Most realtors will tell you that the kitchen is what usually sells buyers on a new home. If you have a modern, updated kitchen, it can add to the value of your home when it comes time to putting it on the market.

The problem is that most kitchen renovations are costly. And even though you can often recoup much of that cost later when it’s time to sell, you still have to come up with the money to pay for it in the short run. Even if you refinance your home and use the extra cash to reinvest in a kitchen remodeling project, you are still going to end up paying for it over time … with interest.

Keep Your Costs Down

Contractors who do a lot of kitchen renovations will tell you that the average kitchen redo can cost you anywhere from $11,000 on the low end to $70,000 or more on the high end, depending on the size of your home and the complexity of the project, as well as the materials you choose.

No matter how you cut it, that’s a lot of money. So to help keep your budget small while getting the most you can from your kitchen renovation, we are offering these money-saving tips.

Replace Your Appliances

The least expensive part of any kitchen renovation is the appliances, including your refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher. In many cases, simply buying new appliances to replace your old, worn out ones will transform the look and feel of your kitchen.

Unlike more costly upgrades – such as new floors, countertops, or knocking down walls to create more space – appliances generally cost in the hundreds of dollars, not thousands. Most homeowners can get a lot more mileage out of simply putting in a new, updated refrigerator or stove while foregoing most costly upgrades until you can afford them.

Many realtors will tell you to upgrade your appliances anyway if you are planning on selling your home. Why not get some use out of them and enjoy more value in your kitchen at the same time?

Choose In-Stock Cabinets

Even more so than appliances, the cabinets in any kitchen take the bulk of the abuse. If you still have the original cabinets that came with your kitchen when you bought your home, you’ve probably thought more than once about replacing them.

Here’s a little industry secret that most contractors won’t tell you: Custom made cabinets have some of the highest markup in all of home furnishings. Yet for most people seeking to renovate their kitchen, new cabinets are usually the top thing on the list.

You can save a substantial amount of your kitchen renovation budget if you opt for in-stock cabinets, rather than custom-made. There are many attractive and functional cabinets available from some of the biggest name cabinet makers.

And because most kitchens have standard dimensions, you usually can buy mostly standard-sized cabinets to fit your existing space. If you have to reconfigure your cabinets so that they fit the space, it’s often worth the thousands you can save when you avoid buying custom cabinets.

Do Some of the Work Yourself

Most contractors will give you a top to bottom estimate for renovating your kitchen. That figure normally includes everything from the floor to the ceiling – along with everything in between.

But you can cut down how much you actually have to pay by designating some of the projects to yourself. For example, painting your kitchen or putting up new tiles is something most people can do in an afternoon. Recruit a few friends and neighbors to help you and for the price of a couple of pizzas and perhaps a six pack, you do the same amount of work with the same quality that a contractor might charge you thousands to do.

Use Laminate Counter Tops

Marble counter tops are one of those things that most homeowners now want for their kitchens. But you can save a lot of money by getting mlaminate counter tops, rather than solid marble.

Some Laminate will look like some solid surface counter top, but at a fraction of the price.

The truth is that not everybody will  know that your counter tops are not solid surface tops, unless they look very close and analyze your counter tops. So why spend a fortune on something nobody will ever see? Unless that is what you want and nothing else will satisfy your desire.

Using these suggestions to reduce the cost of your kitchen renovation can turn a potentially enormously expensive project into a more affordable one that is within the reach of most homeowners. Plus, the contractor you hire will be impressed with your expertise and insider knowledge of the kitchen renovation industry.