Cost is almost always the first question, and the honest answer is a range wide enough to be unhelpful — unless you know which decisions are actually pulling the number around.
Homeowners often come to us with a number in mind and a folder of photos, and the two do not always agree. That is not a problem, it is the starting point. The work of the first couple of meetings is figuring out which parts of the picture are driving the price, and which parts you could have either way.
Three decisions do most of the work
Before finishes, before hardware, before anything you would pick out in a showroom, these are the choices that set the band your project lands in:
- Whether the sink and range stay where they are. Moving either one means opening a floor or a wall for supply, drain and venting. The fixture is rarely the expensive part — everything behind it is.
- Stock, semi-custom, or fully custom cabinetry. This is usually the single largest line on a kitchen estimate, and it has the widest spread of any category.
- How much countertop you are covering. Islands cost more per foot than they look like they should, because of edge work, seams and the labor of setting a large piece.
The part nobody budgets for
Older homes hold surprises. Opening a wall in a house built before the 1980s can turn up wiring that no longer meets code, a drain that was never vented properly, or framing that is not carrying what someone once assumed it was. None of this is unusual and none of it is a disaster, but it does need room in the budget rather than a phone call halfway through.
We would rather talk about a contingency line at the start, when it is a calm conversation, than discover it together behind the drywall.
Where we would tell you to spend
Put the money into what you cannot change later: the layout, where the plumbing lives, and the quality of the cabinet boxes. Save on the things that can be swapped in an afternoon — pulls, pendants, paint. The kitchens that still look right ten years on are the ones that got that order correct.
If you are working out what your project would take, that is exactly the conversation we like having. Bring the photos and the number, and we will tell you honestly how far apart they are.