i am wondering the same thing. I googled it. lol and since i believe everything i read on the internet it said it should be between 5 and 15 percent of the cost of your house.

We're building right now also. Usually with building, there is no separate category for "kitchen". So it's really not that simple. There are categories for plumbing, lighting, appliances, cabinetry, flooring, trim, etc. But it's all whole house. So I suppose you could break it out for just the kitchen. But that would be over complicating things a bit. How it works for most people is that (for example), you go to the plumbing showroom and sit down with your person. They walk you through each room and you make your selections. You figure out at that point where you fit into your plumbing budget. If you're under, great!! The only category that's really specific to kitchens is appliances. Even the backsplash is in with the whole house tile budget. You make all of those selections with those separate budgets. Every contractor is different. Until you get your numbers and start doing your research, it's hard to say where he has you fitting in with your kitchen. Does that make sense?

I may be wrong, but builders usually use builder grade materials/products and thus the allowance would be lower than what you may wish to spend, especially if you are looking for a more custom kitchen.
Depending on your contract, you can probably take the builder allowance and apply that towards your choices and anything over, you would be paying for above the allowance.
When we redid our basement rec room, I was able to do just that with our bathroom and other materials flooring).
Good luck!!!

Do you have a plan drawn yet? If not, it will be hard to get an idea of the cost until you know how large the space is going to be. Are you doing a custom home or is it part of a development? If it's part of a development the builder usually has allowances for things and then you can go over them if you choose. One way to get started is to figure out what appliances you want. Just go to AJ Madison.com and total the costs. Then look at cabinets. Do you want inset? Full overlay? Open shelving? What about counters? Do you want granite, marble or soapstone? If you know the answers to those questions and the approximate space size it isn't too hard to assume a ballpark.

We are doing semi-custom. It was made very clear to the builder that the kitchen was extremely important. The first builder gave me a $12,000 allowance for cabinets and $2500 for appliances. His home would have cost about 20% more than the one we are building.

On to next builder. This guy "got it". Gave us $32k for kitchen cabinets and vanities. He said he could only get "his" pricing on GE, so we could supply all of our own appliances. This was great with me, since I'm a bargain hunter. We came in slightly over (maybe $600?) his allowance but he just ate it. It was difficult to come in under that budget when I was using the KD that he sent us to. I could have made it work, but as a TKO person, there were non-negotiable items which were causing the price to go up up up. Then I went to Dutchwood and all my dreams are coming true!

He also gave us a generous allowance for the counters.

Get the biggest allowance you can, then go shop around for a cabinetmaker that 1. you click with, and 2. that understands what's important to you.

Our cabinet, vanity, tub deck & countertop allowance was $36,000 all inclusive and an appliance budget of $6,000.

We went over on the cabinets by $11K--upgraded granite island to Level 2 , upgrade laminate in laundry to granite, added a butler's Pantry, and a number of other items.

We went over on appliances by $5K--builder budgets for Frigidaire gas cooktop, Frigidaire single oven/micro combination, stainless exhaust hood, & 1 Frigidaire DW. We upgraded to pro style appliances for cooking--GE Monogram 36" rangetop, Monogram Pro double ovens, GE Monogram 42" hood insert, 2 KA dishwashers, & a Kenmore Elite badged Samsung counter depth refrigerator.

I would budget at least $45K for cabinetry & countertops in your house--more if you know you are going to go higher than Level 1 granite. Around $11-$18K gives you a good ballpark figure for pro appliances & SxS built in refrigerator.

Hope this helps!

An 800K semi-mansion in rural KY is different than an 800K shack in White Plains, NY. On average though, you want to budget at least 10-15% (80-120K) for the cabinets, appliances, and countertops. Depending on your location, that still might not be enough to get the level of quality that your kitchen should have. Of course, the flooring will come out of the flooring budget, and the lighting, out of the lighting budget, etc. Be sure that those are adequate as well. Most allowances from builders are done as small as possible to make building the home seem to be much cheaper than it actually is. Building new is about 25-50% more expensive than buying an existing home right now, so the first thing to do is to decide if you are really and truly committed to payng a premium in order to buy housing for yourself.

In my area (Ohio), a new home's kitchen involves many allowances and includes all rooms, such as kitchen, laundry, master bath, hall bath, powder room, basement bath, wet bar, office...etc. Wherever you need cabinets and tops. Built in bookcases in a family room are also sometimes included in that allowance. Installation of the cabinets is always done by the trim carpenter/builder in my area and should not be included in an allowance for materials. Countertops are generally priced in by the cabinet/countertop suppliers and may or may not include labor to install.

As a KD, I only deal with the cabinet and countertop allowances....but they are for ALL rooms, unless the GC specifies separate allowances for each room.

A lot depends on how many rooms you need to furnish, how big are the rooms and your level of expectations in quality and design.

I did an $800,000 new home in 2009 for a client. I only supplied the cabinets for the kitchen, laundry, basement bar, basement bath, master bath, jack-n-jill bath and a 13' wall of built ins for the husband's study.

