We spent $30k on our kitchen reno, but that included appliances, undercab lighting, upgrading our electrical panel and hardwood floor install and finish. Labor was about $5k more than your quote (we live in Washington, DC). Where we saved $$ was on cabinets (we spent a little over $6k on MidContinent painted APC cabs) laminate counter ($500 compared for $5k) and foregoing the backsplash for now. We found the Midcontinent brand cabs comparable to Kraftmaid in terms of quality and finishes. We got pull extension glides with quiet close. HTH

Shop around for Kraftmaid - we have them and love them - we went to Just Cabinets - a chain on the east coast, and they were slightly cheaper than the big box, but the big box are always running specials so wait for them.

Countertops - shop around too - same granite I priced out was almost double at some places.

Also, shop around labor - can you remove, prep some of your own kitchen. Can you hire your own electrician and plumber and tile guy and have them just do the cabinets, etc. - i.e. act as your own GC?

My guess is we spent around $16,000-18,000 (never really added it up) but ours was a smaller kitchen - cabinets were about $10,000 (but had an extra hall cabinet)...and new appliances. I wasn't giving up my Kraftmaid as I love my door style. If you live near Ohio, they have an outlet too. We DIY'ed most of it but cheated and got help hanging the cabinets and he helped with some electrical/plumbing mostly guiding my husband. The rest was the misc. stuff.

You can try selling your old stuff on Craig's list and maybe see if who ever you are selling to will do the removal too. That will save some money there.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've considered removing the counters/cabinets ourselves, but hadn't thought about selling them on craigslist.

I should follow up with my kitchen designer and see how much we could save if we remove cabinets/counters ourselves.

RE: being my own GC, I know that's one way we could save some money, but that's the one area where I know that neither of us will have enough time to coordinate everything. That's why this turnkey company is so appealing.

Keep the suggestions coming!

You could hold off on the backsplash. It's something that a lot of people wait on both for budget and to live with the kitchen for a while to make sure they get just what they want. I'm waiting for both those reasons. -- You can also save if you do your own priming.

It's a good idea to talk to your KD--the bad economy may help her find ways to get your job!

Maybe you are re-using things but sink, faucet (your providing them but I don't see any costs)? Floor install is there but not the floor product. What about lighting? Accessories - garbage pull outs etc. You have a number of labour costs with no material charges. I see your painting but I don't see the paint or materials?

Check with the KD's on the board but the National Kitchen & Bath Association (NKBA)recommends a want\need list but you may be past that point.

There are certainly less expensive cabinet lines than Kraftmaid that are a similar quality - but finishing is usually thought to be the Kraftmaid strength so you would have to look around and see if you could live with the compromises. Layout can save you thousands - we found we could go with a stock cabinet product rather than custom or semi-custom and still get an almost identical layout with just a couple of tweeks. I also think improving the basic layout and function of the kitchen will somewhat mediate compromises you might need to make in relation to surfaces.

More than once I have read the countertop is a good place to save as it is easy to change later from say laminate to granite. Butcher block would be another option but requires more maintenance. Depending on your layout you could go pre-fab granite which could trim a bit from your costs.

Beyond nothing or beadboard you aren't going to get anything that would be a less costly backsplash.

I suspect your budget is more around $35-$40 grand and you could probaby trim $6-$8 grand but I would be careful about cutting back too far. If your not going to be happy and go back and redo it later then your really not saving. I don't know what your soffets look like (note: soffets mean less cupboard and mouldings = less cost)- I don't mind them but if you do take them out and compromise on things you can add in at a later date not the things you will have to rip out to get at the things you should have changed in the first place. Good luck!

We removed our own cabinets and sold them on Craigslist (we sold them before we removed them). I had read that suggestion on GW and was surprised at how many people were interested in our cabinets. They sold fast for what we asked. We also did our own general contracting, which saved quite a bit, but is a lot of work. My DH did much of our prep work himself. This saved much as well, except we have gone much longer without a kitchen than we would have if we had hired out. The suggestion about Just Cabinets is a good one. We ordered Kraftmaid from them at our last home and they were great to deal with. This time we went with a local custom cabinetmaker who came in right around the same as our Kraftmaid quote for solid wood cabinets with inset doors!! Check out your local cabinetmaker for prices. Many people on GW have tiled their own backsplash and it turned out great. Even first timers have reported it wasn't that difficult. And last but not least, shop, shop, shop around for the best prices on everything.

