published about 1 hour ago
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission.
Now that you’ve read all about the Jones family’s kitchen renovation, it’s time to get down to the most important part: the budget! While most homeowners take on renovations to improve the long-term quality of living within their homes, the Joneses, who live in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, are serial movers (they’ve lived in a total of 15 different homes as a family!). It’s a lifestyle choice dictated by husband Drew Jones’s job.
“We never know how long we’re going to live in a place,” says wife Laurie Jones, who designed the condo’s new 150-square-foot kitchen. While they can almost always justify a remodel, their semi-nomadic lifestyle means that Laurie and Drew aren’t keen on blowing their budget, like they might be inclined to do in a forever home. Let’s take a look at what they changed, where the couple saved, and how the budget was spent!
For this project, Laurie took into consideration the values of other condos in the building when she decided on her $20,000 budget for the new kitchen. It’s a figure that seems appropriate for Chicago, a major metropolitan city where the cost of living is 23 percent above the national average. (For reference, Houzz’s 2021 study of more than 75,000 renovation-inclined homeowners reports that approximately 26 percent of small-space remodels during the pandemic focused on the kitchen, and that the average budget for that kind of project was $12,000.)
The biggest area where they saved was on the labor. Drew, being a gifted DIYer, and Laurie, a designer in her own right, tackled most of the handiwork themselves, save for the appliance installation. While replacing or refinishing floors can be a pricey pursuit, the Joneses opted to give the original wood planks and kitchen cabinets a little bit of spit and polish. Also, a big money-saver was the decor itself, including the objects displayed on the open shelves, the potted plants in the antique garden window, the pieces hung on a gallery wall, and the feathery juju hat above the built-in bench. Virtually all of the accessories were already part of the family collection long before this project was even a glint in Laurie’s eye.
When it was all said and done, the four-month makeover rang in at $15,667 — that’s about $4,000 under Laurie’s original budget! Here’s the detailed breakdown.
Laurie’s Kitchen Renovation Budget
See Laurie’s Full Reno Diary
Source by www.thekitchn.com
