How To Get The Biggest Bang For Your Buck When Renovating Your Kitchen

Have you been thinking of diving into a kitchen remodeling or renovation project?

Paul Ryan of DIY’s Kitchen Renovations has some great advice for homeowners who want to get the “biggest bang for the buck” from a kitchen renovation project.

Following is another segment from my interview with Paul Ryan from DIY Network.

 

Biggest Bang For The Buck

I asked Paul Ryan, “What are some kitchen renovation projects that homeowners can do to get the biggest bang for their buck?”

Here is what he said:

Well, I would say that all depends on the homeowner because a lot of times we’ve talked to people about “What can you do yourself? What are you not comfortable doing?” There might be some people out there that are comfortable doing plumbing. Whereas other homeowners won’t want to touch it. There might be some people that maybe just want to contract out the construction of the project, but maybe they can do all of the demolition themselves. So I think within each project, you have to look at your skills as a do-it-yourselfer.

What I tell people to do is to really take stock in what they can and cannot do and create your project that way. Say, “I want to save money on this, but I know I can do that.” So maybe you do that and you spend more money on appliances. Or maybe you might have to spend more money on plumbing, and then install the cabinets yourself — that kind of thing.

As far as the bang for the buck goes, I think that so many people that I talk to… it’s like they want to really do something nice in their kitchen. They want to do this. They want to do that. They don’t want to spend a lot of money.

But where I think people are spending a lot of money these days is on appliances — because, obviously, if they do a lot of cooking, they want effective cooking. So they want a 6-burner cooktop or a really nice oven.

And a lot of times people will start compromising. It’s like, “Well, I want really nice cabinets, but I don’t really want to spend the money on the appliances.” And then they get done with the project and they’re disappointed because they don’t have the cooking needs that they want. It really depends on the individual person.

So I would say what’s important to you as a homeowner?

• If cooking is generally important to you, maybe you want to spend the extra money on the appliances and make sure that you get the effective cooking that you want.
• If the most important thing is the look of the kitchen, then maybe you want to spend more money on cabinets.

It’s all in the eye of the beholder — what’s important to you.