This Is What a $150K Kitchen Remodel Looks Like

Jewel-Box Luxury: $64,000

Any time you change the structure and move appliances, renovation costs leap. Add a couple of luxury finishes, and even a 120-square-foot kitchen will cost much more than $30,000, the average price of a top-end remodel that size as estimated by This Old House.

The dreary, poorly laid out room in North Potomac, Md., that confronted Lauren Carranza required more than a face-lift. It lacked storage more than sunlight, so the principal of Seasons for Design counseled her client to close off one window and put cabinets and the range on that wall. This demolition, framing and finishing added $9,500 to the bottom line.

Carranza flanked the window with floating shelves, which cost less than upper cabinets but exposed gaps of wall that called out for some decoration. Her choice: luxe, glazed Zellige wall tiles from Riad Tile ($2,145). “I was adamant about that. We had open shelves and needed something special [behind them],” she said. To offset the splurge, she minimized the square footage of tile by running the less-pricey countertop material, quartz, 18 inches up the wall. 

Carranza found other places to trim the bill. Because you can see the cooktop from the home’s entry, she envisioned a range hood that would blend with the adjacent cupboards. After the cabinet maker gave her an estimate of $3,000 to build it, she searched for and found, at Home Depot, a suitable vent for only $300—then had the millwork retrofitted around it. Reasonable at $339, an undermount sink reads high-end in a black composite. Prudent appliance picks include the counter-depth KitchenAid 36” double french door refrigerator with freezer bottom. Said Carranza, “It’s a reliable brand, and the handles emulate a Sub-Zero.” The KitchenAid, at $3,508, cost about $10,000 less than a similarly styled Sub-Zero.

Over the sink hangs a light from Wayfair. “It’s milk glass, with an organic, flowy line,” Carranza said of the $88 fixture, which respects the era of the 1950s cottage as well as the owner’s budget.

“For over five years I had no working stove or fridge in my kitchen,” said Golde, a principal of local design firm Fini & Martin. “I used a garage refrigerator and cooked meals in a toaster oven. I got really good at it.” After such inconveniences, her young family of four was ready to regroup in a functional kitchen—and Golde determined to splurge on areas that would allow her children to be a part of the meal-making.

She opened up the previous cook-space area to fit a 275-square-foot kitchen and 65-square-foot butler’s pantry, taking down two walls and erecting an $11,000 steel beam for support. Plumbing and electric clocked in at $19,000.

Quebec-based Cuisine Ideale, for which Golde is a dealer, built the frameless walnut cabinetry for the pantry and the kitchen’s perimeter. It swallowed $61,834, including over $2,000 on brass and walnut-stained hardware. In the pantry, the designer opted for cabinets of the same brand’s high-density HD MDF. “It knocks off about 10% of the cost” to use good quality high-density fiberboard instead of wood, she says.

To keep the family, including her two tween children, involved in mealtime duties, Golde went all-in on two luxury sinks: a 5-foot-long work station in the island and a 2-foot-long version in the pantry ($13,700), both from the Galley, a manufacturer for whom she is also a dealer. The island sink sports two faucets and numerous culinary tools: serving boards, chopping blocks, ice buckets and food-prep areas. She also embedded an invisible induction stove—no gas or electric burners—directly into the porcelain island countertop. “It provides a much safer and cleaner way for the kids to enjoy cooking.” For her, the use the cook top gets is well worth its $900 price.