What a kitchen remodel really costs in the Triangle

The bands

Most Triangle kitchens we quote land between $24,000 and $95,000, and that spread is not vagueness.

Roughly:

• Cosmetic refresh. New counters, backsplash, sink, taps and paint, keeping the existing cabinet boxes and layout. The lower end of the band.
• Full replacement, same layout. Everything out, everything new, plumbing and electrical stay where they are. The middle.
• Full replacement, changed layout. Walls moved or removed, services relocated. The upper end.

The gap between the second and the third is where most of the money is, and it has almost nothing to do with the finishes people spend months choosing.

Cabinetry is the largest line, always

On a typical job, cabinetry and installation is the biggest single share of the total. It usually exceeds counters, appliances and flooring combined.

That is where the real decision sits:

Stock cabinets come in fixed widths and are the cheapest route. In a house with straight walls and a standard layout they are perfectly good.

Semi-custom allows modified sizes and a wider range of doors and finishes. It suits most kitchens and costs meaningfully more.

Custom, made for the room is the only answer in an older house where nothing is square, and in any kitchen with an awkward corner or a chimney breast to work around. Our cabinetry is made in our own shop, and the case for it is not luxury, it is fit. A stock run scribed into a bowed plaster wall leaves a wavering gap that gets filled with caulk, and you look at that gap every day.

Moving the sink is the expensive decision

Moving a sink or a range across a room is the single most underestimated cost in a kitchen.

Waste plumbing needs fall. On a slab, that means cutting concrete. On a crawlspace or a basement, it means new drain runs and possibly a vent. Gas has to be run in the right pipe size and pressure tested. Electrical may need new circuits, and a modern kitchen needs more of them than a 1990s one.

None of that is visible in the finished room. All of it is in the invoice.

If your budget is fixed and your layout is workable, keeping the services where they are buys you a great deal of cabinetry.

Structural work is the other one

Opening a kitchen into a dining room is the most requested change we get, and whether the wall is load bearing decides whether it is a two day job or a two week one.

A flush beam, where the new beam sits inside the ceiling depth so no bulkhead shows, is the finish everyone wants and it is the more expensive way to do it. Every joist is cut and hung, and the load has to land on something real at both ends, which often means new posts and new footings.

A dropped beam is considerably cheaper and it is visible forever. It is worth seeing both before you decide, and it is worth pricing both.

Our Preston kitchen case study walks through exactly this decision on a real job.

The costs nobody puts in their spreadsheet

Permits and inspections. Structural, electrical, plumbing and mechanical work all need them. We pull the permit, schedule the inspection and meet the inspector, and the fee is passed through at cost and itemised. The money is small. The time is not.

Time before work starts. Permit approval in Wake County runs to several weeks on a structural job. Semi-custom cabinetry runs to weeks of lead time and custom runs longer. A kitchen quoted in January frequently does not begin demolition until March, and there is no version of this where that surprises you less if nobody mentioned it.

Living without a kitchen. Six weeks of takeaway costs real money. Set up a temporary kitchen somewhere on day one: a sink is not possible, but a hotplate, a kettle, a microwave and a fridge are.

What is behind the wall. In any house over thirty years old, budget a contingency for what opens up. We find rot around old plumbing, aluminium branch wiring, unsupported joists, and cast iron waste lines at the end of their life. We stop, photograph it, price it and wait for your answer, but the money has to exist.

Where the money is worth spending

In order, from our own jobs:

1. Layout. A kitchen that works badly with expensive finishes is still a kitchen that works badly.
2. Cabinet construction, meaning the boxes and the drawer runners rather than the door style. You open drawers every day for twenty years.
3. Lighting. Under cabinet task lighting on its own switch changes how a kitchen feels more than any counter material.
4. Counters. Real, but further down this list than most people place it.

How our estimates work

An estimate from us is itemised by material and labour, includes the permit timeline in writing, and is produced by the person who will run the job. Priced changes are signed before they are ordered, which is how a final invoice matches an estimate.

Kitchens are above the financing minimum of $3,000, so the monthly figure is available before you commit, with a soft credit check that does not touch your score.

The full process is on the kitchen remodeling page, and the first visit costs you nothing.