Just my opinion, but most of us have more time than we realize - the issue is if you work, getting off to coordinate having the workman there or flexing your schedule. You may also want to talk to several KD's too and see what they come up with - a slightly different layout can save money. Dependign on your door style, Premier is also made through HD is a Kraftmaid company (cheaper line), and has some of the same door styles but less fancy insides - personally I'd buy nicer cabinets and cut out other stuff like labor but I may use Premier for other parts of the house to keep our door style.

Reality is with non-DIY labor, you often have to make a choice of time vs. money - if you want to save the time and let someone else coordinate and take care of it, you are going to be paying for someone elses time to shop and do labor. But, in less you get a really good crew, you may be putting in more time than you realize.

Is it possible to work with the existing footprint? If so, you can have new doors made for your existing cabinets and save a ton of money. Granted you won't be able to have cherry but for $10 thousand it might be worth compromising.

The labor is where you're going to realize the most savings. If you want turnkey, you're going to pay the price for that. However, you might investigate hiring a General Contractor to oversee the project with you sourcing most of the materials yourself. Going to a design/install firm is going to be the higest cost possible. Getting a GC to manage the scheduling and construction materials and labor would be cheaper. Cheaper still would be to increase your timeline and GC yourself. You're already committed to some portion as DIY, and you already have a good idea of the materials/layout etc. You would be cutting that labor quote in half at least if you found your own electrician and plumber and cabinet installer.

As far as material costs go, you could switch to a more simple shader style in KM rather than the wide rail shaker style, which is more expensive. Shorter cabinets, no staggared height or depth, no glass, less molding, less organizational items, etc can all cust costs. No backsplash for now and do it later. Laminate now and granite later.

I going to take an opposite tact. Know your skill level. One of the best pieces of advice I got in relation to doing a kitchen on a budget was inexpensive materials can look much more expensive if they are well installed. If you can do an excellent job then go ahead and you can double your savings if not downgrade some of the materials and stick with the professional labour.

I think you have to be very knowlegable to get the most you can out of a small budget and you are swimming a little bit against the tide so you have to have a little bravado because generally you don't have a lot of positive reinforcement (that isn't about folks here as much as it is magazines, HGTV and the neighbours).

Quality is very important especially when working with a smaller budget but you need to be able to read through certain biases. Consumer Reports on one hand will tell you that Mills Pride and Ikea performed better than many mid-priced cabinetry products in their testing and then tell you that plywood construction and face-frame cabinets are really the only quality product (neither of which is offered by either of those companies). European frameless cabinetry dominates the market in all sectors here in Canada. Many lines do not even offer face-frames as they are generally perceived as an antiquated construction style that reduces the functionality of the cabinetry by most Canadians.

One semi custom shop here told me they would quote on plywood but almost no one ever buys them no matter how opulent the kitchen. A well constructed 5\8 commercial grade particleboard cabinet will probably last a lot longer than you want it to. Ever see anybody poke their head into a cabinet to see what its' made of on House Hunters? Plywood cabs won't sell your house, impress your neighbours or improve the function of your kitchen. Is a well constructed plywood cab better than a well constructed particleboard one, absolutley but how good do you need it to be?

Re-facing isn't usually cheap (the doors and drawer fronts are a big part of what cabinets cost) but it can be a good alternative if you have good cabs and a layout you love.

Are you getting a new floor? New appliances? I also don't see light fixtures, sink, faucet and other material costs included in that estimate.

Some very good suggestions. Thank you!

One thing that stuck out to me is the cost of the granite. You are being quoted over $200 per sq ft for a fairly common granite. Personally, I think that is pretty darn high. when you go thru a contractor turn-key, he marks up everything. He is probably marking up the granite a good bit. My three biggest money saving suggestions are as follows:

1. Look at custom cabinet shops. You may be very surprised how much you can save. Many custom cabinet shops end up being much cheaper than going with premade cabinets.

