Beautiful kitchen!
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Love those cabinets!
(And a beautiful kitchen that wonāt go out of style in 2 years.)
This is my kitchen in NYC now. 
it has a large Viking fridge, Miele dishwasher and hidden cabinets.
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The kitchen is over 10 yr old now.
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I thought it was true. Do you feel the study isnāt strong enough?
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Love your story and agree. Hard to get excited to do the work now. I am handy also but we kinda designed and Co - contracted but it was a full complete gut also. My point is we kept the expenses low by buying where the contractors were buying at. They didnāt care and lots of times we just used their name and numbers (with permission) and we paid for the material so yes more time /material project. It saved us a boatload. Plus we are super picky for lighting etc so hate going with someone that shows you a book and says "these are your choices āuh noā. We always enjoyed going to the warehouses etc to pick out our stuff. For lighting the place we bought from had a lighting designer come out for free and just pointed and marked. Put one here and here and here. Lol 
ā¦ We went to many different places to get unique handles for the cabinets that were so much nicer and cheaper then what they were showing us. We arenāt traditional when it comes to this stuff. I am not even saying do the work yourself. But many different ways to save money and get the look you want for much less cost. But itās important to have the main person willing to go along. For our projects we did. But we also designed the entire house and when framing they would hold up a wall section and they would move it if we needed them to. It all worked out in the end and it depends how hands on /costs you want to be.
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Thatās a study about fabrication workers, grinding and cutting stone for years on end (which generates lots of dust that is inhaled). Nothing to do with risk to homeowners once it is installed.
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We did a kitchen/family room/powder room/mud room remodel last year and we spent right in that 10% or so value of home figure. Semi custom cabinets, new hardwood flooring, new appliances ( $16k of the budget), lighting and we did break through a wall to add additional cabinets and bar fridge. Everything was 21 years old and we are staying put for 5-10 years so thought why not. My DH was so so about doing it but we are both so happy we did. Iāve never met anyone who regretted a kitchen remodelš
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Yes, I did a remodel like this at our home: a 1950s galley kitchen with appliances, flooring, paint and countertops from a 1980s remodel. It turned out really well given the low budget. I installed the flooring and backsplash myself. Got the dishwasher on Craigslist. Did splurge by replacing the cooktop with an induction model. Added some cabinets in a contrasting (white painted) but sympathetic style (after pricing out what it would have cost to match them in the original woodānope!)
Luckily period appropriate materials from the 1950s are dirt cheap (plain white wall tiles etc) and easy to install. I love my kitchen every day, and it functions extremely well.
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Some of us might prefer not to purchase materials that sicken and kill the workers manufacturing them even if there is no personal risk.
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This article talks about workers, not homeowners. Proper use of PPE solves the issue at workplace. As a chemist, Iāve handled buckets of silica gel but always with proper protection. Sorry, it is on the employers that donāt provide proper PPE and safe workspaces.
Back to kitchens.
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That of course assumes you have a decent layout to start with. My first kitchen remodel (in a very much starter house) I had 14" of counter space thanks to a stupidly placed window, and a really useless butlerās pantry. I added a tiny bump out to square off a corner, made the pantry a powder room (1 bathroom house), removed the window, and moved every appliance. Had formica countertops, vinyl floor and very simple cabinets. Ended up with 14 feet of counter space. Cost was $35,000 in 1992. (Google says that would be $75,000 now.)
I donāt really know how much my current 2014 kitchen cost because it was part of a big addition - master bath, laundry, screen porch and more than doubled kitchen area. It all cost ca $250,000. I had a deal with the contractor to give him 20% more than cost of materials. (We work together regularly.)
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āTerrible layoutā was the issue we faced. We bought a historic home in New England (built in the late 18th c.) which had been amazingly preserved and sensitively restored over time.
Except for the kitchen.
