Seven Ways to Save on Your Kitchen Renovation – New York Times

She also added rollout shelves and a new range hood. Then we painted the center open wall a charcoal gray, to add depth and contrast, and got some great Boffi linear pendants over the island, which changed the whole tone of the kitchen, Ms. DiCarlo said. All new cabinets would have cost about $22,000, she estimated, but the cost to reface was just $2,500. The total cost of the abbreviated kitchen renovation, including new interior components and the Boffi pendants, was $10,800.

OPT FOR OPEN SHELVES If your cabinets are too far gone to reface, open shelving will reduce the cost of upper cabinetry, said Liz Tiesi, the owner of Threshold Interiors. That way you are only paying for the piece of wood to make the shelf and the bracket to hold it up not an entire cabinet box, which is a lot more in material and labor, she said. It also eliminates the need for hardware, which can add up, she noted.

Another way to reduce the cost of cabinetry is to use particleboard where no one will see it. A lot of people think they have to have all-plywood kitchen cabinetry, and they dont, said Mina Fies, a designer in Reston, Va., and the creator of the Renovation Roadmap, a website dedicated to helping homeowners work with contractors and stay on budget and schedule, going online later this month. While plywood should be used under the sink (in case of a leak), Ms. Fies recommends using particleboard to build out the upper and perimeter cabinet boxes. You can still use maple, cherry, hickory, etc., for the door and frame, which is what you actually see, Ms. Fies said, noting that she cut cabinet costs by $1,420 using this method in a 17-by-15-foot kitchen remodel.

DO THE DEMOLITION YOURSELF It can be pretty easy to do over a weekend with a friend or spouse, said Ms. Tiesi, who turned a former office space in TriBeCa into a four-bedroom apartment for her family and recently took apart a Brooklyn kitchen with the help of her husband and brother-in-law. Begin by turning off your circuit breakers, water and gas. Remove appliances and plumbing fixtures first, followed by cabinets, backsplash and counters, Ms. Tiesi advised.

It really doesnt take any precision; you just dont want to hurt yourself, she said. Be ready with black contractor bags to put loose debris in. The larger items I would take outside and have ready for garbage collection, if possible. To ease the workload, contact your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore or other nonprofit home improvement stores like BIG Reuse in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and Astoria, Queens, which will remove used appliances in good condition. You can write them off, and you dont have to worry about disposing of them, Ms. Tiesi said.

INSTALL RECYCLED APPLIANCES The same stores that are willing to haul away your used kitchen components also sell leftover building supplies, showroom floor models and items from new developments that buyers decided not to keep. Sign up for their email newsletters to get an idea of what they have in stock. In July, Green Demolitions, a store in Fairfield, N.J., that sells used luxury kitchens and other fixtures collected by the nonprofit donation program Renovation Angel, ran a make an offer sale on already discounted pre-owned luxury kitchens, including a traditional Russet kitchen from Rye, N.Y., with a fireclay farmhouse sink and Miele and Viking appliances, for $7,700. Contractors and do-it-yourselfers also sell surplus on Craigslist. Just be sure to test the appliances before you take them home, because few come with a warranty.

GO FOR BUTCHER BLOCK For a clean-looking countertop on the cheap, nothing beats butcher block. You can get one for as little as $99 at Ikea, which sells precut butcher-block counters in standard sizes. Butcher block brings warmth to an otherwise sterile kitchen and has a number of practical applications. Its kind of like having a built-in cutting board throughout your kitchen, said Kimberly Winthrop, an interior designer in Santa Monica, Calif., who paid $500 for 20 feet of butcher block to use in a kitchen makeover she did earlier this year for Laurel & Wolf, the online design service. Keep in mind that there is some maintenance involved in keeping butcher-block counters looking new: They need to be sanded and oiled regularly typically twice a year.

DONT CHANGE THE LAYOUT Moving walls, electrical and plumbing is where installation costs spike, said Dana Hudson, the divisional merchandising manager for kitchens at Home Depot. But while youll save by keeping those components in place, you shouldnt skimp on functionality, she added. If moving that corner sink will improve the flow of your kitchen, dont hesitate to adjust the layout. Or find an alternative that solves the problem.

We had a client who insisted her kitchen was too dark and that the only way to fix it was to reconfigure the walls to allow more natural light in, said Ms. Fies of the Renovation Roadmap. The new layout, which involved moving plumbing to reposition a bathroom, would have added thousands of dollars to the budget. We showed her several different designs and talked through the pros and cons of each, Ms. Fies said. She decided on a design that did not open up the wall and chose to install recessed lights, pendant lights and under-cabinet lights instead. The cost savings? About $8,000.

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Seven Ways to Save on Your Kitchen Renovation - New York Times