What Does a Kitchen Remodel Actually Cost?

It’s the first question almost everyone asks, and the honest answer has two parts, not one: what kind of project it is, and how big the space is. A number given before both are understood isn’t an estimate. It’s a guess.

National industry data puts the full range of kitchen remodels somewhere between $15,000 and $130,000+, depending on scope and size. That’s a wide enough range to be almost meaningless on its own. Here’s what actually narrows it down.

Range reflects aggregated 2026 national industry data (HomeAdvisor, Angi, and the Zonda/Remodeling Magazine Cost vs. Value Report), not Timberhaus Studio pricing. Kansas City costs will move around this range based on local labor and material choices.

Two Variables, Not One

The shape of the project, whether it’s a Refresh, a Full Remodel, or Reconfigured, determines the kind of work involved: whether plumbing and electrical move, whether walls come down, whether an engineer and a permit set are part of the job before construction even starts. This is the difference in complexity.

The size of the space determines the quantity of everything within that complexity: how much cabinetry, how much countertop, how many linear feet of tile. A 120-square-foot kitchen and a 400-square-foot kitchen can both be a straightforward Refresh, and still land in very different places on the range, simply because one has four times the material and labor to cover.

Shape and size move independently of each other. A large Refresh can cost more than a small Full Remodel. Neither number means anything until both are known, which is the whole reason we start in your house instead of on the phone.

What’s Actually Inside the Number

Most homeowners picture cabinets, countertops, and tile. Those are the visible part, and they’re rarely the whole story. A complete remodel budget also carries:

• Demolition and disposal. Tearing out the old kitchen and hauling it away is labor and dumpster fees before a single new thing goes in.
• Permits and drawings. Depending on scope, a permit set, trade permits, and in some cases an engineer’s stamp are required before work can legally begin.
• What’s behind the walls. Plumbing and electrical rough-in, and any updates needed to bring existing systems up to current code once they’re exposed.
• Putting the room back together. Drywall, trim, paint, flooring transitions into adjacent rooms. The finish work that makes a remodel look like it was always there instead of visibly bolted on.
• Labor across every trade. Carpentry, tile, plumbing, electrical, countertop fabrication and installation. On most projects this is a larger share of the number than the materials themselves.

A quote that only prices the visible materials isn’t cheaper. It’s incomplete. The rest tends to surface later, after demolition, when you have the least leverage to do anything about it.

What Moves the Number Most

Within any given scope, a handful of decisions account for most of the variation between one project and another:

• Cabinetry. On a typical kitchen this is the single largest line item, and the spread between stock, semi-custom, and fully custom is wide enough to reshape an entire budget on its own.
• Whether plumbing or gas moves. Keeping the sink and range where they are is dramatically cheaper than relocating them. Moving a sink to an island, in particular, means opening the floor.
• Whether walls move. Removing a wall is one price when it’s partition, another entirely when it’s load-bearing and needs a beam, a header, and an engineer’s sign-off.
• Countertop material. Laminate, butcher block, quartz, and natural stone span an enormous range for the exact same square footage. Stone also adds fabrication and template time.
• The age and condition of the house. Once walls open in an older home, knob-and-tube wiring, galvanized supply lines, un-level subfloor, or past water damage can all turn up. None of it is optional to fix once it’s found.

Bathrooms Follow the Same Logic

A bathroom is a smaller room, so the material quantities are smaller. But the density of work per square foot is higher. Nearly every surface is wet-rated, waterproofing and tile work are labor-intensive, and there’s plumbing in a space where there’s very little room to move it. That’s why a bathroom rarely costs proportionally less than its square footage suggests.

Converting a tub to a curbless, zero-entry shower is a good example: it’s a modest footprint, but it involves re-sloping the floor, rebuilding the drain, and waterproofing the entire assembly. The scope, not the size, is what sets the number.

Why the Lowest Bid Often Isn’t

When two estimates for the same project are far apart, the gap usually isn’t craftsmanship. It’s what each one chose to include.

• Allowances. A bid may carry a placeholder number for tile or fixtures. If you choose anything above it, the difference lands on you later.
• Excluded scope. Permits, disposal, paint, or flooring transitions get left out of one bid and included in another. The bids aren’t comparable, but they look it.
• Change orders. A low number revised upward three times mid-project ends up higher than an accurate number would have been. By then you can’t switch.

When you’re comparing estimates, the useful question isn’t which number is lowest. It’s which one is complete.

For our part, we don’t work in allowances. Selections are made and priced during Design, before construction starts. The tile, the fixtures, and the countertop in your estimate are the ones going into your house, at the price you already agreed to.

The same logic holds whether it’s a kitchen remodel or a bathroom remodel. Scope and size drive the number, not the room. If you want to know where your own project is likely to land, that’s a conversation, not a calculator.

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