8 Ways We Saved Big on Our Frugal Kitchen Remodel

Planning a budget kitchen remodel? Here are 8 easy ways that we saved big on our own kitchen remodel!

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I still clearly remember the first time we visited our current house with the realtor for the first time.  We were immediately drawn to the beautiful character we saw in it and we loved the layout too.

But when I walked into the kitchen, my heart immediately sank a bit.  It was dark and dingy and in desperate need of a good facelift!

I knew that we could easily remodel it, but that wasn’t what caused my heart to sink.

What scared me was the fact that I knew that kitchen remodels typically are pretty expensive and I also knew that our finances were tight enough that it would make things tricky if we ended up trying to do a remodel.

Long story short, my husband and I both loved this place and couldn’t ignore the feeling that it was the perfect house for us.

We ended up putting in an offer in and made sure it was low enough that we still would have some cushion in our budget to do a frugal kitchen remodel and turn it into a spot that I could love.

And as you already know, our offer was accepted and we bought this place and got to work turning it into our home!

We really wanted to create a kitchen that was bright and cheery while also being an efficient workspace…and of course, it all had to be done on a fairly tight budget.

It was a lot of work and I learned so much in the process.  But I’m happy to say that our budget kitchen remodel turned out well and we ended up with a kitchen that overall works great for us!

There were some specific things that we did though that saved us significantly and I want to share them with you all to hopefully give you some ideas of ways to save on remodeling a kitchen if you ever have the opportunity!

Cheap Kitchen Remodel

1. Stuck with Existing Layout (saved approximately $500, very likely more!)  

There’s no doubt about it, sticking with our kitchen’s original layout saved us a lot of money!

We had toyed with the idea of changing it up a bit, but it would have required possibly moving walls, changing the plumbing, moving doorways and more- all of which would have added considerably to our cost.

And really, in our case, I’m not sure all that work would have gained us much anyway.  At least not unless we had upped our budget by 20,000 and totally moved our exterior wall!

2.  Went with a Freestanding Stove- Saved around $600

My husband and I both would have loved to have a slide in range just because they provide a much cleaner look.  But to save money, we bought our appliances as a package deal during a Black Friday sale.

That, of course, meant we needed to be okay with the style of appliances that were in the package.

3.  Bought our Stove Hood from Amazon- Saved at least $150

Because of the layout of our kitchen, one of the things that I was really set on having was a wall range stove exhaust hood, not an under-mount style.  But it didn’t take me long to discover how pricey they could be!

The stove that was included in our appliance package was this freestanding gas range that has a “back” to it.  It doesn’t give the clean look we love, but it is still a nice looking stove and the savings made it worth it!

Thankfully, I discovered this one on Amazon that was just what I was looking for and a good $150 less than anywhere else.

4.  Went with Ready to Assemble Cabinets- Saved at least $2000 (compared to custom cabinets)

The price tag of custom cabinets was enough to make us quickly decide that ready to assemble cabinets were the way to go!

And even though there are things that would have been super nice about using custom cabinets, going with Ready to Assemble cabinets from TheRTAStore.com ended up working out really well for us.

We’re happy with the look of our white shaker cabinets and are even happier about the money that we saved by going with them.

You can read more about our great experience with designing our kitchen and buying cabinets from The RTAStore.com here.  It really made our remodel so much easier!

5.  Made Our Own Drawer Dividers- Saved $80 to $100

Instead of buying drawer dividers/organizers through TheRTAStore.com when we bought our cabinets, my husband just used some scrap wood to make DIY drawer dividers.

I love it because we were able to customize them to make them work for our needs.  Plus, the one drawer is really narrow and finding dividers that fit in it would have been super difficult anyway!

6.  Used a Self Mounted Microwave- Saved $130

The appliance package that I mentioned earlier included an over-the-range microwave.  The thing is, we didn’t want an over-the-range microwave for a number of reasons.

For one, I had my heart set on a wall range stove exhaust hood going above the stove.  I also find it really annoying to take something that’s piping hot out of the microwave and not be able to just set it down immediately.

And what about those times when we’d accidentally spill something as we were taking it out of the microwave?  What if I was cooking something right then on the stove-top?  Not something I was excited about!  So, we had a dilemma.

At first, we thought that we’d try to sell the microwave and then use that money to buy another one.  But, then we figured out a better solution that worked perfectly!

My husband was able to tweak things a little to attach the over-the-range microwave to the underside of one of our kitchen cabinets instead.  We love it and it saved us from needing to buy the microwave cabinet with a shelf that we would have needed had we bought a regular “free-standing” microwave

Plus, I think the “no shelf” look is so much more visually “clean”.  And it’s also one less thing to need to keep wiped up too!

7.  Used Subway Tile for Backsplash- Saved at least $150

Subway tile is one of the absolute cheapest tiles options available.  We chose it not only because it’s inexpensive, but also because we love the clean, classic look that it gives.

We did “splurge” a little though and instead of going with regular subway tile, we went with glass subway tile that we got at Floor and Decor.  It added additional interest to our kitchen, while still being inexpensive.  

8.  Used Existing Brick as Backsplash- Saved approximately $100

We weren’t originally planning to do this, but one day when my husband was exposing brick walls in other parts of our house, he got the idea to expose brick in our kitchen too.

At first, I wasn’t so sure about it, but I actually really like the character and interest that it adds.  And the best part?  It was free!  🙂

So, how much did these easy hacks save us on our kitchen remodel?

We saved at least a whopping $3,710!  And to be honest, it was likely quite a bit more since I was very conservative in my estimations.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was closer to $5,000.

At any rate, we were quite happy to be able to stay within our low budget and still get a kitchen that we love!

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