Homeowners went with Showplace and Medallion in the kitchen and master. KraftMaid everywhere else.

Her job totalled about $53,000

She had a separate allowance for granite and that was purchased through another company.

This home was large...guessing 4000SF+

For a home of that cost, a decent semi-custom is the lowest I would personally want to do. I would put the highest quality in the kitchen and sacrifice in the other rooms, with a lower priced manufacturer, if needed.

Kompy

Breakdown:
$30,800 Kitchen Cabinets and Wood Hood/blower
$5,850 Study
$6,400 Basement Bar
$2,000 Basement and J&J Baths
$3,500 Laundry
$4,400 Master Bath

includes sales tax, installation by builder. Decorative hardware was purchased by homeowner so you would need to factor in another $800 to $1200 for that.

For an idea of size....this was her final kitchen:

Our builder kept appliances and lighting out of the equation altogether (aside from wiring and installation labor) so that we could go as cheap or extravagant as we liked. He quoted all kitchens and baths with oak/maple and laminate/cultured marble to give us a base number to work with, and we paid the upcharge to upgrade as we liked, working directly with the cabinet maker.

Thank you all! Yes, we are still in the planning stages..have a rough estimate and are working on a plans for about 3200-3500 square feet. We will get the final numbers when we have everything drawn up and the builder gives us the cost of the home. I honestly don't know if he's going to say 10k, 3k, 50k...so it's good to get some insight from you all.

Same price range of house. My husband wants a porsche panamera - I want a kitchen.

Our deal is he gets the car he wants. I spend the same on a kitchen.

Both are on hold though as we want to buy the lot next to us.

By qualifying Northeast, you appreciate how greatly regional cost differences drive this answer. But it helps to be even more specific.
As a resident of the NYC metro area, I am always shocked by how much less it costs to build elsewhere. And how much less materials are marked up.

The town we moved from had a median home price of about 800k. I had several friends who did kitchens, as did we, and 100k was the norm. These were usually to the studs gut reno on historic homes, with custom cabs, stone, hardwoods, and viking/wolf/subzero appls. It was a NYC
burb.

"the Northeast" is a pretty broad term, and I'd say generally if you are not outside nyc or Boston, 80 may be the right number.

800K doesn't go that far in some areas of the NE. Where my SIL lives, that's the lot cost---if you could even find a lot available. Builds would start at around 1.5M and go up from there. And you're not talking all that high end results either. Things are just very very costly in her location.

So while 80K is a good beginning point as a guideline, if you're building a 3/2 2500 square foot builder's grade special in a location where pricing is out of sight, 80K might be quite a bit more kitchen that the final home would have be appropriate. The goal is always to match the kitchen to the finish level of the rest of the home. Putting in SubZero and Wolf into a builder's grade home may give you a lot of pleasure, but it isn't going to be adding any real value to the home if you ever have to sell it and the houses around you have plain jane Maytag or Whirlpool.

Best I can tell, building an $800k home would involve spending around $850k on the kitchen.
(Sorry, this is just how things work out for me...lol)

Totally agree with Green. Take a look at listing in the same zip code with the same price point and see what their kitchens look like...

Only thing I can figure is people who have time to post on here have time to spend to much money. The costs thrown out here are unbelivable. I have a custom building background for starters. I built 100 plus homes in my 20's with my dad and one track builder at the end. I started a few years ago to go into the kitchen and bath world to have all the elements of the home in one room.

I am shocked at the recomendations of some on this post. Why don't you just put your money in a barrel and set it on fire to warm your hands next winter.

You should be able to do a custom kitchen for a lot less then what is stated here. In washington dc there are many companies still raping thier customers and there are the rest of us offering our products with costs close to the big box stores while throwing in a little more customer service and just a good a quality.

I for example offered this last week custom cabinets to a local perspective buyer and my price was 350 more then Conestoga RTA which was 5,050 and I was 5,400.

Even the appliance budgets people throw out here are pretty high. I did a proposal for a kitchen a year ago for a contractor working on a house in Mclean which is snooty vile for Northern Va I could do the kitchen with Bridgewood custom cabinets for 36k with a hood 7' wide and 10' off the floor at the top and 34.5" off the floor in the bottom. All the cabinets for 60" tall with stacked doors. The countertops to cover the design was over 150 sqft. Geppetto with all the cabinets being combined so there were only about 10 units to install where it would be closer to 40 if the kitchen was ordered individually was going to be about 56,000.

Building lots in Mclean go for 500,000 to 1,000,000 without batting an eye. This house was a tear down and build a monument to myself because I make to much money. If I had sold the geppetto cabinets at that price I would have made 15,000 how much profit do you need?

I do not buy this idea that the costs have to be so much higher.

I tell people that I can do a semi custom and big box appliances with floor and installation for 5-7.5% of the house for homes in value of 250k to 500k. Custom cabinets without going crazy I can do for 7.5 -10% of the homes value. And kitchens for King Tutt I can do for 10 - 12.5% of the homes value. Generally after the homes price goes above 500k you can lower the precentages and still do it because you have so much of the value in the lot and the not the house.

