I recently started getting estimates for a new kitchen. Our house was built in the 70s, and the kitchen is all original cabinets and flooring, and everything from the floors to the cabinets to the counters are falling apart at the seams. We're well past the point where we could do a touch-up of a few cabinets or add a new countertop and be done with it -- it's going to have to be a full remodel, save a couple of newer appliances we'll keep.

My first stop was to a local kitchen showroom, where we sketched out the basic layout of the new kitchen, went over some options on cabinets, counter materials, etc. I went in with some 2D/3D plans, so I had a pretty good idea of what we wanted, but the contractor did have a few good suggestions for improving my initial layout. It's a relatively small kitchen by today's standards (about 16' x 11') so our main goal was to increase usable counter and storage space.

Maybe I'm naive, but I expected something in the neighborhood of $10k-$15k. The actual quote was around $28k, not even including the floors, which this place doesn't do. I wrote back to get a breakdown of the costs, and it looks like the prices of the materials and installation of the cabinets/counters are pretty reasonable, but there are some wildly inflated (IMHO) numbers for prep work, electrical, and plumbing. I can probably do most of the plumbing myself (I redid my house's entire plumbing system a few years back) and there's no way there's $4,000 of electrical work involved in such a small project.

So, obviously, I'm going to get more estimates, but I was wondering where my next stop should be. My first thought is to just stop by a Big Box Mart home center (Home Depot, Lowes, etc.) to see what they can do. I know the quality of the contractors will vary widely, but at least I know they'll handle everything including the floors, and I'd expect the prices there to be competitive. Has anyone ever had one of these places manage a medium to large remodeling project? If so, how did it go?

My other option is to find another independent kitchen remodeling contractor, or to find my own individual contractors for each part of the job and manage the scheduling myself. I'm not sure if this would be worth the headache or not.

Anyone have any remodeling advice / war stories to share?