A Japandi kitchen shouldn’t work. You’re mashing together Scandinavian hygge—all that cosy, democratic functionality—with Japanese wabi-sabi, which celebrates imperfection and transience. One tradition emerged from dark Nordic winters and a Protestant work ethic. The other from Zen Buddhism and a thousand years of refined restraint. And yet, somehow, the combination produces spaces that feel like a deep exhale.
I’ve been obsessing over Japandi kitchens for the better part of two years now, ever since a client in Buckinghamshire asked me to help source materials for one. What started as a straightforward brief turned into a rabbit hole of joinery workshops, specialist tile importers, and more conversations about wood grain than I care to admit.
So let me give you the honest answer on cost: you could pull off a convincing Japandi look for around £12,000 if you’re clever about it, or you could spend north of £55,000 without breaking a sweat. Most people I’ve worked with land somewhere between £20,000 and £38,000 for a proper job. The national average for any kitchen remodel hovers around £21,500, but Japandi tends to creep higher because the style punishes cheap shortcuts.
That last point matters. When you strip away crown mouldings and ornate cabinet details and decorative hardware, what’s left has nowhere to hide. A wobbly hinge or a laminate pretending to be oak becomes glaringly obvious. The minimalism that makes Japandi beautiful also makes it unforgiving.
What You’re Actually Paying For
Before diving into numbers, it helps to understand the philosophy behind the spend. Japandi isn’t about buying different products—it’s about achieving a specific atmosphere through restraint and material honesty.
Courtney Cole, an interior designer at TileCloud, describes it well: Japandi fuses Scandinavian simplicity and functionality with Japanese elegance and warmth. Clean lines, natural materials, minimalism. When you hear designers talk this way, they’re really saying: fewer things, better made.
Your money goes into three buckets. First, natural materials that develop character as they age rather than simply deteriorating. Second, craftsmanship precise enough to achieve clean lines without feeling sterile or cold. Third, thoughtful integration of all the boring functional stuff—bins, appliances, electrical outlets—so they don’t interrupt the visual calm.
You’re not paying for decorative anything. No corbels, no glass-fronted cabinets showing off your mismatched mugs, no statement backsplash tiles. You’re paying for timber that’s been properly dried and finished, stone cut by someone who gives a damn, and joinery that closes with that satisfying soft-click sound.
Minor Updates vs. Full Renovations
Light touch refresh: £5,000 to £15,000
At this level, you’re working with existing bones. Paint or replace cabinet doors with flat-panel alternatives. Swap chrome handles for matte black or aged brass. Add a run of open shelving in oiled oak. Change out the pendant lights for something quieter—paper lanterns or simple cylindrical shades. Maybe new worktops if your cabinet boxes are solid enough to keep.
This approach works brilliantly if your current layout functions well and your cabinet carcasses aren’t falling apart. I’ve seen people transform suburban kitchens from the early 2000s into convincing Japandi spaces for under £10,000, mostly through cabinet door replacement and a ruthless declutter.
Proper mid-range remodel: £15,000 to £35,000
Now you’re replacing cabinets entirely—though probably not moving walls. New worktops in engineered quartz or a modest natural stone. Pale engineered oak flooring throughout. Panel-ready fronts on the fridge and dishwasher so appliances disappear into the run of cabinetry. Professional design input, at least for the initial scheme.
This middle ground suits most renovators. You get authentic Japandi atmosphere without the eye-watering bills that come from bespoke joinery and structural work.
Full transformation: £35,000 to £60,000+
The ceiling here is wherever you want it to be. Bespoke cabinetry from a proper joinery workshop rather than a factory. Layout modifications, potentially involving structural changes and the accompanying headaches. Top-tier integrated appliances. Custom lighting schemes designed by someone who thinks about lumens for a living. Project management so you don’t have to chase electricians while holding down a day job.
At this level, expect to spend somewhere between £60 and £200 per square foot, with Japandi projects clustering toward the upper half of that range. The materials demand it.
What Actually Drives the Bill Up
Your kitchen’s footprint matters less than you’d think. Japandi celebrates negative space—a compact galley kitchen can feel more authentically Japandi than a sprawling open-plan situation stuffed with islands and breakfast bars. What actually moves the needle:
Cabinet construction. Flat-pack carcasses with custom fronts versus fully bespoke joinery from a specialist workshop represents a £10,000 to £15,000 gap. Sometimes more.
Worktop material. The spread from laminate to premium natural stone can be £6,000 or £7,000 for a typical kitchen. Though, as I’ll explain later, laminate is basically disqualified from Japandi anyway.
Appliance integration. Hiding your fridge behind a cabinet panel costs more than buying a nice freestanding one. Budget £2,000 to £5,000 extra for full integration across major appliances.
Location. A kitchen fitting in London versus Leeds involves a 30% to 50% labour cost difference. The materials cost the same wherever you are, but the hands that install them vary wildly in hourly rate.
Layout changes. The moment you start moving plumbing or electrics, add £3,000 to £10,000 to your mental budget. Moving a gas supply is even more painful.
Here’s the counterintuitive bit: Japandi’s restraint can actually help your budget. A beautifully finished birch plywood cabinet looks more authentic to the style than an expensive solid oak door with traditional detailing. You’re not paying for ornament. You’re paying for quality execution of simple things.
Cabinetry: Where Most of Your Money Goes
Cabinets eat 30% to 40% of most kitchen budgets. In Japandi schemes, that percentage often creeps higher because the cabinets carry the entire aesthetic. There’s no tile pattern or colourful range cooker stealing focus. Your eye rests on wood (or painted surfaces) and nothing else.
