This is probably not what you want to hear, but we want to offer just a word of encouragement - my husband and I did not consider ourselves handy at all. We absolutely needed a new kitchen. We absolutely could not afford a new one. At first terrified, we learned how to find studs, level and install cabinets, and counters. We will hire a plumber to install our sink/plumbing, and an electrician. We learned how to do the scary sounding stuff (hanging cabinets/leveling base cabinets, etc.) by watching "YouTube" and by googling "how to" for every step of the way. I think that you could do it for under $5,000, if you do just grit your teeth, decide to do it, and work together. I absolutely know how frightening it can be. I also know that now that we are so far into our renovation, it can be extraordinarily rewarding, and make you feel a LOT of "wow" about how you did.

We considered Ikea cabinets, but went with high end second hand cabinets. On the Ikea site, they have a planner - I compared what an Ikea kitchen would cost compared to the cabinets that I purchased - while they did not have exactly the cabinets I have,and definitely not the nice types of inserts, here is a best guess: for the bottom of the line (basic style) Ikea cabinets, it would have cost me at least $2,056. The ones I liked, it would have cost $4,459. That does not include install. I purchased high end second hand cabinets for $2,500 (they have lazy susans, many pull outs, dray dividers, etc. and have plywood sides, not particle board.) We did invest in a good power chop saw, and a lower end table saw. We have also borrowed tools. Using those tools was very scary at first. We have been following the safety procedures to a "T" and are confident, but still careful, now. Our kitchen is 13 x 9, and is "U" shaped. and we are using 14 cabinets in all. We have 5 extra from our purchase, which I have not included in the Ikea quotes above, that we are using for a recycle center and cookbook holder.

I guess I would have to say that I don't believe that you could have a new kitchen with new cabinets, a sink, and a countertop installed all for $5,000. We will be spending a total of about $6,000 with most of the labor ours (except the electric and plumbing) - this will include faucets, high end sink (second hand) nice glass tile backsplash (at a steal $5 a square foot) - if you decide to use basic ceramic tile backsplash, you will be paying at least $3 a square foot, installing it yourself. You could just use paint.

I hope someone else has better information for you, but I want to encourage you from two former "fraidy cats" that you can do the install yourself, with the proper tools and knowledge. After you level and install the first cabinet, your confidence level will go way up. Could you try putting together and installing one cabinet in an area like a basement or the garage, to try it out and see what it feels like?

We have cut and installed one piece of countertop (butcher block from Ikea) and are looking forward to sealing and installing more of it within the next two weeks.

Best of luck with however way you go.

>> small kitchen for 5,000 or less? I only need cabinets, a sink and a countertop gonna be very difficult if you can't do the work yourselves. Cabinets are the most expensive part of a kitchen. My new kitchen cabinets were on sale. Cost of cabinets with painted maple is about $5,000 and that was a great price after shopping around. Then I have to pay for installation. You don't say what kind of countertop but even Corian isn't cheap. It's just cheaper than granite.

Sorry.

Try building suppliers but if you have a contractor friend ask them to buy them (they get a substantial discount). I got my cabinets through my contractor's building supplier and the BS gave me the same discount as my contractor. The cabinets are all plywood and mostly have drawers in the bottom. I only have one glass upper. That said they still cost around 4.5K. The cabinets cover approximately 15 liner feet on the bottom and 10 feet on the top.

I'm a KD who has had more than a fare share of budget renovations to come this way. And, I live in the South, where labor and materials aren't as expensive as they are in other parts of the US. The least expensive whole kitchen reno I've done was around 8K. That was with builder basic cabinets at around 3K, new vinyl floors for $500, new lighting for $500, new appliances for 3K, and new laminate counters for 1K. And, I hate to say it, but it looked exactly like it cost. It looked cheap. Their choices were not the best buy for their money, nor did they go together stylistically. It ended up looking like many of the "before" kitchen pics you see on this site---only all new.

There's a difference between "affordable" and cheap. I've done "affordable" kitchens as well, and they didn't cost that much more, but it was all in the timing of the projects and allocating the small amount of available dollars for the best quality they could buy at the time rather than hurry up and buy everything cheap. Your 5K could buy you all new decent quality cabinets in a small kitchen if you don't do any upgrades, and then you could live with plywood countertops and the old appliances and lighting and flooring until you had the money to tackle each of those things separately. Or, you could paint your existing cabinets, get new counters, knobs and a sink and be done under your 5K limit. But, to do anything on a budget, you're going to have to bring significant DIY involvement to the table and stretch out your timetable and budget.

