What a custom kitchen really costs on the Sunshine Coast

Short answer: on the Sunshine Coast, a fronts-and-benchtop refresh runs $6,000 to $18,000. A full reno in the same footprint runs $25,000 to $55,000. A walls-moved redesign runs $55,000 to $120,000+. Pick your band first and design to it. Trying to fit a band-three kitchen into a band-one budget is how a project ends with a render you loved and a number you cannot meet.

The three bands, and what actually sets them

• Band 1: fronts-and-benchtop refresh, $6,000 to $18,000. The boxes stay. The doors and benchtop change. Right for a sound 8 to 12 year old kitchen with a layout that still works. The biggest visual change for the smallest spend. A week on site once the doors and stone are ready.
• Band 2: full reno in the same footprint, $25,000 to $55,000. New cabinets. New benchtop. Same walls, same window. Where most Sunshine Coast kitchens land. The price moves on the board, the front, the hardware brand, the slab, and whether the plumber and sparky need to do real work.
• Band 3: walls-moved redesign, $55,000 to $120,000+. Walls move, services move, often a window or door is shifted. The kitchen budget covers the cabinets and benchtops; the build work, the certifier and any extra trades are itemised on their own line. Beautiful, and the right call for the wrong layout, but it is a build job with a kitchen inside it, not a kitchen job.

The four levers that move the number

Once the band is set, four things decide where inside the band you land. The carcass and front (moisture-rated board, ply or solid timber, with a 2-pac, melamine or veneer front). The slab (engineered stone, porcelain, granite or timber, priced by the named slab, not a vague allowance). The hardware (named-brand runners and hinges, not "soft close"). And whether walls or services move. Appliances ride on top as their own line, paid to the supplier, never marked up by us. Everything else is detail that lives inside those four levers.

How to read a kitchen proposal

A real proposal itemises. Every cabinet on its own line with its board. The hardware brand named with the model number. The exact slab with edge profile and cutouts. The plumber and sparky as real figures, not "allowances". The warranty in writing. If you see "from", "stone allowance", or hardware called only "premium" or "soft close", you are reading a number that will grow. Real proposals run longer than the cheap ones for the same job. That is not padding. It is the cheap ones leaving things out.

Three quotes mean nothing if they price three different kitchens. Get the specs onto one page first; then the comparison is real. Two quotes on the same spec is more useful than five quotes on five different ones.

Where the price softens after signing, if you let it

Hardware is the cheapest line to swap after signing. That is why the brand belongs on the quote in writing. Benchtop "allowances" turn into a real number the day you pick the slab, and the real number is usually above the allowance. Variations on services (the plumber finds a hidden mess behind the old kitchen) are real and a part of life, but they should be priced as written change orders with your sign-off, not billed at the end. We price for what is visible and write the variations clause in plain English. A surprise behind the wall does not need to become an open-ended bill.

How we price kitchens

Every Grainline proposal is itemised, fixed once signed, and tied to a measured design you sign off before the workshop cuts a panel. The benchtop is priced by the named slab with the edge profile and cutouts on the drawing. The hardware is named Blum with the model series. The plumber and sparky are real figures. Variations, if any, are written and signed. Start with the estimator on our pricing page for a band. Book a measured consult when you are ready to lock the number.