Kitchen Remodel Estimator

How this calculator builds the number

Every combination runs through the same seven steps, in this order. Nothing is looked up from a national average, and nothing is rounded until the end.

1. Labor. Total in-house man-hours for the gut — demo through finish paint — multiplied by the crew rate, currently $85 an hour. A standard 10×10 gut is 148 man-hours; a large 12×14 is 192. One working day is a two-person crew at 16 man-hours, so 148 man-hours rounds to ten working days.
2. Management. Management and inspection days multiplied by two billed hours a day at the on-site coordination rate, currently $155 an hour. A standard job carries ten of those days, which is $3,100.
3. The cost lines that ride inside the contingency. The plumbing sub ($500 with the sink staying put, $1,500 once rough plumbing is included); the electrical sub ($1,500 on reusable circuits, $3,500 to isolate the kitchen, $6,000 when the panel is replaced too); a fixed $2,750 install-material lump covering demo, dumpster, framing, drywall and drywall finish, paint, finish carpentry and miscellany; cabinets at $3,250; and the countertop — stone at fabricator cost times a 1.30 sub markup, laminate at material cost with no markup.
4. The contingency. Labor, management and every line in step 3 are summed into one bucket and multiplied by 1.20. On a standard 10×10 that bucket is $26,630 and the contingency line is $5,326.
5. Standalone lines on top. The appliance grade and any structural overlay — a load-bearing wall with a steel beam, engineered structural plans — are added after the contingency, each at its own markup. They are never inside it, which is why a Luxury appliance package adds exactly $76,044 to a standard 10×10 no matter what else is selected.
6. The small-project service fee. $125, and only when total in-house man-hours fall below eight. A kitchen gut never triggers it — the engine's own floor is 148 man-hours.
7. The subtotal, and the cabinet-grade range under it. The headline "Estimated project cost" is the subtotal at the $3,250 representative cabinet cost. The line beneath it re-runs all six steps above at the $2,500 and $4,000 ends of the cabinet band and changes nothing else, which is why it always lands $900 either side of the headline.

The countertop line is the one most people want to see on its own. It is $1,950 for a single stone slab on a standard kitchen, $4,550 once a center island is added, and $7,800 on a large kitchen with an island. Laminate is $400 for stock preformed ten-foot sections and $900 custom-made.

Three sample outputs

Three real runs of the tool. Nothing changed between them except the options listed in the first column.

The first two are the same size kitchen. The $10,688 between them is a laminate top swapped for stone, rough plumbing switched on, and a mid-grade appliance package added — three answers, not three hundred. The third adds an island and new circuits on top of that: its construction cost before appliances is $37,476, and the High appliance line riding on top is $20,038.

What the estimate includes, and what it leaves out

Included on every run, whatever is selected: full in-house gut labor from demo through finish paint; standard dust protection, which is a drop cloth on the construction path and a zippered door at the work area, added at no cost; management and inspection coordination at the on-site rate; cabinets and countertop as their own line items; and appliances at typical all-in cost when a grade is chosen — who actually buys them does not change the project cost.

• Permits and inspection fees are not in the number. They are paid to the municipality, and whether a kitchen needs one depends on what moves — when a Columbus kitchen needs a permit covers the triggers.
• HVAC duct relocation, a main-stack rebuild and a panel replacement are excluded unless the matching condition is checked on step 4.
• Unforeseen conditions found on demo are not priced in advance. They are surfaced as change orders before work proceeds rather than absorbed quietly.
• Only stone slab and laminate counters are estimated. Quartz, solid surface, butcher block, tile and bespoke tops vary too much to price blind.
• Some kitchens get no figure at all. A kitchenette or very small single-wall kitchen, a partial or cosmetic remodel, a custom or non-standard layout, and structural work beyond the listed conditions are all routed to a custom estimate instead.

What is variable inside the number

• The cabinet-grade range is the only spread the tool prints, and it is always $900 either side. A cabinet line beyond the $2,500–$4,000 band is something a real quote has to settle.
• Every condition is additive. An island, isolated circuits and rough plumbing are measured against the reusable-circuits, rough-required baseline — they add, they never subtract from a total shown elsewhere.
• The year the home was built is context, not its own dollar line. It drives the assumption flags — galvanized drains, knob-and-tube, lath and plaster, mortar-bed subfloor — and the rough-plumbing default.
• Working days are a planning estimate. They are gauged from total man-hours at a two-person crew. Parallelizable work such as demo compresses with extra help; cure- and inspection-bound work such as tile and drywall does not.

When to get a real quote instead

The tool says so itself on the way in: it cannot price a kitchenette, a partial or cosmetic remodel, a custom layout, or structural work beyond the conditions on step 4. Those need a person, not a calculator.

Even well inside its range, treat what comes out as a planning range rather than a bid. A real quote needs a site visit — what is behind the plaster, where the stack actually runs, whether the panel has room for the circuits a current-code kitchen needs. It is worth getting one when the house predates 1980, when the layout is moving, or when two scopes with real money between them are still on the table.

What to do next

If the number here is close to what you expected, the guide to kitchen remodel cost in Columbus has the full layout and size tables, six worked examples and the working-day counts behind them. If the permit question is the open one, kitchen permits in Columbus covers what Building & Zoning Services triggers on. If the island toggle on step 4 is the decision you are stuck on, island sizing has the clearances that decide whether one fits. And to see a single budget followed end to end, what a $35K Columbus kitchen remodel gets you walks one through line by line.