2. After you have your cabinet plan, go to granite shops yourself and get some quotes. Around here, the most exotic granite around sells for MUCH less than $200 a foot, and most of the more common granite sells for less than $75 per foot, installed. If you want a fancy edge like ogee, the cost does go up but the price includes sink cut out, several edge profiles and installation. Shop around....your GC's price on granite is just too high.

3. don't move your range/cooktop if possible, especially if it is electric. Rerouting a 220v electric line is pretty expensive.

i agree your granite price is way too high..

but if you are looking to cut you may want to go with something other than granite as you suggest..

you will also want to shop around on the cabinets.. you should be able to find pretty much the same cabinets from other brands and may find some have different/better pricing than others..

you could cut down labor costs by doing some of the work yourselves..

-you can do your own demolition..
-installing cabinets for example isn't terribly hard to do if you follow the instructions that your manufacturer supplies..
-moving and attaching your appliances is really a piece of cake so don't pay someone to do that..
-same goes with the sink and faucet..
-you can certainly prime the drywall if you can paint.. you can installed your own undercab lighting.. kits they sell these days are really diy friendly..

we did everything apart from fabricating and installing the granite.. we had $0 in labor.. so we got to spend more on the granite.. appliances.. and little things here and there..

I spent about 60 - 65% of my budget on cabinets. Though everyone comments on how beautiful they are, i don't think i would go that route next time. Would you consider IKEA? many gwers have had stunning results with IKEA cabinets.

However, i hate to say this, but if you are budget conscious the "no time" and "not being available" is sending up alarm signals. Many of us can tell horror stories of things going terribly wrong because we weren't there overseeing the work. That means costly do-overs. My husband and i lost much time and productivity during our remodel, but we were able to avert COUNTLESS problems and errors by overseeing every detail. We fired one contractor because we saw him cutting (incorrectly) into the first piece of wood (cabinet molding), and did not want it to go further than that. We measured and realized that one essential cabinet component, the fridge panel, was off by 1/2 inch and had it remade in time so as not to delay the project. We realized that the lighting guy sold us the wrong transformer. We noticed imperfections on our countertop and they needed 3 tries to get it right. we are planning to oversee every single door handle installation, as we do not want the holes in the wrong place on our beautiful bamboo cabinets. (happens more often than you think!) Stuff like that. Everyone here will tell you, if you want it done right, you have to be watching.
good luck
LC

I agree with lacuisine. Even if you have a GC on the job, you have to oversee him. Too much can go WAY wrong if you do not stay on top of things. I did some rough figuring. If you have 55 sq ft of granite and you look at the going price for a common granite at $75 per sq ft, the cost should be less than $5000. If you are getting 55 sq ft of granite, you must have around 25 linear feet of cabinets. So plan on another $6000 at the most for IKEA cabinets, probably much less though. If you are doing your own painting, then you can do your own priming too. You can buy your own back splash tile and either hire someone to do it, or do it yourself now or wait until later. No need to rush that one at all. You can do all the demo yourself. I see no reason why you can't get this done for less than $20,000.

Stretch, I live in Madison. My project's just finishing up. Cabinets: We saved by going with Mid Continent cabinets from UBC. We're very happy with our cabs and were extrememly happy with UBC's service. One caution about any cherry cabinets is to check on how much sapwood they might have because the sapwood doesn't darken like the rest of the wood does and can give a two tone effect which doesn't show up until months after the cabinets have been installed. Another possibility is to go with Medallion cabs which Menards carries - They have excellent finishes and have received positive press here on GW.
Granite: The way I read your budget list, you're getting 55 sq ft of granite for $4,867 which would be $88.50/sq ft. That's on the pricey side for Madison. You should be able to get the less expensive tier of granite choices for around $60-$65/Sq ft (including fabrication). We got ubatuba for about $62.50/sq ft from the Granite Shop of Madison and were very happy with their work.

This is OT, but I was wondering if you ever found someone who does fences in Madison for a reasonable price - we have a breeder picked out and are hoping to finally add that dog to the family in about two months.