You will need a contractor and he will have subs working for him....when you rip out a wall, you need to re plumb, re wire, and re support the roof possibly. See if you can find 3 contractors who are available and get three quotes. Then go see the contractor's past work and how the owners felt about the job. Do not go with the cheapest quote......no such thing.

Another option is to hire an interior designer who specialized in kitchen remodeling; that designer will have their own contractor, etc to do the work.

Also noting that your kitchen windows do not look to be code with those slatted louvers; so this is a gut job and the cabinets will probably need to go.....

That being said, you could do what a lot of land lords do and just hire a pro cleaning team to clean it, and an expert painter and paint everything as is and call it good.

Is your space 1200 square feet for the duplex area, or it is 600 feet which would be half the size of your 1200 square foot house? Not sure, but the smaller the space the less the cost, usually.

If u can't afford to remove the wall; a upright washer to back wall on right. Dryer on left or a stack style. Refrig in front of fuse box. Easy to move in need.

Triple your budget. It will take every bit of that to update the electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and everything else in a 150 year old home with no updates. You can’t even have a modern kitchen without getting rid of the knob and tube and putting in a 200 amp service. Unless you want a woodstove and genuine icebox.

rent out the improved or better side...I would take this unimproved side for my residence and set up a dorm fridge/ microwave somewhere.....and seal this off and let the rental income pay for what needs to be done. Plan a full project and get quotes . Once you have a renter you can get a loan for some funds to assist you as well.

I don't know where you are but even in the lowest COL area, that budget isn't gonna cut it. Once you start, professionals will find things (plumbing/electrical) that are no longer up to code & they have to fix it. That kitchen looks like a gut - it'd be great to preserve/refurbish some pieces - but even that isn't cheap. Renovating old houses is a challenge, we're at the tail-end of a kitchen/bath/misc. project update to our 1885 home, it's been updated over the years, but still, things pop up, stuff is out of code, subfloors rot, etc.... once walls/floors are removed is when you find the scary/expensive stuff that you didn't plan on.

@PN _Bos is correct. We have been updating our 110 year old bungalow for 10 years. Each area includes updates to plumbing, electric, and even dealing with lead paint abatement.

Those old cabinets are certain to contain lead paint and you have to make sure it is encapsulated.

Since my husband works in construction he barters trades, and we have a finish carpenter in the family, we have been able to keep costs lower. That being said, our current kitchen reno, that includes changing walls is expected to come in between 55,000 and 60,000 including appliances. This is for a small bungalow kitchen.

It’s very tempting to start off with the exciting dramatic (and expensive!) makeover spaces. That isn’t the reality of old home living. Start with a bedroom that just needs some cosmetic painting. Get it pretty and peaceful, and move in it. It’s your retreat from the chaos to come.

First on the remodel list though, is always the unexciting invisible stuff where you can’t even tell that you just cut a 23K check. If you don’t replace the old galvanized plumbing with no shutoffs at fixtures, doing a new kitchen that the pipes fail and flood the place, sets you back further than where you began. It isn’t even safe to play cake walk with 1 electrical outlet in the kitchen and unplug things to plug in others and see what combo with leaving the fridge plugged in won’t blow a fuse or start a fire.

First take care of the unexciting and boring that provides support for the exciting expensive TVesque makeovers.

To add some perspective, what is the target rent for the half of the duplex? Are the target renters students, family, single, couple, vacationers?

Regarding cabinets...do you have an IKEA within an hour or two's drive? IKEA cabinets are excellent basic, inexpensive cabinets that even come standard with some high-end features (e.g., soft-close drawers). When Consumers Reports rated cabinets a few years ago, IKEA was rated #1 in basic cabinets at the last review. They cited the construction and standard features as highlights. (Don't compare them to other IKEA furniture, they're very different -- in a positive way!)

If this is going to be a rental, I would also look into your state & local Codes & regulations for rentals. You may be required to bring everything up to Code. I know that generally in HoCo in MD, if you start moving things around and remodeling a room, you have to bring everything in that room up to current Code and, sometimes, the rest of the house as well (e.g., electrical). However, your state/local municipality may differ.

Also look into insurance -- your insurance company may also have rules for rentals.

Owner of a 100+ year old house here. Can you retain the current cabinetry and have new built to match it? I know people in houses of a similar age who have done that. When we remodeled our kitchen 25 years ago we purchased an entire kitchen full of cabinetry from a house of a similar vintage that was being remodeled. We re-finished the cabinets and had a cabinetmaker build some new to fill in where we needed more cabinets.

Rather than just ordering new appliances, check e-bay, local stores for scratch and dent or out of box, and check American Freight for the same. Purchasing appliances this was can save a pretty good chunk of money.

Unfortunately, I agree that doing the unseen parts of the project like wiring and plumbing is going to be quite costly.

The biggest way you can save money is good old sweat equity.

How many bedrooms? Target rent amount? What reason would someone choose this rental over other options, perhaps price, location, parking, size, laundry, outdoor space, interior fitout, or old house charm? Those answers will help decide how to allocate your funds as no budget is ever sufficient to fulfill every desire.

