A kitchen or bathroom renovation gets most homeowners excited. It’s also a little bit terrifying. For homeowners in New Jersey, that instinct tends to be correct. Properties throughout the state have their own particular set of challenges – older plumbing systems in Victorian homes, structural oddities in post-war ranches and municipal codes that can be wildly different from one town to the next.
Skipping the prep work on a kitchen remodel is one of the fastest ways to drain your budget and add months to what should be an easy project. Homeowners pay more and face tons of frustration that could have been avoided. A contractor opens up a wall and discovers galvanized pipes that all need to be replaced – that’s an unexpected expense right there. Cabinet orders get delayed, so workers can’t continue until they arrive, and in the meantime you’re ordering takeout and trying to eat dinner in your dining room for weeks. Permit problems can halt everything if the plans don’t match up with what the local building codes actually need.
A little bit of research before the demolition crew shows up will save you plenty of money and help you hold onto your sanity when the work finally begins. Homeowners who go into a renovation with a set budget, a realistic timeline and a contractor they’ve actually vetted usually have much better experiences than the ones who just start without any solid preparation. That early work is what makes the difference between a smooth renovation and the cautionary story that everyone brings up at neighborhood barbecues for the next five years. When the crew shows up and you’ve already done this groundwork, you’ll be grateful you put in the effort.
Let’s go over what you’ll have to know before you start your remodeling project!
Plan a Space That Fits Your Life
It’s worth it to work out what you actually want from your new space before you schedule meetings with contractors or start to collect quotes on materials. It’s worth it to spend a few days to collect ideas and dream a bit about what feels right for your home and your lifestyle.
New Jersey homes come in all kinds of styles across the state. Colonial farmhouses with original woodwork and period features deserve renovations that preserve their historical character. Ranch-style homes near the Shore work best when the designs work with the natural light and breezy, coastal color palettes that complement the location. Victorian houses in Cape May (some of them well over a century old) have architectural character and decorative touches that should guide renovation decisions. Each property has its own personality and remodels always feel more pulled together and intentional when the design decisions respect what was already built into the home.
An inspiration file can help at this stage and the best sources are going to be places that actually resonate with you. Walks through the neighborhoods you love can help you see what catches your eye. Open houses in the areas you like are great for this type of research. Experiencing a space in person gives you a much better sense of scale and how the room actually flows – something that photos can’t replicate no matter how nice they are.
It helps to think about how you use these rooms every day. Hosting big Sunday dinners with extended family means you’re going to need plenty of counter space and enough room for everyone to collect and move around comfortably. Or maybe your bathroom is the place where you decompress after a long commute into the city – in that case, a spa-like setup with a soaking tub could be a worthwhile investment.
A folder or a basic notebook works great to save images and write down your thoughts as ideas come to you. See if any patterns start to emerge in what catches your eye. White subway tile with brass fixtures might show up repeatedly in your collection, or maybe natural wood and stone are what always speak to you. Having everything in one location makes sharing your vision with your contractor much easier once you’re ready to get started.
How to Set Your Renovation Budget
Cost is usually everyone’s first concern when they’re planning a kitchen renovation or bathroom renovation and you can see why. The price can swing pretty dramatically based on the scope of your project and what level of finish you’re after. A basic kitchen update might run you around $25,000 and would cover new countertops and appliances as long as you stick with the existing layout. A full kitchen remodel with custom cabinets and premium materials can climb past $80,000 or more pretty easily.
Bathroom projects usually cost a bit less. Most homeowners spend between $15,000 and $40,000 when they update their bathrooms. Where you land in that range depends on how big the work is and what kinds of materials you go with.
Older homes can have all kinds of problems tucked away inside the walls and you won’t discover them until you actually open them up and start the work. A lot of houses in areas like Montclair and Princeton were built 50, 60 or 70 years ago and the plumbing or electrical systems inside them haven’t always been updated since then. I always recommend adding at least 15 to 20% on top of whatever your contractor quotes you for the first round of work. This extra padding in your budget gives you enough room for whatever problems come up without it stalling out your project.
Materials are going to make a difference in what you spend. Stock cabinets from the big box stores cost way less than custom millwork that’s been built to fit your exact space. Countertops and fixtures work the same way. Laminate and tile won’t run you much but natural stone and specialty finishes are going to add up fast. A skilled contractor will talk to you about the different options at each price point and help you see where it makes sense to spend a little more and where you can cut back without compromising the quality.
What Should You Expect for Your Timeline
Your renovation is going to take longer than you want it to. Nobody likes to hear this and I get it – we all wish our projects could wrap up yesterday. An honest timeline from the start will save you from tons of frustration and disappointment down the line.
