Kitchen Remodeling Dos and Don'ts for Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills & Oakland County Michigan Homeowners
- costellodeclaire
- Jun 17
- 8 min read
A kitchen remodel is one of the most exciting — and most complex — projects you can take on in your home. Done right, it transforms the most-used room in your house into something genuinely beautiful and functional. Done wrong, it becomes an expensive lesson in what not to do.
After completing kitchens throughout Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Beverly Hills, Rochester Hills, and the surrounding Oakland County area, we've seen both outcomes. The homeowners who have the best experiences — and the best results — tend to do a handful of things consistently well. The ones who struggle tend to make the same avoidable mistakes.
Here's our honest guide to both.
Kitchen Remodeling Dos For Birmingham Michigan and Oakland County Homeowners
DO Set a Realistic Budget — and Add a Contingency
Before you talk to a single contractor, before you open Pinterest, before you do anything else — know your number. Not a vague range. A real budget that reflects what you can actually spend.
In Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills Michigan, mid-range kitchen remodels typically run $60,000–$120,000. Full custom renovations run $120,000–$200,000+. In Beverly Hills, Rochester Hills, and Royal Oak, strong mid-range projects land between $45,000–$90,000. These are real Oakland County numbers — not national averages from a home improvement website.
Once you have your number, add 10–15% as a contingency buffer. Older Oakland County homes — many built between the 1950s and 1980s — regularly reveal surprises once demolition begins. Outdated plumbing, water damage behind walls, electrical that doesn't meet current code. Planning for this in advance doesn't mean you'll spend it. It means you won't be blindsided if you do.
DO Decide on Everything Before Construction Starts
This is the single most important thing you can do to protect your timeline and your budget. Every tile, every fixture, every cabinet finish, every hardware pull, every appliance — decided, approved, and ordered before your project breaks ground.
Decisions made during construction are expensive in two ways: the change itself costs money, and the delay it causes costs time. A tile that hasn't been ordered yet means a week of work that can't happen. A fixture changed mid-project means a change order. A countertop decision reversed after fabrication has already begun means starting over.
We spend considerable time in the design phase at Costello & Co specifically to prevent this. Every selection is locked before demo day. It feels slow at the front end. It saves weeks — and significant money — at the back end.
DO Think About How You Actually Use Your Kitchen
The most beautiful kitchen in the world is a failure if it doesn't work for the people living in it. Before you get excited about finishes and fixtures, spend real time thinking about how your household actually uses the space.
Do you cook for large groups? You need generous counter space and an island that can handle prep and serving simultaneously.
Do you have young kids? You need durable surfaces, thoughtful storage, and a layout where you can see the living room while you're at the stove.
Do you work from home and eat lunch at the island every day? You need comfortable seating and good lighting that works in the middle of the day.
The families we work with in Beverly Hills, Bloomfield Hills, and Birmingham who are happiest with their kitchens two years later are the ones who designed toward their actual life — not the idealized version of it.
DO Invest Where It Shows — and Save Where It Doesn't
Not every dollar in a kitchen remodel returns equally. Here's where the money tends to matter most in Oakland County's market:
Invest in: cabinetry, countertops, and layout. These are what buyers pay for and what you live with every day. Skimping here shows immediately and lasts for years.
Invest in: lighting. A layered lighting plan — ambient, task, and accent — transforms how a kitchen feels at every time of day. It's one of the most underbudgeted line items in a remodel and one of the highest-impact ones.
Save on: appliances (a strong mid-range package photographs just as well as a professional-grade suite and performs comparably for most families), hardware (beautiful hardware exists at $5–$15 per piece, not just $40+), and interior cabinet organization (add it after move-in once you understand how you're actually using the space).
DO Work with a Design-Build Firm for Complex Projects
For kitchen remodels that involve layout changes, wall removal, custom cabinetry, or specialty finishes — working with a design-build firm is one of the most consistently smart decisions a Metro Detroit homeowner can make.
The alternative — hiring a designer and contractor separately — creates a gap between the two that is where most remodeling problems live. Budget surprises because the design wasn't built with real construction costs in mind. Communication gaps between two separate parties you're trying to coordinate. Change orders when the contractor encounters something the designer didn't anticipate.
A design-build firm manages both under one roof. One contract, one team, one point of contact. The design is always buildable and always budget-aware because the person designing it works alongside the person building it.
DO Think About Resale — Even If You're Not Selling
You don't have to be planning to sell to think about what your kitchen will be worth. In
Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and Rochester Hills, kitchen renovations consistently rank among the highest-return remodeling investments. The choices that serve you best day-to-day and the choices that perform best at resale are often the same ones — timeless materials, functional layout, quality cabinetry, and neutral enough finishes to appeal broadly without being generic.
Our background in real estate and investment properties means we think about this on every project we take on. You shouldn't have to choose between a kitchen you love and a kitchen that protects your investment.
