Kitchen remodel cost in Portland: refresh or full remodel

Tear out the old boxes, hang new ones, and put in new tops, tile and a sink, and local market data puts that kitchen somewhere from $15,300 up to $42,700, materials counted, with $28,000 a fair middle (Portland area, November 2026) . Keep the boxes and paint them, and you pay a fraction of that. Four things swing the total: new boxes or old, what the top is made of, anything that has to be relocated, and the damage hiding behind the base units.

I'm Slava. The scope itself, room by room, lives on our page about what our kitchen remodel covers. Here I only talk money, so you can hold a quote up against the local market and see where it sits.

How much do Portland-area kitchen remodels cost?

The whole-room line centers on $28,000, and the separate pieces are broken out below so you can see which part of a quote carries the weight.

The installing lines cover only our hands, because you usually buy the boxes, the sink and the faucet yourself, while paint, tops and tile come with the material on them . The top and tile rows are national averages rather than local ones. And don't total the rows: the whole-room line already holds the parts. How hourly billing works for us is on the pricing page.

Is a refresh much cheaper than a full kitchen remodel?

Much cheaper. A refresh leaves the boxes on the wall and changes the surfaces and hardware you handle every day. A full remodel pulls the boxes and hangs new ones in the same spots.

Most refreshes start with repainting the boxes. Picking the top and the tile behind it is its own decision, and our countertops and backsplash work explains the options.

Can $10,000 cover a kitchen remodel?

For a refresh, usually. For new boxes, no. Every refresh line in the tables above has a typical figure below $2,000, while the whole-room line doesn't even begin until $15,300.

On a tight budget, protect the money in this order: hold on to boxes that are square and dry, repaint instead of replacing, and go with laminate or butcher block over stone (stone isn't priced anywhere on our sheet).

A galley or other small kitchen costs less for a plain reason: fewer boxes, fewer feet of top, fewer square feet of tile. It stays inside the same range, near its lower end.

Which part of a kitchen eats the most money?

The boxes, and the top comes second. In the whole-room market line, roughly half the money buys material , and boxes are the biggest piece of that half . Just setting them runs $1,500 to $8,000 of labour on the local estimate. What kinds of boxes we hang is on our cabinets page.

Then come the surprises behind them. A slow drip under the sink turns a particleboard base to mush and softens the plywood below it. Old kitchen floors are seldom flat, so the new run gets shimmed and scribed to fit. The wall behind the uppers usually wants patching before anything is hung again, which is drywall repair.

You buy the appliances, and they sit outside every line above. Gas range hookups are one of the jobs we turn down.

Why don't we quote kitchens by the square foot?

The floor isn't what you pay for. The bill tracks how many boxes there are, how long the top runs, what it's made of, and whether anything gets relocated. Two 10x12 rooms can end up at opposite ends of the market range, so a per-foot number would mislead more than it helps.

What gets you a real figure sooner: a few photos, roughly how many uppers and lowers you have, and how many feet of top. If you've already bought flat-pack boxes, tell us at the start .

Why do older houses west of Portland cost more to redo?

Mostly age. Cedar Hills grew up as postwar tracts from the 50s and 60s, most Cedar Mill homes went up in the 1960s and 70s, and Beaverton runs from 60s ranches to 90s split-levels. Kitchens in houses that old are often the first ones ever installed, and the longer a sink has sat over a base cabinet, the more you find when it's pulled. Bethany is younger, mostly 1990s and 2000s, and there the builder-grade kitchens are simply tired at 25 to 30 years.

Paint matters in anything built before 1978. We don't take on lead paint disturbance. If old painted walls or trim must come apart, that part is handed to an company and shows up as its own budget line .

Old sheet vinyl and textured ceilings may hold asbestos. We don't remove either; it sits with the rest on our exclusions page.

One cheap add while things are open: the new uppers go into studs, not just drywall, and a simple latch on the doors over the top keeps plates inside when the ground shakes. The bigger quake work is on our seismic retrofit page.

Do you need a permit to redo a kitchen on the west side?

The fee is rarely what makes a kitchen pricey. A permit signals opened walls, trades and inspections that stretch the calendar. Which office sets the rules depends on the address: Portland, Beaverton, or Washington County for homes outside city limits.

• Surfaces and boxes: the state Building Codes Division's list puts cabinets, tops, tile and paint on the no-permit side. Portland's own list says the same of putting up shelving and cabinets.
• Walls and openings: building, moving or removing a wall, or cutting or resizing a window or door, takes a building permit.
• Pipes: the state lets you replace a sink, or a faucet with exposed lines, without a permit. The county requires one once pipe inside a wall, ceiling or floor is changed, and for remodels where plumbing moves; minor repairs to fixtures you can reach are exempt. Portland wants one to add fixtures such as a dishwasher or a second sink.
• Wiring: running new wire or adding an outlet or light takes a permit. Replacing a broken or damaged outlet, switch or light with a like one doesn't, and neither does swapping a disposal or dishwasher drawing no more than 30 amps.
• Gas: Portland files appliance gas piping under mechanical permits. We don't touch it.
• Beaverton city: the city has its own building office, so ask it before walls or pipes move.

Permit or not, Portland notes the result still has to satisfy code.

Who's allowed to do each part in Oregon, and what belongs in the quote?

Slava brings 7 years of his own hands-on experience.

A small job that creeps over $2,000 gets its paperwork inside five days. Our Oregon contract requirements guide goes through all of it.

Put two quotes side by side and check that each one has:

• your address and a written scope, identical on both;
• the price and how payments are scheduled, with work only or materials in marked on every line;
• who buys the boxes, top, tile and fixtures;

How many weeks is the kitchen out of use?

The whole-room market line assumes around 150 hours of labour, so plan on several weeks of people working in your house . Delays are mostly waiting: on boxes, on the top, on an inspector.

A common sequence:

1. Floors covered, doorways sealed with plastic.
2. Old tops and boxes out.
3. Wall and floor underneath repaired.
4. New boxes hung and leveled.
5. Tops measured, then set.
6. Tile up.
7. Sink, faucet and lights reconnected.
8. Caulk and paint touch-ups.