Kitchen and bathroom remodels are two of the most common renovation projects and each one follows a pretty different timeline. A full kitchen remodel will take between 6 and 12 weeks to finish from demolition day right through to your final walkthrough. Bathrooms are a bit faster to finish – most bathroom renovations are done in 3 to 6 weeks and can be a big relief if you only have one bathroom in the house.
Custom cabinetry tends to be one of the harder parts to plan around in your timeline. Most custom pieces are going to need between 12 and 16 weeks just for fabrication alone and that’s all before they get delivered to your property. We’re talking about the pure lead time at this point – none of this accounts for the installation work yet. Work with your contractor to place those cabinet orders as early as possible in the renovation process so everything shows up right when you actually need it to.
Appliance delivery can create problems during a kitchen renovation. The supply chain has recovered quite a bit from where it was a couple of years ago and most appliances arrive when they’re supposed to. Delays are still more common than they used to be though. Every once in a while a homeowner will wrap up their kitchen remodel only to wait a few more weeks for their refrigerator to finally arrive.
Material changes can disrupt your timeline and the ripple effects add up way faster. Maybe you fall in love with a different tile than the one you originally picked out – it seems simple enough to just swap it out and move on. If that tile isn’t in stock locally and has to ship from across the country, your whole project is now on hold for 2 or 3 weeks as everyone waits around for it to arrive. This sets off a chain reaction where your plumber gets delayed, your electrician has to wait and every other contractor on the schedule falls behind. A small change to the materials or a minor design adjustment can push your final completion date back by weeks or months.
Always plan for the longer end of the timeline range instead of the shorter estimate.
Find the Right Contractor for You
It’s not necessarily easy finding the right contractor. It’s worth the extra time and effort though because when you finally choose one, you’ll actually know where your money is going and what you’re paying for.
Quotes can be all over the place from one contractor to another, and the amount of detail you get in each one is usually a sign of what work you’re going to get. A quality contractor will break down the costs for you instead of just giving you one big number. Materials are going to be a big part of this too – they should be able to tell you what they plan to use and why they chose those particular products. References are also necessary, and the best ones will be from recent projects that match up well with your project.
You should pick up the phone and call those references to ask about their experience with the contractor. Make sure to find out if the contractor showed up on time like they promised. Ask if the final bill matched what they were originally quoted for at the beginning. Your neighbors can be a valuable resource if they’ve done similar work recently, and their honest feedback about who they hired is usually going to be better than most of the reviews you’ll read online.
Keep an eye out for a few red flags as you start looking around. Contractors who just show up at your door without any warning or a phone call first are not a positive sign at all. And if a contractor is asking for a large payment up front before they’ve even touched your project, that should concern you. The best contractors just don’t work that way.
The best contractors build relationships with the same subcontractors and the same suppliers, and they’ll work with them across multiple jobs. This consistency matters because your contractor acts as the main contact for everything – the one person who coordinates the different trades, schedules the deliveries and makes sure that everything shows up when it needs to.
When you meet with contractors, pay attention to how comfortable you feel around each person. The right contractor will take the time to listen to your ideas, give you straight answers to your questions and won’t rush you through the conversation. They’ll be working in your home for weeks (or even months), so your ability to get along with them matters just as much as their skill level.
Contact Our Team Today to Start Your Project
You walk into your finished space for the first time and see that everything comes together the way you imagined it – the decisions and the temporary frustrations are going to feel worth it. Families all over New Jersey do this every year and they wind up with spaces that they want to spend time in every day. Nine times out of ten, what separates a stressful renovation from one that actually goes well is planning everything out the right way and having honest expectations about what the whole process is actually going to look like.
The planning stage doesn’t sound like the fun part of a remodel and it’s probably not. It’s the stage where the ideas that you’ve been thinking about actually start to become real. When you know what to expect and you’ve set yourself (and your family) up with a solid picture of how it’s going to go, the project gets way easier to handle. It might even be fun.
Our team at Magnolia Home Remodeling Group has been working with New Jersey families for more than three decades and we’ve helped plenty of families to make their kitchens and bathrooms fit their day-to-day lives better. Every home is different and every family has their own style and their own needs. We take the time to go through each step with you and we make sure to look closely at the little details that matter. Some families are ready to start their project right away. Others are still figuring out what they want.
In either case, we’re here to answer your questions and help you work out what makes sense for your project. Our project gallery has examples of what we’ve done for other families in the area and you can also download our free catalog if you want more ideas. When you’re ready to talk about specifics, just reach out and we’ll put together an estimate for you with no pressure or obligation. We work with New Jersey homeowners to create spaces that they’ll love for years to come.
