INSIGHTS

If you’re thinking about renovating a kitchen in Basking Ridge, Bernardsville, Bedminster or anywhere around the Somerset Hills, there is a decent chance you already have a number in your head.

Maybe you have been saving kitchens you love for two years and casually pricing things as you go. Maybe a friend just finished hers and told you what she spent. Maybe you have already walked into a showroom, gotten a cabinet quote and thought, OK, this is expensive, but at least now I know what I’m dealing with.

Then you start getting actual estimates.

This is usually the moment when the kitchen renovation goes from fun to mildly horrifying.

Because that cabinet number you have been carrying around? It may be completely accurate. It is just not the cost of your kitchen.

That was the first thing that became very clear when we sat down with Denise Jones, who leads J2 Design Studio in Bedminster and has been designing residential projects in this area since 2011. We wanted to skip the vague “every project is different” answer and get into the numbers homeowners actually want before they start tearing out cabinets.

What does a good kitchen renovation really cost here? What are people forgetting when they build the budget? Where does it make sense to spend more? Where can you pull back without regretting it every time you walk into the room?

And perhaps most importantly, how do you figure all of this out before half your house is under construction?

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