Ninefold Kitchens is a demonstration build by Orabeam. The company is fictional and has no projects, reviews or licence. Every cost and resale figure on this page comes from a published industry study and is cited.
Nobody in this trade puts that on their homepage. It is the headline finding of the industry’s own annual report, and knowing it is the difference between a kitchen you chose and a kitchen you were sold. Work out your real number below, then decide.
Free · No email required · Every figure sourced to Zonda or Houzz and linked
Where these numbers come from
These are national industry figures, not our project results. Ninefold is a demonstration company with no completed jobs. Zonda does not publish a Charlotte-specific breakdown that we could verify at source, so the calculator uses national averages and says so.
All three come from reports the industry publishes about itself. None of them is a secret. They are just inconvenient to whoever is trying to sell you the bigger package.
If a contractor quotes you a kitchen and talks about ROI, ask which report and which year. Half the “96% recouped” figures still circulating are from the 2024 edition.
Houzz’s definition, which we use: a major remodel replaces at least all the cabinets and all the appliances. Everything else is minor — and “everything else” includes new doors and drawer fronts on existing boxes, new counters, new backsplash, new lighting, new hardware, new paint. That is a kitchen that looks and works new, at a national median of $20,000 rather than $60,000.
Zonda publishes one cost point per project type — $82,793 for a major midrange kitchen. Multiplying its 50.9% by whatever number you have in mind implies a $200,000 kitchen returns half, exactly like an $82,793 one. It does not. Our calculator damps the return as spend rises, and labels that damping as our assumption rather than dressing it up as data.
Only 25% of renovating homeowners cite resale value. 41% cannot stand the old kitchen, 35% have one that has deteriorated or broken down, 33% say they have finally got the means. If you are in that group, the ROI table is the wrong tool entirely — and we would rather help you pick a kitchen than sell you a spreadsheet.
Set the four inputs. Everything updates instantly, itemised, with the source for each line. Nothing is sent anywhere — the whole model runs in your browser, and you can inspect and change every constant at window.NinefoldKitchen.model.
The ranges below are national Houzz spend figures for each scope, not our price list — a demonstration company has no price list to publish. On a live install these are replaced with the builder’s real numbers.
The scope Zonda’s data says is the best trade in the house. Existing cabinet boxes stay; everything you touch and look at is new. Four to seven weeks, and you keep using the room for most of it.
All cabinets and all appliances replaced — Houzz’s definition of “major”. Same footprint, so no structural or plumbing relocation. Ten to sixteen weeks. This is where the 50.9% recovery rate applies, and we will say so before you sign.
Walls move. Plumbing and gas relocate. The kitchen becomes a different room, usually opening to living space. The scope where design fees, permits and structural engineering are real line items rather than afterthoughts.
This is a demonstration build for a company that has not built anything. Filling this section with stock photography of somebody else’s kitchens would be the single most common lie on a remodeler’s website, and we are not going to open with it. On a live install, these three slots hold real project photography with the address, scope and final cost.
Also deliberately absent
We measure, we look behind what we can, and we ask how long you plan to stay. That last question decides more than the finish selections do. If the calculator above already told you a smaller scope is the better trade, we start there.
Every quote in this trade has allowances — a budget line for things you have not chosen yet, like tile or fixtures. Most quotes bury them. Ours lists each allowance with its number, so when you pick the $18/sq ft tile instead of the $9, you know exactly what happened to the total before you commit.
Cabinet lead times, inspection windows, and the week the sink is out. Ten to sixteen weeks for a major remodel is realistic; anyone promising you a full kitchen in three weeks is either subcontracting it badly or has not read their own supplier’s lead times.
Opening a wall reveals things. When it does, you get the price before we proceed, not on the final invoice. This is the single largest source of complaints against remodelers, and it is entirely a paperwork discipline.
A minor remodel roughly does — Zonda’s 2025 report puts it at 112.9% recouped, the only interior project in the national top five. A major midrange remodel does not: 50.9%, meaning you keep the kitchen and lose about half the money. That is not an argument against doing it. It is an argument for doing it because you want the kitchen, and choosing the scope with your eyes open.
Because they are, and we would rather say so. Houzz publishes national median and 90th-percentile spend by scope and kitchen size; that is the most defensible cost data that exists publicly. Zonda breaks its report down to 119 local markets, but the regional detail sits behind the full report and we could not verify a Charlotte figure at source, so we do not quote one. When this becomes a real company’s site, these ranges get replaced with its actual completed-project costs.
Everything except replacing all the cabinets and all the appliances. In practice: refacing the cabinets you have, new countertops, new backsplash, new sink and faucet, new lighting, new hardware, paint, and flooring if it needs it. The room looks and works new. National median spend is $20,000 against $60,000 for a major remodel — and the resale recovery is more than twice as good.
There is a widely repeated rule of thumb of 5–15% of home value, and we could not trace it to a primary source, so the calculator treats it as a flag rather than a figure. What it does do: warn you when the project passes about 18% of your home’s value, because past that point buyers are pricing the street rather than the kitchen. On a Charlotte home at the regional median of $412,500, a national-median major remodel of $60,000 is about 15%.
Four to seven weeks for a refresh, and you keep using the room for much of it. Ten to sixteen weeks for a major remodel, with roughly three of those weeks having no sink. Reconfiguring adds permitting and inspection time on top, which is scheduled by Mecklenburg County rather than by us.
No, and it matters that we say why. Ninefold is a demonstration company built by Orabeam to show what a real remodeler’s site should look like. It has no completed projects, no reviews, no licence number and no insurance certificate. Rather than fill those sections with stock photography and invented testimonials — which is standard practice in this trade — they are left visibly empty. Real project data goes here at build
Ninety minutes, no charge, no obligation. We will tell you on the day if a smaller scope is the better trade — that conversation costs us margin and saves you money, which is roughly the point.
Under a minute. We come back with two or three times that work.