Kitchen Renovation Q & A

When we moved into our 1950’s ranch house we knew that we would need to put some major work into the kitchen (among many other spaces). Our goal was to update every inch of the kitchen while keeping the old traditional charm that we fell in love with when first touring the house. After living in the house for over a year, saving up some money and planning the new kitchen design we finally decided to pull the trigger and start the kitchen renovation in January 2022!! Below you’ll find some before and after pictures of our kitchen, links to every major item, a cost breakdown of the entire project and the answers to a few other frequently asked questions.

How Long Did the Kitchen Take?

We started demo on January 1st and finished the kitchen at the end of February. It took months leading up to the renovation though to save, plan and design everything. We had my Dad helping for about 3 weeks so that definitely sped things up. Be sure to take the time to really plan everything in advance, order all of your appliances and must have items ahead of time, and get any outside contractors on the calendar as quick as you can. These are all major things that can hold up your project.

How Much Did the Kitchen Cost?

Overall, the kitchen ended up costing just under $30,000. To give you a scope of the project, (if you missed the renovation videos) we tore the kitchen down to pretty much bare bones, took out a wall and replaced every appliance. Everything in the kitchen had to be replaced.

Cost Breakdown:

Appliances: $3,900

Electrical: $4,000

Countertops: $5,000

Cabinetry: $1,500

Cabinet Doors: $2,100

Tile & Material: $1,600

Door to Garage: $286

Light Fixtures: $780

Sink: $560

Faucet: $420

Disposal & misc plumbing: $300

Custom Range Hood: $250

Dumpster fee: $500

Barstools: $1,300

Construction material/supplies, misc kitchen items: ~$6,500

Paint Colors

Cabinet Color: Natural Cream by Benjamin Moore

Wall Color: Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore (Eggshell)

Ceiling Color: Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore (Flat)

Door / Trim Color: Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore (Semi Gloss)

What Software did you use to Design the Kitchen?

I used SketchUp to design the entire kitchen. It’s a tricky program to learn but once you know how to use it, it’s a game changer. Our kitchen cabinets are from Ikea and I used their online program to design the layout for our cabinets which was really helpful.

SketchUp: https://www.sketchup.com/

IKEA Kitchen Planner: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/planners/kitchen-planner/

What Type of Cabinets?

Like I mentioned earlier, the base cabinets are from Ikea. We saved a ton of money going this route. We still wanted the look of high end cabinets though so we went with AllStyle Retrofit for the cabinet doors.

They custom make doors to specifically fit the Ikea cabinets. They were amazing to work with and they were able to paint the cabinets in the same Benjamin Moore paint color that I have on our dining room built ins!

Allstyle Retrofit: https://allstyleretrofit.ca/ *PR Discount

Cabinetry: Sektion

Material: Routed MDF

Door Style: Henegan

Color: OC-14 Natural Cream

What Type of Countertops?

We ordered our countertops through Home Depot. They always have good deals running on countertops so we were able to get a bit of a discount. They were on top of the entire process, always one step ahead of me which is not easy to find these days so I’m happy we worked with them on the countertops. These are Silestone quartz countertops in the color Tuscana Cream. They have a really unique veining with some beiges, grays and gold tones. I love how they turned out and how well they go with our cabinet color.