What $100,000 Actually Buys in the Valley Right Now

Ask what a remodel costs and you get a range so wide it is useless. A kitchen is between $25,000 and $150,000, which is true, and tells you nothing.

So here is the opposite. Specific scope at specific numbers, drawn from what we are actually pricing across the Valley this year. Your project will differ. But you will at least know what the differences are measured against.

$15,000

A cosmetic kitchen refresh. Paint the existing cabinets properly — degreased, deglossed, sprayed, not brushed. New quartz counters on a standard layout. Tile backsplash. New sink, faucet, disposal, hardware and lighting. Existing flooring stays. Existing layout stays.

Or: a complete guest bathroom, taken to studs and rebuilt with a properly waterproofed tub surround, new vanity, toilet, tile floor, fixtures, fan and paint.

Or: full interior repaint of a 1,900 square foot home including ceilings, trim and doors, plus drywall repair throughout.

$35,000

A full kitchen. New semi-custom cabinets, quartz counters, tile backsplash, new flooring in the kitchen, recessed and pendant lighting, dedicated appliance circuits, a properly vented range hood, sink and fixtures. Same footprint — nothing moves.

Or: two complete bathrooms, one of them a primary with a custom tile shower.

Or: a garage converted to conditioned living space with insulation, drywall, flooring, a mini-split, egress window and permitted electrical. No bathroom.

$60,000

Kitchen and primary bathroom together, both to a good standard, with new flooring running continuously through the public areas of the house so the transitions actually resolve.

Or: an open-concept conversion — removing a load-bearing wall with engineering and a properly sized beam, then rebuilding the kitchen into the new space.

Or: a detached casita of about 400 square feet, unconditioned or lightly conditioned, on a proper engineered foundation with permitted power.

$100,000

A whole-home remodel of a typical 1,800 to 2,000 square foot Valley house. Kitchen, two bathrooms, flooring throughout, complete interior paint, new interior doors and trim, lighting and fixtures, and an electrical panel upgrade. Not a gut renovation — the walls stay where they are, and the money goes into everything you touch and see.

Or: a permitted 400 to 500 square foot addition, fully finished, matched to the existing roof pitch and stucco texture.

Or: a complete casita with a full bathroom and kitchenette, engineered, permitted and finished.

Where the money actually goes

This surprises nearly everyone, so it is worth stating plainly: labor is usually more than half.

On a typical remodel in our range, roughly 55 to 65 percent is labor and roughly 35 to 45 percent is material. Which means selecting a cheaper tile changes your total far less than people expect, and choosing a scope that requires less labor changes it enormously.

It also explains the single most useful budgeting principle available to a homeowner: moving things is expensive, replacing things is not.

Replacing a sink in place is inexpensive. Moving it four feet means new supply lines, new drain, possibly cutting slab, patching, and inspection. Same fixture. Different project by a factor of five.

The four things that quietly consume budgets

Slab plumbing. Most Valley homes are slab-on-grade. Relocating any drain means cutting and repouring concrete, and it commonly runs $2,500 to $7,000 before the fixture is even installed.

Electrical capacity. A 100-amp panel from 1978 will not support a modern kitchen, a second oven and a heat pump. Panel upgrades typically run $2,500 to $5,000 and appear on estimates as an unwelcome surprise roughly as often as they appear as a planned line.

Structural work. Removing a load-bearing wall requires engineering, a properly sized beam, and often new point loads carried down to the foundation. Budget $6,000 to $15,000 depending on span. It is worth it in the right house and it is never cheap.

The 1985 boundary. Homes built before the mid-1980s may contain asbestos in popcorn ceilings, vinyl flooring and mastic, and lead in paint. Testing is inexpensive. Abatement is not, and it is legally required to be handled correctly. Any pre-1985 project should carry a contingency for it.

What we tell people to do with a fixed budget

Spend on what you touch daily and on what you cannot easily redo later. Cabinet boxes, counters, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, flooring. These are expensive to revisit and they determine how the house feels every single day.

Economize on what is genuinely swappable. Light fixtures, cabinet hardware, mirrors, paint color, faucets. All of it can be upgraded in five years by anyone with an afternoon and a screwdriver.

And phase honestly rather than doing everything at seventy percent quality. A finished kitchen this year and a finished bathroom in eighteen months produces a better house than two rooms simultaneously compromised. It costs slightly more in total because of the second mobilization. It is almost always the better decision.

One caveat

These are our numbers for work we self-perform in metro Phoenix in 2026, on projects under $100,000. They are honest and they are not a quote.

Every house has an opinion. Yours is entitled to one too, and we will not know what it is until we open a wall.