Obviously there are extremes in either direction. But do not buy this nonsense that it is not possible to get good products without spending more then some blue collar workers will make in their life time.

Their was another post on here of a person who was given a quote for 100/ sqft foot for cambria countertops. I told that to my local fabricator and they fell out of their chair. I for example can get exotic natrual stone tops from an importer I share a building with where the price on many of the awesome movement stones like Typhoon bordeaux costs me 20 / sqft to buy the entire slab which is usally approx 60 - 70 sqft per slab. I can get the fabrication done for 15 per square foot plus the sink cut out sink itself and the cost of edge profile if ogee or something else is wanted.

My showroom is located in the wealthiest county in the nation ( do not remember if it is based on income per person or house) one of those 2 in the 2010 census put Loudoun County Va as the highest. So this area is not considered cheap.

If I can make good money doing projects at those prices any one else can also they just want to have a taxable income of 250k or higher at the end of the year after you paid everyone who worked on your home.The only things that drives up the cost of actually running the business as a retailer of fine products is the location of the business. If they are in an elite area they will have elite rent to pay. If they are not they will have a more reasonable rent on the building to pay. And of course if your show room is gold plated it did not come for free. Someone fronted the money to put it in expecting return on investment or they are doing what I am doing which is pay as you guy which is a long hard road where your prices are lower because you have the perception of not being "established" like you will go out of business before a company will that charges twice the mark up because you think they are better.

Choice is yours. The profit margins on the product cost before paying overhead bills is pretty much the same in all areas of the country. For cabinets from national manufacturers

Sure, you can always buy cheap Chinese cabinets from a fly by night container importer in a van parked down by the river who goes from city to city living in his van and unsuccessfully hawking his wares. You can always find cheap and crappy. That's easy to do.

But since a person's home is the most expensive investment they will make in their lifetime, house flipping cheap garbage isn't always what people want. Sometime people actually want to buy good quality American made goods that will stand the test of time and not poison them or their kids.

There are plenty of local custom shops that can give national American made brands a run for their money in the price department as well as the quality department. Or not. There are some superb furniture quality cabinets being manufactured right here in the USA or Canada. There is no any reason whatsoever to buy formaldehyde laden lead coated crap and put it in a new home.

I live in northwest Connecticut. In my 3200 sf home, I paid under $40k for locally made custom cabinets and counters for my kitchen (cherry, granite, and Corian) and my 4 bathrooms (maple, solid tops) Plus $10k for kitchen appliances. The cost for lighting/electrical/flooring/windows/installation was not separated out for the kitchen.

We never thought about the cost as a percentage of total home cost. We bought some acreage, hired an engineering firm to site the house and a builder to build it. You could build this exact same house on a tiny lot in a less desirable town, or in a gated neighborhood in the more expensive town 2 miles up the street, and the cost to purchase would be vastly different based on location and lot size alone. It makes more sense to put in a kitchen that fits the house and comparable homes in the neighborhood rather than use an arbitrary number.

farmhousegirl- I agree with LWO et al about the allowance. $80k for everything is a very good ballpark in as much as these things can ballparked. That said, I'm sure you've gathered that there are way too many variables to truly give a concise and accurate number.

"I do not buy this idea that the costs have to be so much higher. "

Dave - they don't have to be , but sometimes they are. Another thing you need to keep in mind is that building tract or production homes is a very different animal from doing one off , truly custom affairs. There are no economies of scale in a single project and the time suck that goes along with the process has to be accounted and paid for.

Usually these production affairs are pretty lean operations and I believe you have stated that you run this type of operation having very little overhead. 15k may be an obscene amount of profit or it might be a pittance- depends on the total cost of the project. Also , are we talking gross profit, or net after the entire job is 100% complete and all accounting is ready to be tallied.

There is also a difference in how many decorative arts operations are run. Many have nice cash flow and pay their owners and employees nice salaries/wages, they are not necessarily Profitable though. I suspect you don't have the overhead that some of the firms you are competing against. This is good for the customer and you too, if you can sustain it long term. Not much has changed in the business in 20 years in terms of running a profitable kitchen design business. If you have somehow captured lightning in a bottle with a new model - you are truly missing your calling. I am being sincere and frank here. You should get in touch with the NKBA board and put together a new business plan, training program and hit the lecture circuit to scale your system to the many struggling and just getting by small cabinet businesses.

One thing I would caution is to consider kitchen remodel as % of total home value. Depending on your geography, that may not make sense.. especially in the extreme ends of super expensive NYC or Silicon valley or on the low end. Some materials cost more or less the same (appliances, stone etc.) Labor costs will vary. Things that are materials but heavily dependent on labor costs like cabinetry also varies widely.

Question: We spent $363,000 for land, $1.6 for home, how much should be allowed for cabinets, floors/tiles/countertops/plumbing/fixtures?