If you’re thinking about remodeling your kitchen, there’s a good chance you’re asking two questions at the same time:
- How much is this going to cost?
- How much value will it add to my home?
As you’ve probably guessed, the answer isn’t as simple as saying a $100,000 kitchen remodel will add $100,000 to your home’s value.
According to the 2025 Remodeling Impact Report, produced by the National Association of REALTORS® and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, both a complete kitchen renovation and a minor kitchen upgrade were estimated to recover 60% of their cost at resale. So if you’re remodeling purely for resale, you need to look at the numbers carefully.
How much value does a kitchen remodel add?
As we mentioned, the 2025 Remodeling Impact Report estimates that homeowners can recover around 60% of the cost of both a complete kitchen renovation and a minor kitchen upgrade at resale, but that doesn’t mean every kitchen remodel in Jacksonville will return exactly 60%.
The report is based on national estimates from real estate professionals and remodeling professionals; your actual return will depend on the home, the neighborhood, the scope of the work, the quality of the renovation, and the market when you sell.
We think there’s another number from the same report worth knowing: kitchen upgrades received a 10 out of 10 Joy Score, putting them among the projects that homeowners reported bringing the most satisfaction after completion.
The best kitchen remodel starts with how you live
When we remodeled our own home, our main goal was to reconfigure the space to work for the way our family lives now.
The kitchen already had plenty of space, but the layout wasn’t doing everything we needed it to do, so we decided to break the space up.
- We added a breakfast table off the island for casual family meals
- We created an electric fireplace with two oversized armchairs, giving the kitchen another place for people to gather (plus our dog Annie, who has taken to dragging her bed over there regularly)
- We also added a split wall, which made a surprisingly big difference in a house full of kids, friends, and dogs.
The new layout created better spaces for family groupings, and the kitchen actually feels larger, yet also more comfortable and contained.
BEFORE
AFTER
Think about the next buyer, but don’t design for a stranger
The 2025 Remodeling Impact Report found that 30% of REALTORS® recommend completing a kitchen renovation before listing, while 48% reported seeing increased demand for kitchen upgrades among homeowners over the previous two years.
It’s true that a dated or poorly functioning kitchen can make a home harder to sell, particularly when buyers are comparing it with recently renovated properties. But there’s a difference between making a home appealing and trying to predict exactly what an unknown buyer will want five years from now.
We’d rather see homeowners create a well-designed, functional kitchen using durable materials and finishes that make sense for the home, which is a much safer strategy than chasing every kitchen trend.
How much should you spend on a Jacksonville kitchen remodel?
There’s no universal kitchen remodeling budget because the right investment depends on the home and what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’re renovating a home in an established neighborhood and planning to sell relatively soon, you probably don’t want to build the most expensive kitchen in the area.
On the other hand, if you’re planning to stay for another decade, your decision-making process could be completely different. You may care much more about getting the layout, appliances, storage, materials, and finishes exactly right because you’re going to use them every day.
Don’t confuse expensive with valuable
One of the easiest mistakes to make during a kitchen renovation is assuming that more expensive automatically means more valuable. A $150,000 kitchen isn’t necessarily more valuable to a future buyer than a $100,000 kitchen if the additional $50,000 went into details they don’t care about. Good design is about knowing how to spend smart, like:
- Reusing or refacing existing cabinets
- Better lighting
- Opening a wall
- Moving a doorway
- Reconfiguring the island
You may also be interested in: How to spend smart on home additions that actually add value
Our own remodel taught us something important about value
When we considered whether to add onto and renovate our own home, we went through the same exercise we take clients through:
What would it cost to sell?
What would it cost to buy another property?
What would we have to spend to get that property to the point where it would meet our needs?
And what would it cost to invest in the house we already owned?
For us, staying and renovating made sense. Our addition ultimately added 1,024 square feet of living space, and the kitchen became part of a much better overall layout. Honestly, we couldn’t be happier.
Here’s what we learned from being our own home addition client.
So, is a kitchen remodel worth it?
If you’re asking whether you’ll automatically get back every dollar you spend, the answer is no. But that’s only one part of the equation.
A well-designed kitchen can make your home more functional, improve the way your family uses the space, make entertaining easier, and make the property more appealing when it eventually goes on the market. For homeowners planning to stay a while, those benefits can be worth far more than the resale calculation.
That’s how we approached our own kitchen, and after living with the finished space, we’re pretty happy with the decision. If you’re thinking about remodeling your kitchen, browse our kitchen inspiration or learn more about our remodeling services. We’d be happy to talk through what makes sense for your home.