You don't actually eed to be handy to assemble IKEA cabinets, just able to follow directions and okay with getting some blisters:)

Perhaps you could assemble them and get a contractor just to install. I also agree with livewire oak, you could approach the countertops separately after living with plywood tops for a while. I have also seen plywood with laminate only on the top surface and the exposed plywood edge--that was kinda cool looking actually.

Have you tried local custom cabinet shops? Most of my bids are coming in around $6000... that's just cabinets, lam. counters are about another $800-$1000.

Its more than you wanted, but includes install!

We used IKEA cabs and are very happy with them. I think IKEA is appropriate for certain situations, and I think they are a great value! Our neighborhood, for example, is small starter tract homes from the late 70s and all the original cabs were particle board w/fake wood paper stuff on them. The original kitchens are quite small, too. The home prices here are always below average for the city. I don't plan to live here forever, so I think it would be a waste to spend lots of $ on expensive cabinets when we can get good value cabs w/a good warranty that look good and function well for much less.

We assembled and installed our cabs ourselves but we had help from a friend who has installed IKEA cabs before. We spent almost $5K just on cabinets, but we chose one of the pricier door styles. I'm not sure you'll be able to accomplish cabs, counter, sink and not do any DIY either on a $5K budget. If you're keeping the same layout, is it necessary to replace cabs? We completely changed our layout so new cabinets were required. Maybe you could refinish or paint your cabinets and limit your remodel to counter and sink.

Just what's worth having is a subjective value. We paid for our Ikea kitchen out of our pocket and get many compliments on what visitors see, both of which are much more than adequate compensation for the sturdy but plastic-coated particleboard that makes up the part you don't see when the doors are closed.

Regarding handiness, Ikea cabinets don't come with written instructions--each component comes with pictures of how it goes together. Although mounting wall cabinets to the walls takes a couple of genuine tools, the individual components are put together with the cheap little wire thingy that comes with them. The biggest challenge is following the pictures as you put each kind together for the first time (something you can do, though, husband desirable but not needed), and then you just do the same thing over and over. As a challenge to take on to stretch yourselves a bit, this is amazingly tame compared to the big result to be impressed with.

Our thoughts on IKEA products....

We read a lot, went to a lot of showrooms and got quotes on a broad range of things. We are not strangers to the building/renovating process having redone four previous residences and three retail stores, as well as building two new stores from scratch.

The prices we got from some of the kitchen places shocked us. None of the showrooms we visited had workamnship equal to that of the cabinetry we have in our shops - yet the prices were higher. While I understand the high cost of providing good customer service, and the fact that this cost must be built in to the retail price of cabinet lines, I honestly believe that there is a lot of greed out there and hope that it is geting blown away in the current economic storm.

There are three things we have learnt about renovating/building and ourselves over the years:

Renovations never, ever cost what they are supposed to.

Borrowing money to renovate a residence is a really bad idea.

We are always going to make change$ along the way.

So we decided to use IKEA cabinets. We are ending up with a combination of white painted (not thermofoil) and oak veneered finishes with self-closing doors and drawers equipped with dampers. If we get bored of the colour or finish it's easy to have them redone or replaced.

The interior options for the drawers and cabinets are more extensive than any other manufacturer's line, and if somehow we need more, there are all the Rev-a-shelf products.

The boxes are good particle board. After having had water damage in one of our shops, we will never use anything but particle board for cabinets again.

Our taste does not run to the stark, modern look so we'll dress the cabinetry up with mouldings, corbels, etc. and change the glass in the door frames. You can do that with with Ikea more easily than with any preassembled cabinet.

Ikea's guarantee is 25 years. At our age that's almost(but not quite!) a lifetime gurantee.

To compare: - we went to a mid-range cabinetry firm and received a quote of just over $60,000 for the kitchen section of our main floor. This was Cabinetry, mouldings and interior fittings without installation. They estimated installation at 3 to 5 thousand.

We purchased cabinetry from Ikea for the same area with the same interior fittings for just under $10,000.00 We spent another $3,400.00 on corbels, light rail, legs, etc.

In our area, IKEA has installers who will come and assemble and install things for $40.00 per linear foot. That would be about $1,200 for us. Finish carpentry would be another $3,000.00 or so.

The biggest benefit though - outside of the fact that we are saving money - is that we have changed our layout about five hundred and fifty times, and gone back to Ikea to exchange cabinets about four hundred of those times. No Problem ! No Charge !

When I look at someone's kitchen cabinets the things I notice are the colours and the detailing. Most of the time I never see the inside of the cabinets and when I do I'm usually concentrating on the contents rather than the cabinet walls.

