The One Thing To Always Splurge On For A Timeless Kitchen Renovation

When it's time to renovate your tired-looking, outdated, or dysfunctional kitchen, the layout and the cabinetry are the logical starting points. A lot of design choices, such as countertops, flooring, and the kitchen's color palette, depend on your decisions about cabinetry finishes. Whether you design around the cabinet layout or choose cabinets to fit around appliances, splurging on well-made cabinets with lots of extra features is a timeless investment. If you want a high-functioning kitchen that's also easy on the eyes, custom cabinetry is often worth the splurge.

Kitchen cabinets are no longer simply boxes with doors that you put your stuff in. Even low- and mid-range cupboards come with many moving parts, like rotating lazy Susans, roll-out trays, and narrow pull-out cabinets on wheels. High-end kitchen cabinetry is aesthetically pleasing, durable, and has unexpected features like a vacuuming system built into the toe kick or a glass-fronted display case built into the end of a peninsula. Natural wood options like cherry, hickory, and walnut are nice to look at, durable, and when paired with quality craftsmanship like dovetail joints, they give kitchens a timeless feel. 

With so many cabinet add-ons available, it helps to think about your household's specific functional needs. If you have pets, you might consider a pet-feeding station in a drawer that hides under a base cabinet when it's not in use. Built-in microwaves that free up counter space are becoming more common, along with integrated beverage fridges. If you're planning to age in place or have mobility problems, upper cabinets with shelves that drop downward when the door is opened, or a shelf for the stand mixer that automatically rises to counter level, provide easy accessibility. You can also choose cupboards designed to deal with things like pot lids or sheet pans that bug you every time you have to get them out or put them away. Soft-close doors and drawers are a must, as are built-in drawer organizers and charging stations.

Cabinet costs depend on factors like location, kitchen size, materials, and customization, but a common rule of thumb is to allocate around 30% of your budget to cabinetry. To calculate the budget for an entire kitchen renovation, plan to spend roughly 15% of your home's current value. Fully custom cabinetry costs three to four times more than a mid-range cabinet, and your return on investment (ROI) for a high-end kitchen is about 36%. Aside from the obvious reasons like affordability, there is a financial consideration to choosing high-end cabinets. Simply updating your outdated cabinets has a 113% ROI; a mid-range renovation has a 51% ROI, so if you're remodeling just for resale, reconsider upgrading to custom cabinetry.