Budget Kitchen Renovation

I will get straight to the point... read on for the cost breakdown and the overall process for our kitchen renovation, including any pitfalls and red flags and things to avoid.

Cost Breakdown

This is the part that everyone wants to know!

Kitchen

We saved ourselves some money by choosing an online only company called Smile Kitchens, to do the whole process remotely via multiple zoom calls and emails and phone calls. They send you the samples so that you can check the quality and I can attest that the quality is amazing. The design team are experts and helped us every step of the way answering all of our questions and making what felt like hundreds of changes to the design so that we ended up with 10 separate designs. They were so patient with us and really made the whole process fun.

Before I go any further, now would be a great time to share my discount code for them, which will get you the luxury design package for free and £100 off your order:

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All of the information for our final kitchen is broken down here, including measurements and includes VAT so that you do not get any nasty surprises right at the end when paying the bill!

Keep in mind, that some kitchen companies also do not arrange or order your worktop for you. I know people who have ordered from Howdens, for instance, and they did not realise that they were supposed to order the worktop separately from a partner company of theirs and therefore the whole kitchen installation was delayed because they suddenly had to order this worktop at the last minute. It is worth knowing when you place your order, no matter what company you go with. With Smile Kitchens, however, they organise all of this for you.

Some people have expressed how surprised they are at the price of our kitchen, given the beautiful quality and how kitchens are usually very expensive. They are so surprised that we got so much for so small a price. So here I've listed a few reasons as to why Smile Kitchens are able to pass their company savings on to their customer and what you as a customer can get from working with them and choosing them.

Cost effective - arrives ready assembled for less labour saving time and money. Plus money saved on overheads (no showrooms etc) is passed back to the customer through competitive pricing.

Extra savings as they work with other well known brands giving you savings on appliances, lighting, tiles and paint.

Beautiful quality - samples sent to you

Great choice of different ranges for different styles

Expert advice - they have really made the whole process enjoyable

Fitter

Contrary to what most people believe, most kitchen companies do not fit kitchens. They only supply the kitchens. Some kitchen brands may suggest fitters but they are completely independent and separate from the kitchen brands. In some cases, their suggestions are purely based on fitters who have signed up for their commission schemes. This means that any fitters that kitchen companies recommend are not based on their merit. They do not know them and they do not have any need to help you if something goes wrong with the fitter. Just something to be aware of!

In other cases, some companies, mostly small, local, and independent companies, will do the whole process for you. They will design, order and fit your kitchen for you. To reiterate, this will most likely be the case for local companies. Not the main big companies like B&Q, Wickes, Howdens, etc.

We found a fitter who was willing to do the project management for this renovation as well. This meant that he would arrange separate trades people to come around and do the electrics, plumbing, plastering, tiling, and actually fit the kitchen. As he was organising all of this, he was aware of all of the timings and dealt with all of the communication for us.

Now, unfortunately, our fitter was, in short, rubbish. But if you can find a fitter to do all of this, and who is reliable, then this will save you a lot of time and stress.

Obviously, every quote will be different and every project will entail different tasks and timeframes and difficulty etc, but for reference, our small kitchen of roughly 2 m x 3 m, was quoted by three different fitters for roughly £3000.

We were pleased that all of the quotes came in at roughly the same amount.

Here is roughly what the £3000 quote included:

Fitting 2.2m x 3.2m kitchen

Worktop installation (specialist)

Plumbing

Electrics

Plastering

VAT

Tiling

We found an amazing Tiler who gave us lots of advice and did a beautiful job. He gave us a lot of tips about tiling as well. As we had chosen a herringbone layout, using small white tiles, 5 cm x 15 cm, which is much smaller than tiles that you usually use for herringbone, he said that the tiling would take him a very long time. We had considered tiling in and around the window and having the tiles as the windowsill as well. He advised us not to do this purely because it would take him one whole day just to do a tiny window by the oven, which is about 30cm x 20cm, and he would therefore have to charge us a for a whole day for such a small area and it wasn't really worth it. That should give you a good idea of how fiddly a herringbone layout, particularly small tiles, can be when tiling.

When it comes to tiling, this is definitely something to consider along with the total area to be tiled.

For our kitchen, the tiling came to just under £2000, including tiling the floor and tiling the walls.

The tiles themselves came to around £1000. We opted for not only beautiful tiles, but good quality tiles from the Baked Tile Company, who, again, have given me a discount code which will get you 15% off any orders above £250:

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I would highly recommend them as a company because they also offer a free design consultation whereby they will help you choose tiles based on the design of your kitchen and you can email them any designs or pictures that you may already have so that they can get an idea of the space and what you are trying to achieve with your final design. They also calculate how many tiles that you will need to order if you just send them through your design elevations with the measurements for the whole room. In addition to all of this, they will also provide you with a layout plan for your tiler if necessary, for instance, we had one for our flooring, as we had an asymmetric layout.

Appliances

When I first looked into appliances, I went for the cheapest options and the total came to around £800. Then my husband pointed out that if we're going to do this for the purpose of enjoying cooking in our lovely new kitchen, then we should have appliances to match. So in the end our appliances came to around £2800. This is where you really can be thrifty. We went for brand new appliances but sometimes you can get lucky on Facebook marketplace and get nearly new appliances for next to nothing from people who just need someone to take appliances that they no longer want away for them. So shop around if you're not after specific brands or items.

Breakdown

Kitchen £7700

Fitting including trades people £3000

Tiling £2000

Appliances £2800

Rough Total £15,500

Now this may still sound like a lot of money but there are ways to reduce the costs such as doing the demolition, installation and painting yourself and selecting cheaper products, hardware and appliances. We could have saved ourselves around £2000 if we went for cheaper appliances for instance, so it's all a balance. All in all, make sure that you weigh up the pros and cons and run through your wishlist with your designer