What makes or breaks a room for me are gorgeous handles and pulls, lighting, trim, colours, countertops, floors and architectural detailing. I buy good quality items but I look for intrinsic value there too.

But all of those things though are secondary to how much I enjoy myself in the space. I remember the wine and the conversation long after I remember anything else.

So on a reno project that recently edged its way into six figures we chose to use Ikea. We could have paid the prices the other companies were asking without hardship, but every time I looked at the kitchen I would have felt like I had overpaid. I don't want to deal with that for 25 years.

More news you probably won't love:

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day.
Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.

If all you have to spend is $5,000, including labor (which really means you have about $2,000 to spend on cabinets, sink, paint, permits, dumpster, counters, spackle, curtains, etc. etc.) then I would consider delaying and beefing up your cash reserves.

You MIGHT be able to do it if you were an exceptionally accomplished scrounger, barterer (carpenter labor for babysitting/bookkeeping other professional skill?) and thrift shopper Craigslist-y person and were willing to use whatever came cheap or free. Which maybe you are, and this is all perfectly doable. But all new, labor done by someone else? I really think you'd go over budget.

Somebody might promise you something they couldn't deliver at that price, and leave you with the choice of a half-finished kitchen or debt you didn't count on.

I have even read that the Habitat reStores are sold out of everything these days.

I would start going to some free or low-cost classes, like at Home Depot, and enlisting some handy friends willing to guide you, for pay, and, as others have said, just taking a deep breath, and putting in some sweat equity and doing some of the work yourself.

It may be doing some jobs by yourself, like tiling and painting, demo (careful, don't smash a load bearing wall or saw through wiring though!). You would still use an expert for wiring, plumbing or anything you really needed done right, like hanging cabinets. Be a little ahead of your confidence, but don't be dangerous.

Your first thought is probably "NO, not me". But I have known people, including a number of single women, or women who got sick of waiting for their husbands, with no prior construction skills, who, out of necessity, did absolutely amazing work on their houses, gradually.

Consider it.

I can tell you what I have seen in terms of cost. I live in Chicago, by the way.

Ikea, basic wood cabinet door line, 8.5x12 foot galley kitchen was $4500. I was stunned. Mind you, we did not add any fancy pullouts or drawer bases. Everything was just really basic to get an idea of what the rock bottom price for cabinets would be in our kitchen.

That was for 2 rows of 12 feet of cabinets.

The we went on to Menards to price out Schrock.
With their sale, it was $6500. Admittedly, we added a pullout pantry as well as 1 pots and pans drawer base. Sink base was free. We also added two glass upper cabinets. And we also opted for a painted finish. So, I am sure that minus all that it would have been much less. Consider that. Schrock is a good line. Same as Diamond (Lowes), Thomasville (home Depot). BY the way, Menards runs that sale on Schrock every two months or so...Check the flyer on their website.

Lowes (Diamond) cost the same as Menards with the same features. Actually it was 7500, but we negotiated it down to $6500 since, well, they are exactly the same, atleast for our style cabinets...Wittenberg.

So what I am saying is you may be able to get Ikea for like 3000 something if you don't get the wood and if you require less cabs that I do assuming that you don't add any "features"

Other lines to look into that are lower cost are Armstrong, Premier, American Woodmark.
Price them out. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Countertops....We looked into Caesarstone...The Great Indoors prices Caesarstone by the sq foot rather than by the slab, so it comes out cheaper. For 40 sq feet, 33 inch farm sink cut out, no hauling away of old countertops for us though, 3cm eased square edge comes out to $63 and change a sq foot.

Black Granites like Nordic, Cambrian, about 50 something bucks a square foot.

I am giving you these averages so you can know what to expect. I know pricing on this board really helped me.

Ticor sinks ...from galaxy...everyone raves about them on this webpage and they are inexpensive.

Faucets...I would expect to pay atleast 300 dollars for a pretty good faucet. Atleast.

Check out the under 20k kitchen post. A lot of people posted the cost of their materials. There is one white kitchen on tehre that used Soapstone looking WIlsonart Countertops and it looks FANTASTIC!

I think 5k is tough considering you need to hire people out. In fact, sorry to be blunt, but I think it will be impossible.

You havea headstart in that you don't need appliances though.

Best of luck. And if you have any questions don't hesitate to post!

I can also tell you there are tradeoffs, like you can save a LOT of money using salvaged goods,

BUT

Contactors and plumbers, electricians, etc won't touch them, usually, or they'll scare you so much, tell you your house will fall down if you bring a used hinge into it.

