After looking at images of modern kitchen designs and looking at your own tired and worn out kitchen, you might be thinking about remodeling the space. Before you call up a contractor in the Philadelphia area and start fishing for price quotes, it pays to carefully consider the pros and cons of a renovation.

Pro: Update an Outdated Kitchen

The oven in your kitchen is older than you are and takes 40 minutes to bake a single batch of cookies. The countertops are a lovely shade of avocado and made of laminate. One of the biggest benefits of renovating a kitchen is that it lets you take advantage of modern kitchen designs and bring your cooking space out of the 1960s, 70s, or wherever it’s been hiding.

Updating a tired kitchen doesn’t just have aesthetic value. It can also cut your energy costs. For example, if your renovation includes replacing old, energy guzzling appliances like the stove and refrigerator with newer, Energy Star rated appliances, you can end up paying less per month on gas and electric

Con: Lose Access to Your Kitchen

If you love to cook, a big drawback to renovating your kitchen is that you might lose access to the space. How long the project takes depends on what you’re having done, of course. If you are completely gutting and redoing the space, you might not be able to host a dinner party for quite some time.

When you’re interviewing contractors, ask how long they anticipate the project taking, and then add a few days or even a week to their estimate.

Pro: Increase Home’s Value

Updating your kitchen can increase the value of your home. Getting the renovation over and done with in the winter can be a particularly good idea if you plan on listing your Philadelphia home in the spring. If improving your home’s value and not updating the design of your kitchen for your own use is your primary goal when renovating, there are a few things to consider.

First is the scale of the project. According to Remodeling magazine’s “Cost vs. Value” report for 2015, a midrange, minor kitchen remodel has a resale value of around $13,516, allowing the homeowner to recoup about 68 percent of their costs. A major remodel can have a resale value of around $35,481, allowing a homeowner to recoup around 60 percent of the cost of the project.

Con: The Cost of the Project

Although you can get back some of the expense of a remodel when you sell your home, the cost of the project can be a major obstacle. According to the “Cost vs. Value” report, the average midrange, minor kitchen remodel can cost more than $19,000 in the Middle Atlantic area, while a midrange, major renovation can cost more than $58,000.

If you don’t recoup all of your costs when you sell and don’t actually get to enjoy the new kitchen, redoing your kitchen might not be worth it. But, if you have the money budgeted and are doing the renovation for yourself, too, getting it done might be best.

Image Source: Flickr/Nancy Hugo, CKD

[cf]skyword_tracking_tag[/cf]