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If you want to add value to your home, the kitchen is one of the first places you should start.  It’s a sentiment echoed by property expert Phil Spencer, who told the Daily Telegraph in 2010: “If you are only going to improve one room, make it the kitchen.”

Refitting your kitchen can provide two main benefits.  Firstly, it can give you and your family a better living space, more storage and help you make better use of the room you have available.  Secondly, a new kitchen can increase the value of your home and make the property more attractive to potential buyers wither now or in the future.

Kitchen remodelling can vary in price so you have to be realistic about what you can afford, the ceiling price for properties in your area and what the market will pay. A basic kitchen from a DIY chain can cost in excess of £1,000, when fitting and appliances are factored in. However, top end bespoke luxury, kitchens can cost well over of £50,000. Recent research has indicated that British homeowners spend an average of £8,000 on a new kitchen. This average figure tends to indicate that kitchens at the lower end of the market, the £1,000 range, are probably fitted in small flats or bedsits.

This is why many people choose to finance a kitchen refurbishment by way of a remortgage on their home. This allows you to update your kitchen without worrying about where the funds will come from, and without having to save up for years.

When you remortgage you switch your home loan from one provider to another.  Your existing mortgage is repaid and you take out a brand new mortgage with a different bank or building society.  And, as part of this switching process, you can normally apply to increase the size of your mortgage to cover the cost of the home improvements you wish to undertake.

You do however, need to have sufficient equity in the property in order to borrow the additional funds in order to refurbish your kitchen.  You can usually borrow up to 90% of the value of your property; however you should beware that this may cause the interest rate to be higher.

You are also likely to have to demonstrate that the remortgage is affordable to you.  A lender may require payslips or company accounts as well as details of other outgoings.  Sometimes a lender will be more likely to agree your remortgage if you can demonstrate that the new loan saves you money and that you have been maintaining higher mortgage payments in the past.

One of the benefits of a remortgage is that you can often obtain a lower interest rate and can also change the type of product (i.e. fixed rate). Lenders often have excellent deals with some of the fees paid by the lender in order to attract new business.

One of the common pitfalls faced by people redesigning their kitchens is an excess of ambition. If you are borrowing to fund a new kitchen, it is important to avoid overspending on your refit. Simple financial calculations should guide you in the right direction.  In 2009, it was revealed that a new kitchen adds an average of just £4,147 to the value of a property. Bear in mind that this figure was an average and the amount your property stands to gain can differ, but as a general rule you need to know how much you will add to your property, and compare that to how much you plan to spend. If the latter exceeds the former, you are in effect handing cash over to the next person who buys your house.

With the kitchen being one of the most important aspects of a property, it is important that you get it right, so make sure that you spend time researching before jumping straight in, otherwise it could be an expensive mistake.