We figured out long ago that working with our homeowners on developing their budget and then focusing on design and planning the remodel they want made for happier homeowners. 

We find it’s so much easier to see where the costs are escalating and then work together providing smart solutions to bring them back into alignment when we are coordinating all the decisions.  And that’s how I know for sure that:

A detailed design and planning process can save you some serious money.

Here’s how;

•  It’s easy to spot where your dollars are going when the product selections are removed from the labor quote.  Understanding the big price tag items can help you make better decisions on items that “might be nice to have” but aren’t worth the added expense.
• It’s the only way to compare Contractor-Contractor labor costs.  Then you can decide if  Contractor A’s installation, communication, project management, and coordination team is worth the extra cost compared to a “one man band” contractor B.
• The biggest cost you can avoid is the cost of mistakes.  Finding out your contractor has allocated stock cabinetry, fixtures and/or finishes after the remodel is finished is much more expensive to fix.
• Working with one person who is coordinating all the design and planning decisions, prevents misunderstandings that happen between vendors.  
1. Your cabinet designer has to work with your appliance salesperson, 
2. your Countertop supplier needs to coordinate with your tile selections.  
3. And all the other fixtures and finishes will either pull everything together or cause missed opportunities that are the final look of your project.

• Kitchen Designers can refer you to qualified Contracting firms that they trust to install your project the way you designed and planned.  Most of these are not big companies but small expert craftspeople that work quickly and efficiently by repeat referral.  
• Most Kitchen Designers offer the same oversight, reviewing proposals, communicating, and managing the project, that hiring a Design Build firm would have provided.

The one thing that will make it easier.

No matter how you decide to research your kitchen remodel, the one thing that will make it easier is having a good understanding of your Product Cost before you start getting estimates. 

For that reason I invite you to  complete our 5 Minute Kitchen Product Budget Calculator.    

This worksheet will quickly calculate the impact of your product decisions on your budget.  I use it during every Kitchen Consult I do and it helps our homeowners put context to the remodeling dollars they will spend.

Making sure you’re getting estimates that separate the Product Selections, those items you will have to go and pick out, from the Labor Cost, cost to build and install, will make it easy to spot estimates that aren’t considering the actual cost of Products for your project.  

You’ll benefit in multiple ways;

• Most Contractors can easily estimate the cost to build your new kitchen after having a simple discussion on what you want.  But they struggle with understanding how much the fixtures and finishes contribute to making you happy.  Isolating the Labor Estimates separately when deciding who to hire can be an effective way to weed out estimates that are low because they didn’t include the same level of materials as their counterpart.  

• Having this  knowledge provides clarity.  When you see large differences caused by General Overhead costs you get to decide on the importance of working with a team that handles the communication, coordination, supervision versus working with a contractor who handles everything on his own.  

• Differences in Product Budgets become obvious.  To determine if it  is in the right ballpark you can get more specific on the (3) items that make up most of the Product cost; Cabinets, Appliances and Countertops.  That’s why we created our 5 minute Product Budget.  I can get very specific when discussing what’s been included in any estimate 

Don’t get me wrong as a Kitchen and Bath Designer I fully support working through the options and opportunities when remodeling your kitchen.  Actually, I believe that’s how you get exactly what you want.   But it presents a problem for you when you are basing your hiring decision on who aligns with your cost without any context as to where the dollars will be going before you even begin the process.

A simple solution to understanding your project costs is doing the Design and Planning first. 

When I do my Free Zoom consults in order to get better estimates, we review priorities; new cabinets, appliances, countertops, re-allocating square footage from underused rooms, better storage, all these things are typically on the list.  We also review expectations on the quality of materials.

It’s no surprise that we want the materials we choose to be better than the materials we have.  

Our cabinets should have soft close features,  storage accessories, trash pull-outs, pantry roll-outs,  moldings, and more. Unfortunately, all too often, the material allowances used when getting estimates for our projects are simply whatever was leftover once the labor cost was subtracted from the budget we guessed at.  

One way to bridge the gap is to have a better understanding of the quality of materials you expect to use with your remodel and their cost.  Would you be shocked to find out that your decisions regarding Cabinets, Countertops and Appliances can make up a staggering 70% of your product cost and 50% of the overall project cost.

That’s why we created the 5 minute Product Budget Calculator.  

Just download our calculator and it will be no surprise why so many homeowners end up spending more than they planned because of  upgrades to their material allowances.  They didn’t know that the allowances in the original estimate were woefully insufficient.