Home & Garden Renovating Kitchen - cost cutting ideas?

Remove this Banner Ad

daddy_4_eyes

daddy_4_eyes

Brownlow Medallist
Veteran West Coast Eagles Board Tipping Champion Chess Club Member
Dec 7, 2000
10,954
6,460
Victoria home of football
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Eagles
Looking to renovate my kitchen but have been blown away by the quote I got. Trying to get a few more, but my glob these kitchen companies are impossible to book for a quote (business must be good?).

The actual kitchen isn't too bad, was quoted $11k. But what is blowing my budget is the other costs.

Other costs quoted separate to kitchen installation/cabinets:
Splashback and plastering: $5k
Stripping of old kitchen and removal from site: $3.5k
Plumbing & electrical: $3k each
Waterproofing & plastering: $3k
Painting (of areas affected by the installers): $2k

Those prices are insane! There's nothing particularly complex about the kitchen reno, nothing is really moving around (plumbing, electrical, gas all will be in same spot), just new cabinetry is replacing the old.

Wanting some advice from anyone who has DIY their own kitchen. How feasible is it to do the below yourself?
1. Demolition/removal of old kitchen (with a plumber & sparky doing their bit at an hourly rate). I feel I can do this myself.
2. Splashback/tiling.
3. Can do my own painting and plastering (have done this before)
4. Waterproofing. Need a professional or is DIY an option for a first time attempt?

Thanks in advance.
 
You could get a brother in law like I have who is a tradie and can do it for you on the cheap. Do you have a sister you can sell into slavery? Kitchens are expensive. Even with my BIL doing it for me cheaply I still paid over $10,000. But I'm happy with the results so it was worth it. Unless you are confident with DIY I would pay someone to do it. Mistakes can be very costly to fix.
 
Do you HAVE to gut the whole kitchen? Can you retain the cabinetry but change just the doors and door handles and counter tops. Put in updated appliances and new splash back.

Re. Removal and demolition and painting- cant you do that yourself save 5k?
 
Last edited:

Log in to remove this ad.

Re. Waterproofing trust me im NO expert- at all. I cant do s**t. But i watch alot of block etcetc. Id leave that to professionals if you do a dodgy job waterproofing therell be hell to pay down the track.


Also theres some place you can go to get discounted appliances- ive seen it on Selling Houses Australia. Or go online idk... just dont go Harvey Norman or whoever pay FP
 
Shell said:
Do you HAVE to gut the whole kitchen? Can you retain the cabinetry but change just the doors and door handles and counter tops. Put in updated appliances and new splash back.

Re. Removal and demolition and painting- cant you do that yourself save 5k?
Click to expand...

That's the other thing I'm considering, though to be honest the layout is a bit dated.
 
Did mine a while back with help from my brother (sparky and better handyman than me).

Demolition/removal of old kitchen - easy as pie. Did myself. Plumber not needed at that point. Can remove it all without a plumber. Sparky probably not needed (I didn't need him until rewiring after demo and before instal)

We installed the Bunnings kitchen (I designed and ordered myself). Was pretty easy. Glad I had my brother on hand though, he had done his 6 months earlier so had some good tips (and much more handier than me)

Got my plumber mate to hook the dishwasher and new sink up for me. Wouldnt cost much anyway (we didn't have a dishwasher before that.......thank * for the upgrade)

Got a handyman to do the splashback, skirting boards and flue for exhaust to roof. Did painting myself.

$7k plus applicances. About $9-$10k all up for new kitchen. Well worth it.

(Water proofing for kitchen? Not sure if needed)

Sent from my CPH1879 using Tapatalk
 
daddy_4_eyes said:
Looking to renovate my kitchen but have been blown away by the quote I got. Trying to get a few more, but my glob these kitchen companies are impossible to book for a quote (business must be good?).

The actual kitchen isn't too bad, was quoted $11k. But what is blowing my budget is the other costs.

