. Whatever appliance gets invented next.
I don’t want to finish a kitchen and immediately have the homeowner wishing there were more receptacles or a better place to plug something in.
Electrical planning should happen around the cabinet and appliance layout, not as an afterthought. That includes thinking about where appliances will actually live. If your coffee maker is going in one particular corner every morning, we should probably know that before electrical rough-in.
This one will probably get me yelled at.
You do not automatically need the most expensive countertop you can afford. There are beautiful quartz products that work very well. Granite is still a perfectly good material. Laminate can make sense in the right project.
You can spend considerably more on exotic natural stone, and sometimes that stone is incredible. But once we’ve reached a countertop you like that’s durable enough for the way you use the kitchen, spending another $5,000 doesn’t necessarily make the kitchen $5,000 better.
If the budget is unlimited, have at it. If we’re choosing between the exotic slab and fixing something more important, I’m fixing the kitchen.
Our quartz vs. granite article goes deeper into the actual material differences.
There’s an exception to everything.
Maybe you’ve found a quartzite slab you absolutely love. You’re going to see it every morning for the next fifteen years. The rest of the kitchen budget is under control. Buy the stone.
The point isn’t that expensive finishes are stupid. The point is to spend intentionally. If something matters enough to you to justify the money, that’s a perfectly legitimate reason to buy it.
What I don’t like is spending more because somebody made you think that’s what a “high-end kitchen” requires.
It’s your house.
You can spend a fortune on backsplash tile. You don’t have to. There are plenty of relatively simple tiles that look great when they’re installed properly.
A backsplash is also one of the easier places to add personality without committing a huge portion of the budget. Maybe that’s simple subway tile. Maybe it’s something with more color. Maybe you run the countertop material up the wall. There are a hundred directions you can go.
But if we’re trying to pull $2,000 or $3,000 out of a kitchen budget, I’d simplify the backsplash before compromising the layout or the mechanical work. Every time.
Same idea. You can spend a shocking amount of money on cabinet pulls, and you can find perfectly good hardware without doing that.
Hardware is also about as easy to replace as anything in the kitchen. As long as we’re thoughtful about the hole spacing, you can change it years from now without touching the cabinetry.
Nobody should be sacrificing electrical work because the drawer pulls cost $70 each.
I don’t think everybody needs luxury appliances. Some people will get enormous value from them.
If you cook constantly and have always wanted a particular range, that’s different from buying a $10,000 range because the kitchen designer said the room needed one. The same goes for oversized refrigerators, double ovens, beverage refrigerators and everything else.
For our kitchen projects, we generally tell homeowners to budget $8,000 to $22,000 separately for appliances. You can spend less. You can spend dramatically more. But appliances aren’t included in our standard kitchen ranges, because the homeowner’s choices move that number so much.
Buy appliances for the way you cook, not for the kitchen you’re trying to impress somebody with.
I’m not against trends. Every kitchen ever built reflects the period when it was built, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But I’d be careful about putting large amounts of money into something permanent just because it’s popular right now.
Want a trendy paint color? Go for it. Interesting cabinet hardware? Easy. Pendant lights? Easy enough to change. A very specific $20,000 cabinet finish that you’re already wondering whether you’ll hate in five years? I’d think harder.
The more expensive something is to undo, the more certain I’d want to be about it.
This is another useful test. Some upgrades look great in photographs. Other upgrades make the kitchen nicer to use every single day.
Those things aren’t particularly sexy. But they’re the difference between a kitchen that photographs well and a kitchen you actually like living with.
I’ve said this elsewhere on the site, because I think it’s important. Not every outdated kitchen needs to be gutted.
If the layout is good, the cabinets are solid and the real problem is that everything looks dated, maybe what you need is a refresh. Our medium kitchen refresh projects generally start around $20,000 to $35,000. A full gut remodel generally starts around $50,000 to $75,000. A kitchen where we’re substantially changing the layout generally starts around $75,000 to $115,000+ before major finish upgrades.
Those are very different projects.
Figure out what problem you’re actually trying to solve before deciding how much kitchen you need to buy.
Our kitchen pricing guide breaks those levels down in more detail.
If I had a fixed budget, I’d prioritize it like this.
Not everybody would put those in exactly the same order. That’s fine. But I wouldn’t reverse it.
Don’t spend all the money on what you can see and then cheap out on everything holding it together. That’s how expensive remodels become disappointing remodels.
For homeowners around Selinsgrove, Lewisburg, Sunbury, Northumberland, Danville, Shamokin Dam, Milton, Watsontown and the surrounding Susquehanna Valley, our kitchen pricing page is a good place to see how scope, size and finish selections affect the overall project.
Then decide how fancy you want to make it. If you’re not sure which project you’re actually looking at, the pricing guide sorts a refresh from a full remodel from a reimagined kitchen.
Where should I spend the most money in a kitchen remodel?
Start with layout, necessary behind-the-wall work, installation, useful cabinetry and lighting. Those are difficult or expensive to correct after the kitchen is finished, and they have the biggest effect on how the room works every day.
Where can I save money on a kitchen remodel?
Decorative items are usually the safer places to save: cabinet hardware, some backsplash selections, decorative lighting and expensive countertop upgrades. If your existing layout and cabinets already work, keeping them creates much larger savings than any finish decision.
Is it worth spending more on kitchen cabinets?
Sometimes. Spend more when better cabinetry gives you useful storage, better construction or sizing that improves the room. Don’t assume custom cabinets are necessary just because you’re doing an expensive kitchen remodel.
Is expensive quartz worth it?
It can be if you love the particular appearance, but more expensive quartz doesn’t automatically make the kitchen function better. Once you’ve found a durable countertop you genuinely like, I’d compare the additional cost against other improvements the kitchen still needs.
Should I spend more on appliances or cabinets?
It depends on how you use the kitchen. Somebody who cooks constantly may get tremendous value from better appliances, while another homeowner benefits much more from improved cabinetry and storage. Spend according to how you actually live rather than following a standard percentage.
What’s the biggest waste of money in a kitchen remodel?
Spending heavily on finishes while preserving problems you already know exist. An expensive countertop, a custom cabinet finish or a luxury appliance won’t fix a poor layout, inadequate storage, bad lighting or problems behind the walls.
Fifteen minutes on the phone. You’ll have a realistic range before we hang up — and if we’re not the right people for it, I’ll tell you.