The number one question for every project is how much will it cost? We’ll start with some numbers and flesh out the meaning behind them:
New kitchen and open plan design including 1 wall downtaking:
- A basic small kitchen with new appliances (think Ikea with laminate worktops),
- 1 short loadbearing wall removed and reinforced with a steel joist
- Laminate flooring
- Building warrant application
£12,000 is about as low as you’ll get it unless you reuse your units or buy a second hand kitchen.
What impacts the cost?
- Size -the bigger the kitchen, the more units and work surface you’ll need
- Quality – you can get everything from a flat packed kitchen starting at £3000 to a hand crafted, hand painted kitchen for £80,000+. There are also new innovations coming onto market every day so think carefully about what you need.
- Standard sizes- as soon as you go off-piste with sizes, the price goes up.
- Structural work- If you want to open up a space further eg enlarging a doorway, that will add to the building costs. The span of the joists needed to hold up load bearing walls impacts the size and therefore cost. If you have a choice, choose to remove a shorter wall.
- Location- Moving your kitchen to a different area will require work on pipes(water and gas), drainage and electrics so keep it in the same place as the original kitchen to keep costs down.
- Materials –new glazing and doors, flooring. Every budget is catered for but costs can creep up.
The Why (and also… Covering your legs with denim )
How much a new kitchen costs will also depend on WHY you want one. If your old kitchen is just broken and old and in desperate need of replacing then a functional replacement may do. But if your new kitchen is part of a ‘lifestyle’ upgrade, then you’ll pay more to achieve a more bespoke look, feel and function. Put simply, you can buy an £10 pair of jeans at a supermarket or spend £100 at a boutique. They both fulfil the objective of covering your legs with denim. But the cheap ones probably won’t look great, haven’t been fitted to your shape and may not make you feel ‘special’. Only you know if that’s important or not.
Why £20,000 is a good budget
There are lots of variables to consider when you price up a new open plan kitchen. A good exercise is to work out what your priorities are and your maximum budget is. Whilst it is possible to get a kitchen for £12,000, there may be too many compromises involved in terms of quality, design and how the space works. On that basis, I would suggest a good starting point for the budget is around £20,000.
**Just a gentle reminder that this blog post is intended as a helpful guide to kitchen costs. It does not represent a price guarantee or reflect the fluctuations of cost in different geographical locations around the UK.