Other costs quoted separate to kitchen installation/cabinets:
Splashback and plastering: $5k
Stripping of old kitchen and removal from site: $3.5k
Plumbing & electrical: $3k each
Waterproofing & plastering: $3k
Painting (of areas affected by the installers): $2k

Those prices are insane! There's nothing particularly complex about the kitchen reno, nothing is really moving around (plumbing, electrical, gas all will be in same spot), just new cabinetry is replacing the old.

Wanting some advice from anyone who has DIY their own kitchen. How feasible is it to do the below yourself?
1. Demolition/removal of old kitchen (with a plumber & sparky doing their bit at an hourly rate). I feel I can do this myself.
2. Splashback/tiling.
3. Can do my own painting and plastering (have done this before)
4. Waterproofing. Need a professional or is DIY an option for a first time attempt?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Did one a few years ago.

Obviously I don't know your kitchen size or layout but from my own experience:

- Did my own cabinets. Kit cabinets are pretty easy to put together and install. Some places even sell assembled cabinets. Fiddly to get them level and most of the time older houses the walls aren't square. Wouldn't recommend Ikea cabinets or any equivalent that have the flimsy back panel. Solid 16/18mm cabinets all the way. Cut to measure cabinets are great but usually a lot more expensive. If you have an open ended layout then some combo of 300/400/450/600/800/900 wide cabinets will probably be fine. If you have an existing space that is say 2000mm wide then you need to try and make standard size pieces fit and it can look a bit cheap with spacing panels.
- Removing my entire kitchen took about a day. No way I would pay someone $3.5k for that. Even getting a skip or a trailer and tip pass is a few hundred. If you are having a bad day go to Bunnings and buy yourself a sledge hammer then have at it. Cathartic.
- Plumbing and electrical depends on what layout changes there are or what needs to be replaced. I went from two taps sticking out of the wall to a mixer coming out of the bench, and I got the gas line extended a few metres so there was a point for the stove, and got fittings inside the sink cabinet to connect a dishwasher and water to a fridge. Cost about $1500. Electrical I had one power point in the wall and had it re-wired to three in line (one for a microwave, one for general use, one inside a cabinet for a stove starter plug) and it cost a couple of hundred.
- Waterproofing I did before tiling a bathroom, didn't do it in the kitchen. Brick walls that are plastered and painted and the wet area has a benchtop and splashback with siliconed joints.
- Had a 6mm glass splashback put in, cost about $1400. Did no plastering except fill a couple of old holes in the walls. DIY painting $100 or so for a small area and some skirts.
- Had a large engineered stone bench put in which was about $3000. I think they start about $600/m2 and go upwards quickly from there. Got a quote from Masters when that was still a thing and their equivalent was $5-6000. Timber looks good and can last if you look after it well. Laminate is trash.
- Tiling depending on how square/smooth the wall is isn't that complicated, just takes patience. Biggest cost in tiling should be what tiles you choose to go with. Floor and wall tiles can be $20/m2 or $200/m2. Depends on your taste. Still takes the same amount of effort to install them.

Another thing to consider is the floor. I had 1960s/70s lino that I pulled up hoping to see floorboards and was greeted by plywood. Did DIY vinyl planks as they are hard wearing and waterproof. Easy to DIY and not that expensive to have installed.

Biggest factor other than cost in having someone else do it is that they are on the clock, and they (should) know what they are doing. If you pay someone to install a dozen cabinets they'll have it done and all square and level in no time. If you DIY for the first time you will arse around trying to build the first one then wonder why it's wobbly and not level when you put it up against the wall etc.
 
Here's a suggestion. Cabinets often take up a huge cost of kitchens and normally need some level of customisation. Even then, you can spend a whole heap of money and end up with something that looks pretty mediocre. I know... I'm living in a rental with brand new custom cabinets that were done poorly. We are also looking to buy a place and often see this.

Solution? Walk-in pantry and open shelving.

