The Cost of Our IKEA Kitchen

In today's installment of my mini-series all about my kitchen renovation, I'm sharing the cost of our IKEA kitchen! The biggest reason we decided to go with IKEA for our kitchen cabinets is the cost. IKEA prides itself on is being able to build affordable kitchens for every budget. There's always ways you can cut costs and still have plenty of space and storage for everything that you need, and build something extremely beautiful while having a very sturdy kitchen that can be customized at any point during its life. I will be sharing soon a post all about ways you can save during a renovation! If you haven't caught the first 2 posts in the series, be sure to check out our kitchen reveal and important tips for building an IKEA kitchen.

Before I go through the cost breakdown, I'd like to talk about where and how we saved on our remodel. As I talked about in my tips post, we saved money by going with IKEA for our cabinets, but through Home Depot for our countertops, tile and sink. Not only that, but we saved a ton by doing all of the demo ourselves. At the time when we started our project, IKEA had just reopened from the lockdown and turnaround times on things were long even at the beginning of 2021. Additionally, everyone who had been putting off renovation projects were suddenly slamming construction crews and home improvement stores, driving up costs of labor and materials.

We saved a lot of money by building the cabinets and installing them ourselves. Luckily for us, we had all the tools and resources we needed to get the work done, and were able to borrow what we didn't have. We saved about $400 by going through Home Depot store for a higher end quartz countertop. Our Home Depot didn't charge sales tax or delivery fees for the purchase and installation of the countertops, which IKEA did. They also didn't have the sink or faucet we wanted so we had to look elsewhere for them. Lastly, we spent far less on our handles through Joss & Main on a sale that they had than if we had gone with a similar product from IKEA or Amazon. We could have saved even more if we were willing to get hollow handles through Amazon which I will link here that run about $30 for 20.

But where we saved money, we ended up having to spend more. Because we were remodeling in the middle of a pandemic that meant that IKEA had massive shortages on the Navy cabinets, which weren't be sold in store in 90% of the country. We started our process back in September of 2020 and weren't able to finally purchase all of our last bits until January 2021. That meant that all of the money we saved in certain areas got eaten up in shipping and delivery charges, as well as gas money to and from various stores. IKEA maxes out their delivery fees at $99, but there were a few times I split orders up for 6 items because it was cheaper to pay $20 shipping and 9% sales tax twice, than it was to have everything delivered on a truck for $99. And we're talking a few doors and inner shelves! It can get bananas. We got very lucky that we happen to be going to Anaheim for one of Mike's work trips, which allowed me to drive to San Diego (one of 3 locations left in the entirety of North America that had any Navy products in store) to purchase the last three cover panels that we needed. I'm still bitter about it.

Also, we broke our freaking stove during demo. OUR $100 STOVE THAT WAS ONLY A YEAR AND A HALF OLD. So, in a fit of rage from that and being exhausted doing the demo work (everything was held to the wall with 6" nails), we splurged and bought a new range that had a built in air fryer.

I'm also going to be including how much it cost for us to get our house wired for a dishwasher and a garbage disposal, which our 1960s home didn't originally have. That also drove up the cost significantly but was worth every single penny.

For our entire kitchen renovation, we spent about $10,300.

None of this cost includes any of the interior fittings or organization items that I purchased for the kitchen, which probably cost us about $300. I'll be doing a haul post next covering all of that to show how we maximized our new storage spaces.

Here's the breakdown:

Cabinets: $3800
Dishwasher: $600
Sink & Faucet: $300
Range: $1300
Garbage Disposal: $100
Cabinet Pulls: $130
Electrical Work: $1100
Countertops: $2500
Backsplash Tile, Grout & Mortar: $300
Tools: $150
GRAND TOTAL: $10,280

I'm not going to lie, seeing that end total amount does hurt my soul a little bit to know that I spent that much money on a renovation, but as I look around my kitchen I know in my heart that we made the right decision. It was worth every last penny and gray hair I got working on it.

My kitchen is so much more spacious and up-to-date, and the way I'm able to organize everything finally makes sense. As I've talked about before, my upper cabinets weren't even deep enough to house modern dinner plates. I had to use a buffet table just to hold my dinner plates. My pantry, which was converted after the removal of a in-wall oven, was also falling apart and cracking at the seams. This was a necessary update that I'm glad we were able to accomplish sooner than anticipated.

While this cost seems very high, please note that this is just the cost of my IKEA kitchen and how we chose to do it all. There are always ways you can save money and cut costs. Had we not needed the electrical work and replacement range, our cost would have dropped about $2000. Most homes are already fitted for that stuff, so you might not need to worry about something like that. Had we paid someone to do everything from the building to the installation for us, we would have paid an additional $5k-8k. There are ways to make a beautiful kitchen happen within your budget. Be sure to come back soon for my tips to save on kitchen renovations!

I wish you all the luck and patience when going into your own kitchen remodel whether you use IKEA or not. And always trust the process.

Check out the full series here:
We Remodeled Our Kitchen!
Important Tips for Remodeling an IKEA Kitchen
How to Save on a Kitchen Remodel
New Kitchen Haul