A kitchen renovation in Melbourne typically costs between $8,400 and $84,000 depending on scope, with most homeowners landing in the mid-range band of $26,250 to $47,250, GST included. A realistic working figure for a standard mid-range kitchen sits around $36,750. Cosmetic refreshes start near $8,400, while premium rebuilds with custom joinery push past $70,000. The breakdown below shows exactly where that money goes.
TL;DR:
- Major cost drivers include layout changes, with relocating plumbing or electrical wiring adding $3,000 to $15,000, and custom joinery requiring six to ten weeks for manufacture.
- Quotes should itemize benchtops and cabinetry separately, include measurements and appliance choices, and be reviewed with questions about licensing and warranties.
- Building contingencies of 15% are essential due to hidden issues like outdated wiring or subfloor damage in older Melbourne homes.
- Hiring a single, licensed contractor like Ariya Construction can help control costs and avoid surprises by coordinating all trades efficiently.
Table of Contents
- Kitchen Renovation Cost Melbourne: What Each Budget Band Buys
- Kitchen Renovation Expenses Breakdown by Line Item
- What Drives the Cost Up and How Long the Job Takes
- How to Get Quotes You Can Actually Compare
- How Ariya Construction Prices a Melbourne Kitchen Job
- What I'd Tell a Friend Planning This Right Now
- Get a Written Quote for Your Melbourne Kitchen
- Where These Figures Come From
- Sources
Kitchen Renovation Cost Melbourne: What Each Budget Band Buys
Melbourne kitchens fall into four fairly distinct price bands, and knowing which one you're actually in stops a lot of budget arguments before they start.
A cosmetic refresh runs $8,400 to $21,000. This covers new cabinet doors and handles, a benchtop swap, a fresh splashback, and repainting existing joinery without touching the layout. It's the fastest and cheapest way to make a tired kitchen look new, provided your plumbing and electrical are already where you want them.
A budget renovation using flat-pack cabinetry lands at $12,600 to $26,250. You're replacing the whole kitchen shell but sticking with standard-size cabinets, laminate benchtops, and entry-level appliances. It's a full renovation in every practical sense, just without custom sizing.
Mid-range renovations ($26,250 to $47,250) are where most Melbourne households end up, according to Whatsthedamage's 2026 Melbourne guide, which puts the median near $36,750 including GST. This band typically includes semi-custom cabinetry, engineered stone benchtops, a mid-tier appliance package, and some layout flexibility.
Premium renovations climb to $47,250 to $84,000. Costs escalate here through custom joinery built to exact specifications, natural stone benchtops, integrated (panel-ready) appliances, and often structural changes like removing a wall between kitchen and living areas.
Whichever band you're planning around, build in a contingency buffer on top of your target figure. Older Melbourne homes routinely hide problems behind walls and under floors, from outdated wiring to subfloor damage, and that buffer is what keeps a mid-range job from turning into a premium bill halfway through demolition.
Kitchen Renovation Expenses Breakdown by Line Item
Once you know your band, the next question is where the dollars actually land. Here's a line-item breakdown you can hold against any quote you receive.
- Benchtops: laminate $400–$900 per linear meter; engineered stone $700–$1,400 per linear meter; premium natural stone $1,200–$2,500 per linear meter.
- Cabinetry: flat-pack $4,000–$8,000 for a standard kitchen; semi-custom $8,000–$16,000; fully custom joinery $16,000–$35,000+.
- Appliances: entry-level package $2,500–$5,000; mid-range $5,000–$12,000; premium $12,000–$30,000. Integrated or panel-ready appliances typically add 20 to 40 percent over their freestanding equivalents because of the custom cabinetry needed to house them.
- Demolition: $1,500–$4,000, depending on whether walls or flooring are coming out.
- Electrical rough-in and fit-off: $2,000–$5,000, covering new circuits, downlights, and appliance wiring.
- Plumbing rough-in: $1,500–$4,000 for sink, dishwasher, and any gas relocation.
- Flooring: $60–$150 per square meter installed, depending on material.
- Project management and contingency: typically 10 to 15% of total project cost, on top of the individual trade allowances above.
Pro Tip: Ask every quote to itemize benchtop and cabinetry separately from labor. Bundled "supply and install" line items are the easiest place for a quote to hide a low headline number.
These ranges reflect Melbourne's 2026 market, where trade rates and material costs run higher than the national average, partly due to the state's stricter licensing requirements for trades working on gas, electrical, and structural elements.