Do you have a nearby closet that you really don't need? Maybe a part of a room or a hall that you could do without?

It could literally be cheaper to convert that to a walk-in pantry. All the pantry needs are basic shelves which are much cheaper than cabinets. Plus you can have all of your food in one place and not have to think "s**t, which cabinet did I store the beans in?"

Then, where you could have had loads of cabinets above your kitchen, you can replace that with either nothing or some simple open shelving. If you keep it neat, it'll make the whole kitchen feel much more open.

I.e. basically I would prefer this:

1610395848160.png

To this:

1610395872567.png

Imagine how much more open the second place would feel if those upper cabinets were all gone?
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Shell said:
I really like that second kitchen but those cabinets jfc.... they piss me off because theyre not all the same height/level
Click to expand...


It's basically a common dilemma in kitchens, as you want high ceilings but cabinets that got all the way to the ceiling would have unreachable shelves. You then end up with basically a ledge on the top of each cabinet. And yeah, as you point out, having a varied height doesn't really help.

The best solution is to have the ceiling lowered down just around the cabinets so it all flows and fits better.... or just do open shelving.
 
This is my new kitchen. 20201225_163825.jpg
 
Shell said:
Open shelving is good- just not for me. Im a neat freak and would rather everything packed away. Even cabinets with glass doors on them would piss me off lol. But good luck to whoever wants to do that- that pic you posted before looks great
Click to expand...

Yeah definitely have to keep things neat if you want it looking nice like in that pic...
 
Shell said:
Idk about the yellow stools. While i love color, id be going with grey/silver whatever matches th counter tops
Click to expand...


I wasn't sold on them at first but they were given to me as a gift from a close friend who visits fairly often so I can't really get rid of them. But they've actually grown on me and I quite like them now.
 
raskolnikov said:
I wasn't sold on them at first but they were given to me as a gift from a close friend who visits fairly often so I can't really get rid of them. But they've actually grown on me and I quite like them noe.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. End of the daycolor >>> no color boring and drab any day
 
Thanks for the feedback all. Starting to get a picture of what I'll DIY and what I'll pay for.

Just as a bit of extra info. My wife & I are living in a unit. When we first got married 10years ago, it was our way of getting into the property market while giving my wife the opportunity for a career change (i.e. 2yrs of being a single income household while she studied).We ended up becoming comfortable and never ended up moving out. Now we're looking to sell up in 2021 and need the kitchen redone as it was already dated when we moved in 10 years ago.

So I don't need a dream kitchen, we'll save that for our "forever" home. But I also don't want to build the cheapest & nastiest kitchen as someone will live there and have to use it. The people we bought the unit from did a bunch of really s**t DIY stuff to the house to make it look presentable for inspections, but it was only after we moved in that we started noticing how s**t a lot of things were done:
- stove not plugged in
- rangehood outlet not venting outside but instead into the above cabinet
- downlights incorrectly installed and subsequent fix resulted in ceiling plaster disintegrating (where they had to patch over the old downlight hole).
- DIY floor tiling, with grout chipping almost as soon as we started walking on it.
- Kitchen sink installed incorrectly. The faucet was wobbly so I took it off, turns out sink was all chopped up underneath and needed replacing. They obviously bought a new faucet, realised it didn't fit and just bent the stainless steel sink with pliers and a saw to fit the right dimensions.

That's just the kitchen. There were also issues with landscaping, clothesline & front porch. And they're things you don't check when you buy (nor does the building inspector). Who turns on the stove or checks how sturdy the faucet is?

So I don't want to do the same to others (karma and all that).

tl;dr
- Renovating kitchen to make property more attractive to prospective buyers
- Looking to cut costs but not to the extent of making it cheap & nasty.

Shell said:
OP post some pics re layout.
/im just curious
Click to expand...

I'll take a photo or two when I get home this afternoon and share, but please don't judge :oops:
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top