A nice chunk of change will be needed to update the electrical and replace plumbing. After that, I would probably look at how much money remains and decide whether you could do a good job with the kitchen. If not, I might do almost nothing there and do the rest of the space well as your money would probably go further in the bathroom than the kitchen.

My kitchen design would likely be fridge where tall end of cabinets then base cabinet and corner cabinet. The stove would be in the same location as now just with cabinet and countertop next to it. On the sink side, do a narrow base, then DW, small sink base and another base to fit to the wall. For the wall cabinets, just go two cabinets against the back wall and then one to the right of the sink. Five base cabinets, three uppers and box store laminate countertops might not blow your budget. Since it is a rental, you can go with a smaller fridge, 30 or 33 inches wide, single bowl sink and do base cabinets with a top drawer and doors below. Moving the fridge into the main kitchen area will make that nook area useful dining or office space.

If budget is tight, you can advertise as having laundry hookups so tenants provide their own machines.

I hate to pile on, but agree with others - that budget will be consumed by all the lead and asbestos abatements and all the upgrades to your mechanicals. I hope you can get it done, but realistic expectations are a must. Please don’t cut corners on all that hidden stuff. Safety is paramount.

All of your feedback has been super helpful, and I’ve spent a great deal of time working through all the ideas.

Susan Davis mentioned the idea of just cleaning and painting everything. As I think through this, it occurs to me that we may very well be able to go this route to some degree and still create a very nice home.

Mainly, this would entail keeping the original kitchen cabinets and counters. Amy said the floor tiles and cabinets are timeless. Maybe the cabinets will look classic once they’re appropriately painted. Would the cabinets be painted a solid color or are there artists who could paint a nice design? Is it possible to add rollers to the drawers? Julieste’s idea to buy cabinetry from a similar home being remodeled is really creative, but I don’t think there’s enough space to add cabinets and the amount of cabinet space is probably good enough.

The black tile on the counter around the sink is in good condition. Some of the tiles on the counter by the wall of cabinets have hairline cracks but otherwise seem okay to me. We’d need to replace the sink and faucet. In the bathroom, we’d replace the bathtub/shower.

Lyndee Lee suggested moving the refrigerator outside of the nook area would create a useful dining or office space and that’s a fantastic idea. I added a photo of the archway leading to the nook. I can’t see the refrigerator fitting inside the kitchen area but there’s sufficient room inside the laundry room. In this case, it’s probably best to remove the door to the laundry room.

All the major money would go to electrical, plumbing and A/C, plus painting. Is it best to hire a contractor who’s going to hire these four subcontractors, or would it be as good or possibly better if I hire them directly?

It's 1,200 sq ft, 2 bedrooms 1 1/2 baths.

Thanks for all of your help.

Just make sure all lead paint is either encapsulated or abated, especially since this is a rental. I would also make sure there is no asbestos wrap on old pipes.

Start with a review of local rental regulations. Many cities have this info online. Test for lead paint, especially in worn areas in windows. Read up on asbestos and decide what to test.

Then do a walk through with a general contractor (see comments above). Have your home inspection report ready for the contractor to review. You will need a list of code-required updates and your prioritized changes.

In some areas, if you start some types of remodelling (some types of plumbing work, electrical work), you will trigger required code updates, as others have pointed out above.

Hiring a local artist to paint a design on cabinets that have lead paint under the current layer of paint is not cost-effective.

Oooh, so if you are keeping the floor tiles and cabinets (!!), here's what I suggest. I would clean the floor really, really well. Do you think the floor tiles are super dirty, or that's just the color? Then I would paint the cabinets and walls a cream color so they aren't so stark with floor tiles and the contrast doesn't make the floor tiles look dirty (even when they are clean). What makes that kitchen timeless to me is the white cabinets and the classic floor tile so I wouldn't get to creative with the finishes and lose the charm/appeal for today's renters (even though color WAS popular 100 years ago!). Are you able to change the cabinet pulls or are they part of the drawers/doors?

Any chance of getting a sketch of the current layout? I am not quite seeing how the spaces fit together.

Gotta tell you, those cabinets are not worth saving. You could pull everything out and do IKEA cabinets/countertops that will function so much better. Bring your measurements, have them do the design, and have their installers do the installation, but you'll need to hire guys to do demo of the existing cabinets and update the electrical. I'd be willing to bet that the electrical panel will need an upgrade. Low end (GE) appliances will cost somewhere between $6000 to $10000 total. I'd replace the flooring, too, with inexpensive porcelain tile. You'll at least have a serviceable kitchen for the unit you can rent out in good conscience. Will likely cost more than $50K unless you're handy and can do the work yourself.

FYI, Rental grade GE range is about $600 and GE fridge about $800. That's what our appliance store charged us a couple of months ago for one of our rentals. They were in stock also. I understand rental grade appliances are much easier to get quickly as opposed to higher end.