What does a kitchen remodel cost? What moves the price

Whether the layout moves

This is the biggest lever. Keep the sink, the range and the refrigerator where they are and the plumbing, gas and most of the electrical stay where they are too. The job is demolition, finishes and cabinets.

Move the sink to an island and a drain has to run under the floor. Move the range and the gas line moves with it, along with the vent. Take out the wall to the dining room and in most houses here that wall is carrying something, so a beam gets sized by an engineer and a structural permit joins the job. Each of those is normal work, and each one is a line in the price that a same-layout kitchen does not have.

Cabinets: the largest single line

Cabinets are usually the largest single item in a kitchen and the one with the widest range. Stock cabinets come in fixed sizes with fillers to make up the gaps. Semi-custom lines add sizes, finishes and interior fittings. Custom is built to the room.

The grade you choose can change the cabinet line by a multiple, not a percentage. If you have not chosen yet, a real estimate carries cabinets as a named allowance with a figure and a grade next to it, so you can see what the number assumes. If the existing boxes are sound, refacing instead of replacing is the other way to move this line.

Counters, backsplash and appliances

Laminate, butcher block, quartz, granite and solid surface all sit at different price points and need different support and seams. Quartz and stone are templated off the installed cabinets, which puts a gap of a week or two in the middle of every kitchen schedule. That gap is normal. A schedule that hides it is not.

Appliances are usually yours to buy, but they still change our price. A range hood that vents outside needs a duct run. A refrigerator with a water line needs one. A new electric range on an old panel may need a circuit, or a panel.

What is behind the walls

Houses in Washington, Maryland and Northern Virginia from before the 1960s regularly turn up cloth-covered or knob and tube wiring, galvanized supply lines that are half closed with scale, and plaster over lath that does not patch like drywall. Kitchens are where that shows up first, because kitchens get opened.

A good estimate says what it assumes is in the wall. If the assumption is wrong, the fix is priced as a written change order before it is done, not folded into the final invoice.

Floors, walls and paint

A new kitchen floor is cheaper to lay before the cabinets go in than to cut around them later. Where the old floor stays, the subfloor still gets checked where the dishwasher and sink were, because that is where the water went.

Drywall repair after demolition, a skim coat where plaster came off, and two coats of paint are part of every kitchen. They are small lines, but a quote that leaves them out is not for the whole job.

Permits and who pulls them

A kitchen that moves plumbing, gas, electrical or walls needs a permit from the county, or from the Department of Buildings in DC, with the trade work done by licensed trades under it. That is part of the job and part of the schedule. Who pulls the permit belongs in the written scope. If a quote does not say, ask.

How to get a real number

A walkthrough, a measured layout, a written scope that names every allowance with a figure and a grade, who pulls the permit, and the order the work runs in. That is what our free estimate includes, and the price does not move unless you change something or the wall shows us something, and then it moves in writing first.

The general remodel cost guide covers the same five levers across any room. If you want a full written budget before you commit to anyone, our paid Remodel Scope & Budget Plan does that, and the fee is credited toward the work if you book with us.