I understand why they don't want to bring the unpredictable element into their work domain, but, IF you have someone who KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING and is willing to take it on, you MAY find materials like sinks, countertop materials, cabinets, lighting (have them rewired!) doors, hardware etc. I have a house full of salvaged materials.

$30 for a porcelain sink WITH working taps? Those kinds of prices are worth looking into.

And my sink and taps have been working perfectly for months!

Hi,
I just started my own online business. You can buy direct from the manufacturer and save quite a bit of money. I would love the chance to help you with your kitchen. I do free design and a free quote.

Just one more IKEA fan joining the chorus. Our 12 x 8 kitchen in Portland, OR came to about $2700 with pull-out shelving, a tall pantry, butcherblock counters, soft-close doors, a farmhouse-style sink, and all necessary hardware including pulls. We did not go with a basic door, but ours are thermofoil as opposed to the wood construction of other IKEA styles. I did a ton of research here and on http://ikeafans.com/ to determine if their quality and ease of assembly and installation met our needs. The only other option remotely in our price range would have been local cabinetmakers. Truthfully, I'd rather go that route to support local business, but the ease of IKEA's kitchen planning system and my limited design skills would have probably meant hiring a KD at additional cost. Thanks to IKEA, our gut remodel, with all new appliances (or new to us - our high-end range is a Craigslist find), new flooring, a new french door to the back patio, and new lighting, is on track to come in around $12,000. I believe your budget is doable with smart shopping and patience and some compromise on materials (i.e. not granite - though we will have a Carrera marble backsplash). Best of luck!

With a couple of exceptions I can't imagine things turning out an other way than l_w_o describes with just $5000 but with $8 000.0 - $12 000.0 and a some hands on work I think you could accomplish a lot. There are lots of cool materials (to me a lot more interesting and fun than many more expensive materials) available that you can construct a fun, functional, durable and unique kitchen from. I'm doing an Ikea kitchen this time and I'm looking forward to the challenges. You need to be creative and tune out the voices that will try to reduce great design to the grade of materials you can afford instead of your creativity and imagination (the real key). Good luck!

I do think it is possible. We ran out of money in doing our retirement house and I had to be really creative.If you live in or near a city that has Habitat for Humanity ReStores or another group called Construction Junction it is doable. The shopping takes time and luck but such a quantity comes in an out if you can go regularly you can hit it right. Don't change any locations of existing electric or plumbing. Don't move your appliances or windows. Measure all your existing cabinets and when you go hunting get exactly the same size or at least one that can be trimmed slightly. You will see entire kitchens at the restores also lots of door cabinets which can be used to face old cabinets. The prices are really unbelievable but it takes lot's of looking. Go to Home Depot and ask them who does their cabinet installs. Then go direct to the installer and cut past HD and cut a deal to install what you purchased from the ReStore. Ask the install price per linear foot and don't add lot's of trim. Each linear foot of each layer of trim adds an additonal linear foot to the price. I learned this the hard way. Basic base cabinet and basic over head cabinet are one linear foot. After I added back trim, large crown molding, and rope molding I really tripled the price per linear foot. I thought eleven dollars per foot for the VI sounded good. Have everthing ready for the installer have everything gutted clean repaired and walls ready for installer. If you don't like the finish clean thoroughly and then cabinets paint everything with BIN it is white pigmented shellac and will prepare the finsh for any paint you apply.There are some great instructions for painting cabinets on the kitchen forum.D Lawless hardware is the best I have come up with on the internet for hardware. Find what you like in person then go on and look it up on D Lawless. Spend your budget on the best labor you can. Go to the tech schools like Art Institute and see if the instructor that teaches remodeling and industrial arts has a student who could help you.The other way I have redone kitchens on a budget is offer to dismantle someones kitchen who is getting a remodel. It makes me crazy on TV when they demolish cabinets as fun.I had an apt huse when I was young and purchased used cabinets from high end homes that were remodeling just because they wanted a different look. If they are not advertising you advertise in Penny saver looking for kitchen cabinets will remove for free.This may sound extreme for some but it has worked for me.
Good Luck

Have you tried Craigslist? We are updating a house for resale and I have found some really good deals, including brand new 10x10 kitchen with oak cabinets supplied and installed for as little as $3,999, including granite top and double bowl ss sink. This is in Houston, and more than one company is currently running ads like this. We talked to three different suppliers, visited their showrooms, and chose one with real Cherry cabinets, for just a little more than $5,000. There is so much competition in Houston right now you can get granite countertops installed with sink for $17.95 a s.f. Upgraded colors are only $24.95.

I know similar deals are available in other Texas cities. I would think some other states would have the same competition.