What Drives the Cost Up and How Long the Job Takes
Layout changes are the single biggest cost multiplier. Moving a sink, stove, or fridge means relocating plumbing and electrical, which can add $3,000 to $8,000 before you've touched a single finish. Knocking down a wall between kitchen and living space adds structural engineering and potentially a permit, pushing costs up by $5,000 to $15,000 depending on whether the wall is load-bearing.
Custom joinery is the other major driver, both in dollars and in time. Standard flat-pack cabinets can arrive in one to two weeks; fully custom joinery routinely takes six to ten weeks to manufacture, and that lead time needs to be locked in before demolition starts, not after.
Timelines by scope, roughly:
- Cosmetic refresh: 3 to 7 days.
- Budget renovation: 1 to 2 weeks.
- Mid-range renovation: 3 to 5 weeks.
- Full gut renovation with structural work: 6 to 10 weeks, longer if a permit or custom joinery is involved.
Appliance delivery lead times matter too. In 2026, premium and integrated appliance models can carry order-to-delivery windows of four to eight weeks, which is often the actual bottleneck on a "fast" renovation.
Pro Tip: Any electrical work in your kitchen legally requires a licensed electrician and a Certificate of Electrical Safety on completion. Skipping this isn't just a compliance risk, it can void your home insurance if something goes wrong later.
How to Get Quotes You Can Actually Compare
The single biggest reason two quotes for "the same kitchen" come back $15,000 apart is that they weren't actually quoting the same kitchen. Fix that before you send a single inquiry.
What to include in every quote request:
- Full measurements and a rough floor plan, even a hand-drawn one.
- Specific appliance models, or at minimum a price allowance per appliance.
- Named finish selections for benchtop, cabinetry, splashback, and flooring.
- Any known structural or plumbing changes you want.
Questions to ask each bidder:
- Are you and your electrician/plumber licensed with the Victorian Building Authority and Energy Safe Victoria?
- What's included in your variation process if something changes mid-job?
- What warranty applies to workmanship versus materials?
- What's your standard payment schedule, and is it tied to milestones or dates?
A payment schedule tied to completed stages, not calendar dates, protects you if delays happen. It usually means missing scope, not a better deal.
How Ariya Construction Prices a Melbourne Kitchen Job
Ariya Construction is a family-run Melbourne renovation business handling kitchens, bathrooms, and full home renovations with one dedicated point of contact managing trades, selections, and scheduling from design through handover. That single-contact model is what actually controls cost. Hidden expenses on kitchen jobs usually come from poor coordination between trades, not from materials, and a project manager who schedules electrical, plumbing, and cabinetry installation in the right order avoids the rework that blows out both budget and timeline. When preparing a mid-range Melbourne kitchen quote, the checklist stays consistent: confirm measurements, lock appliance specs early, itemize labor separately from materials, and build in that 15% contingency before the first wall comes down.
What I'd Tell a Friend Planning This Right Now
Get three written quotes before you commit to anyone, not verbal estimates scribbled on the back of a business card. Compare them line by line against the breakdown above, and if one is missing detail the others have, ask why before you ask how much. Budget your 15% contingency as a real number sitting in your account, not a mental note, because Melbourne's older housing stock has a habit of surfacing problems the moment demolition starts.
Before your first consult, have your measurements, a rough idea of appliance brands you like, and a firm number for what you're actually willing to spend. Renovators can only give you an honest quote if you give them honest constraints to work with.
— Sarah
Get a Written Quote for Your Melbourne Kitchen
Ariya Construction is the local alternative to piecing a renovation together yourself across five different tradespeople. One point of contact manages cabinetry, electrical, plumbing, and finishing works from the first measurement to final handover, which is where most of the surprise costs in a DIY-coordinated job actually come from.
If your kitchen just needs cosmetic freshening rather than a full rebuild, smaller-scale refresh approaches like those covered in this guide to refreshing a space without a full renovation are worth considering first. But if you're planning a genuine renovation and want a fixed scope, a realistic timeline, and a single person accountable for the outcome, book a consult through Ariya Construction and get a written, itemized quote before you commit to anything.
Where These Figures Come From
- Whatsthedamage's 2026 Melbourne kitchen renovation guide: banded cost ranges and a mid-range median figure is referenced in the source material.
- TradieVerify's Victoria renovation cost estimator: Melbourne-specific pricing pressure tied to trade and licensing standards.
Figures above are GST-inclusive where the source states it, and reflect Melbourne market conditions rather than national averages.