On a typical R900 000 kitchen in the northern suburbs, cabinetry is between 35% and 45% of the total. That is the single biggest line, and it is where quotes differ most: a melamine carcass with a wrapped door and a birch-ply carcass with a sprayed door look similar on the day they are installed and completely different in year four.
Stone is usually 10% to 15%. Engineered quartz sits at the bottom of that range, granite in the middle, and a book-matched marble island at the top. Appliances are 12% to 20% and are the one line you control entirely — the same kitchen works with a R60 000 appliance package or a R280 000 one.
The services behind the walls are 12% to 18% and are the part homeowners never budget for. New circuits to the board, a dedicated point for the oven, moving a waste line, and re-plumbing hot water to the scullery are not optional once the wall is open, and they are the most common source of a quote moving after signature.
Then there is the work nobody photographs: dust protection, temporary kitchens, removal of rubble, the making good of ceilings and cornices where a wall came out, and the final clean. Budget 8% to 12% for it. If a quote does not name these lines, they have either been left out or buried in a provisional sum.
Our advice is unromantic. Decide the appliance package before you price the cabinetry, keep 10% back as a genuine contingency for what is found behind the plaster in a thirty-year-old house, and refuse any quote that cannot show you the rate for each of the five categories above.