It was small, narrow, dark, blocked off any view to the lovely yard (āgroundsā really), and not up to snuff with the place in general. In fact the house had been on the market for a very long time and the obvious answer to āWhy?ā beyond price was the kitchen. It was just wrong. Like, you could tour the house, fall in love, then walk into the kitchen and say nope. Not for me.
After buying the house, we decided to go for it because weāre serial renovators, and it was covid so we were bored. Ha.
We added about 120sf of interior space with a bump out. We reversed the direction and moved the location of a stairway to open up the view. We had to reframe above and below. We had to sister the joists under the floor because the existing ones had sagged in the prior 250 years (shocking). New subfloor. New flooring. Custom cabinets, all inset rather than overlay. New appliances, new countertops of course. Island. Butlerās pantry. Dry pantry. Laundry. Mud room. Figured out a way to get a 3/4 bath in. Custom bar. And of course everything was high end because weāre masochists (the true divided light windows from Pella took 36 weeks and alone set our timeline back about 3 months).
All of which is to say that an āaverageā remodel isnāt a very useful metric IMO and IME. @blossom 's comment above about āreplacing stuffā is spot on - thatās where the most affordable redos happen. Once you start āmoving stuffāā¦opening walls, floors, ceiling, you face uncertainty that will balloon costs.
And then thereās the vast difference in cost per item from the very lowest to the very highest āprice available upon requestā stuff.
Most materials were a multiple of the price weād paid only a few years prior (2018-19) in the NYC suburbs. Labor was 1.5 - 2x. Lead times were a multiple for just about everything.
Know your budget, know what makes sense economically for your house/area, and then do your best to balance your wants and needs against those.
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Nobody is saying it jumps out of the stone and into your lungs! Obviously the homeowner is at no risk.
But itās well known that the big names in this industry have grown rich by a business model of āproviding PPEā to their workers while simultaneously creating conditions where they know that PPE isnāt being used (e.g. too hot, time pressures too great.)
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Please stay on topic. People are free to start new threads on unrelated topics.
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Amen.
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Although it would be nice to have a remodeled kitchen or primary bathroom.
I also havenāt regretted the trip to Europe we took or the debt free education we gave out children.
Our budget isnāt unlimited and weāve had to make choices.
There will be a day god willing that doing those renovations will be the priority. It might be when traveling becomes more onerous. It might be when the stock market has a great year. But for now, Iām happy with my house. Sans remodeling.
We are also unlikely to recoup a significant remodel. So it would be for our own enjoyment. Which is big but it wonāt be something that we will be able to realistically increase the value of our home substantially.
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Most homeowners I know are happy with their remodeled kitchen. Many were dismayed by the cost and budget overruns. And most wished it could have been accomplished with an I-Love-Jeannie-like blink.
Hubby has been itching for a remodel for a long time. We have a 1993 builder grade kitchen. It has good bones, and I Iike it fine as-is. Honestly if we had renovated years ago it would likely also be considered dated by the time we sell someday. Our 2011 upgrade of light fixtures was enough for me. Iām another who is not sorry we used discretionary funds for travel instead.
Is the house worth less with the old kitchen? Yes. But it is large (ooohh so may cabinets to replace - 25 plus 6 drawers) with small walk in pantry. The appraisal ding would be less than the renovation costs. Personally Iād rather start investing in our aging bathrooms. Or maybe just travel more 
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Weāre just getting started on a kitchen and bath remodeling project. So far Iāve priced out all the appliances ($21K) and looked at cabinet/tile/counter options with the designer. Iām meeting with the designer and installer on Tuesday morning and expect to get their proposal soon after. Reading this thread is helping me brace myself! Weāre empty nesters and Iāve just signed up for Medicare, so we decided it was ānow or neverā for the remodel project. Our home is a single story and has wide hallways and is one we feel like we can live in for as long as possible in retirement. The designer gave us two options for the kitchen layout and we picked the one that keeps our existing flooring layout. We have a bunch of extra tiles so weāre hoping not to have to re-do the flooring. 
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I took it off the list of possibilities for my kitchen because of the risk to workers.
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