Kitchen Remodel: Budget and Labor Overview

All right, I get to sit down in my comfortable work chair and reflect for a few minutes. The kitchen is well on it’s way to being finished. All that remains is grouting the back splash, a final coat of sealant on the floor grout, the trim, and touching up some paint.

My original cost estimate was $4450, right now without having bought the back splash grout, and some of the trim, I’ve spent $4368.58. That’s not bad.

To date, I estimate that we’ve put in a total of 187 man-hours of labor in 9 days. That’s an average of 10.4 hours per day per person. I don’t know exactly how much a contractor would charge per man-hour of labor, or if it would be more or less time than we’ve spent, but I’ve got to guess it would be between $60-$80 per hour, some of that time was spent doing specialty work an electrician or plumber would do which would be even higher. That means we’ve saved an estimated $11,220 to $14,960 in labor. Two years ago I bought the house for $104,500. I’m hoping that now with the new roof, new plumbing, new kitchen, and various other small upgrades and improvement we’ve done, I’m hoping I’ve moved it into the $130,000-$140,000 range which is what some of the nicer houses on my street are going for.