The Don'ts
DON'T Choose the Lowest Bid
We know this is uncomfortable advice. But it's the most important one on this list.
A quote that's 30–40% lower than others isn't a deal. It's a signal. Something is excluded — lower quality materials, less experienced labor, permits not included, or a contractor who is deliberately underpricing to win the job and will make up the difference in change orders once you're committed and mid-project.
Get multiple quotes. Compare them line by line. Ask what's included and what isn't. Ask specifically about permits, demolition, appliance installation, and who is responsible for what. The contractor who can explain their pricing clearly and specifically is the one you want. The one who can't — or who drops the price every time you push back — is the one to avoid.
DON'T Skip the Permits
Every structural modification, electrical update, and plumbing change in a Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Beverly Hills, or Rochester Hills kitchen requires permits. This is not optional and it is not something a reputable contractor will suggest skipping.
Unpermitted work creates real problems: insurance claims that won't pay out for damage to work that wasn't permitted, failed home inspections when you eventually sell, and in some cases work that has to be torn out and redone to pass inspection. None of these scenarios are less expensive than the permit itself.
If a contractor tells you permits aren't necessary for work that clearly requires them, walk away.
DON'T Ignore the Triangle
The kitchen work triangle — the relationship between your refrigerator, stove, and sink — is the foundational principle of kitchen layout design for a reason. When these three elements are too far apart, the kitchen is exhausting to cook in. When they're too close together, it's cramped and difficult to work with multiple people.
Before you commit to any layout, walk through how you'd actually move through the space during a typical meal preparation. Where do you go first? Where does the prep happen? Where does the cleanup happen? A kitchen that looks beautiful in a rendering but creates constant cross-traffic during cooking is a kitchen you'll be frustrated with every night.
This is one of the areas where working with an experienced designer pays for itself immediately — someone who has designed and built dozens of kitchens knows intuitively where the friction points will be before they ever show up in real life.
DON'T Underestimate Cabinet Storage
Storage is the thing homeowners most frequently tell us they wish they'd thought about more carefully. Not the overall amount of storage — the specificity of it. A kitchen can have plenty of cabinet space and still feel chronically disorganized if the storage isn't designed around what actually needs to live there.
Before finalizing your cabinet design, inventory your current kitchen. What are the things you use every day? Where do they live now and where should they live? What are the things that need a permanent home versus the things that migrate to wherever they fit? Custom pull-out drawers, dedicated spice storage, a proper pantry section, deep lower drawers for pots and pans — these details sound mundane at the design
stage and feel essential every single day once you're living in the kitchen.
DON'T Chase Trends at the Expense of Timelessness
We work in Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Beverly Hills, and Rochester Hills — communities where homes are significant investments and kitchen renovations are expected to perform for 15–20 years, not 3–5. A kitchen designed around a trend that peaks and fades in that window is a kitchen that looks dated before it's been paid off.
This doesn't mean your kitchen has to be boring. It means the foundational choices — cabinet style, countertop material, overall palette — should be timeless enough to live well for decades. The personality comes from the details: the hardware, the lighting fixtures, the backsplash, the paint color. These are easier and less expensive to update than cabinetry and countertops, and they're where trend-forward choices belong.
Our rule of thumb: if you saw it on every design blog six months ago, think carefully before building it into the bones of your kitchen.
DON'T Start Without Knowing Your Contractor's Full Process
Before you sign anything, you should know exactly how your contractor manages a project from start to finish. Who is your primary point of contact? How will you be communicated with during construction? How are changes handled and approved? What does the payment schedule look like? What happens if something unexpected is found during demolition?
A contractor who can answer these questions clearly and specifically — ideally in writing — is one who has done this many times and runs a professional operation. A contractor who is vague, inconsistent, or who seems surprised by the questions is one who will be vague and inconsistent throughout the project.
The homeowners who have the smoothest Oakland County remodels are the ones who asked these questions before starting, not after.
One Final Thought
A kitchen remodel is a significant undertaking — financially, logistically, and emotionally. The families who get through it best are the ones who went in informed, chose their contractor based on trust and transparency rather than price, and made their decisions deliberately rather than reactively.
We hope this guide helps you go in prepared. And if you're planning a kitchen remodel in Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Beverly Hills, Rochester Hills, or anywhere in Oakland County — we'd love to be part of the conversation.
Or download our free 2026 Kitchen & Bathroom Remodeling Cost Guide for real Oakland County cost ranges, realistic timelines, and a complete planning checklist.
Costello & Co Construction is a licensed, women-owned design-build firm based in Birmingham, Michigan — serving homeowners throughout Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Beverly Hills, Rochester Hills, Royal Oak, West Bloomfield, Ferndale, Troy, and the greater Oakland County and Metro Detroit area.
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