Light-toned timber dominates. White oak and ash for the Scandinavian lean. Pale maple or bleached walnut if you want a nod toward Japanese joinery traditions. Whatever you choose, the finish matters enormously—you want the grain visible without artificial shine. Think matte, think oiled, think hand-rubbed wax. Avoid anything that looks like it came off a lacquering line.
Flat-pack with wood-effect laminate: £3,000 to £6,000
Honestly, I’d avoid this route for Japandi. The fakeness shows. These cabinets work fine in a busy family kitchen where nobody’s scrutinising the surfaces, but Japandi’s whole point is material honesty.
Semi-custom with real wood veneer: £8,000 to £15,000
This is where value lives. Factory-made carcasses with properly veneered doors give you real wood grain at a fraction of solid timber prices. Veneer gets a bad reputation, but high-quality veneer over stable substrates often outperforms solid wood in kitchen environments anyway.
Bespoke solid wood or high-grade plywood: £15,000 to £30,000
Now you’re commissioning from joinery workshops rather than ordering from catalogues. Lead times stretch to months. The joiner visits your home to template. Everything fits precisely because it’s made for your specific walls and floors, which are never quite square or level.
Specialist Japanese-inspired joinery: £25,000 to £50,000
There’s a handful of workshops in the UK doing serious Japanese-influenced work—proper through-tenons, kumiko lattice panels, that level of craft. Beautiful, but not necessary to achieve the aesthetic. This is for purists with deep pockets.
A word on plywood: don’t dismiss it. Birch plywood with exposed, sanded edges has become a Japandi signature. It’s honest, durable, and genuinely attractive. A kitchen built entirely from quality ply can cost 40% less than solid timber while looking just as intentional—arguably more so.
Door profiles should be flat or barely-there shaker style. Nothing raised, nothing moulded, nothing that casts shadows or adds visual noise. Let the wood do the work.
Worktops: Quartz vs. Stone vs. Everything Else
Your worktop choice sets the entire room’s tone. Japandi wants materials that feel connected to the natural world without screaming “look at me.” Rule out heavily veined marbles and dramatic slabs of granite with movement running through them. You’re after calm, not drama.
Engineered quartz: £60 to £120 per square metre installed
Several manufacturers now produce ranges specifically for minimal aesthetics. Look for matte finishes—shiny quartz reads as dated almost immediately. Warm whites, soft putty greys, subtle concrete-inspired tones all work. Avoid anything with sparkle or obvious aggregate.
I’ve grown to appreciate quartz for Japandi kitchens more than I expected to. The consistency that makes it boring in other contexts becomes an asset here. Your eye doesn’t snag on it. It just sits there being quietly competent.
Honed limestone: £80 to £150 per square metre
Soft, warm, genuinely minimal. Limestone ages beautifully if you accept that it’s going to patina. Some people find this distressing—a glass of red wine leaves a faint ring, lemon juice can etch the surface. Others consider this the whole point. Wabi-sabi and all that.
Soapstone: £100 to £180 per square metre
Develops a gorgeous patina over years of use. Darkens where it’s touched, lightens where it’s not. The original material for laboratory countertops because it’s nearly impervious to chemicals and heat. Dense, substantial, feels expensive because it is.
Pale granite with minimal veining: £70 to £130 per square metre
Underrated for Japandi. People associate granite with the speckled beige slabs of 1990s kitchens, but there are beautiful pale granites with almost no movement that work perfectly.
Concrete or concrete-effect: £90 to £200 per square metre
Actual poured concrete suits the industrial-Japandi crossover some designers are exploring. Requires proper sealing and accepts that it will mark up over time. Porcelain slabs that mimic concrete give you the look without the maintenance anxieties.
Whatever material you choose, avoid polished finishes. The reflection disrupts calm. Honed, leathered, or matte textures all work better.
For a standard kitchen with 3 to 4 square metres of worktop, you’re looking at £1,500 to £5,000 including fabrication, edge treatment, and fitting.
Backsplashes and Floors
Japanese wabi-sabi embraces imperfection and the beauty of natural wear. Let this philosophy guide your choices here. Pick materials that improve with age rather than ones that need to look pristine forever.
Backsplash ideas that actually work:
Zellige tiles have become the default Japandi backsplash, and I understand why—the handmade wobble, the glaze variation, the way light catches differently across each tile. They cost £80 to £150 per square metre but transform a wall completely. The catch: they’re irregular, so installation takes longer and costs more than standard tiles.
Japanese ceramic tiles with subtle texture or glaze variation run £60 to £200 per square metre depending on source and size. Some importers specialise in the real thing from Kyoto or Mino. Others stock convincing European-made alternatives.
Continuing your worktop material up the wall as a backsplash costs more (£100 to £300 per square metre for stone) but creates seamless, minimal visual flow.
Lime plaster or tadelakt—that Moroccan waterproof plaster—gives you a completely seamless, organic feel. Budget £80 to £180 per square metre including labour, which is most of the cost. Finding someone skilled enough to do it well takes effort.
Flooring:
Pale engineered oak remains the default for good reason. It’s stable enough for kitchen environments where solid wood might cup or warp. Budget £40 to £70 per square metre for standard grades, £80 to £150 for premium selections with cleaner grain patterns and fewer filled knots.
Large-format porcelain in wood or pale stone effects (£50 to £100 per square metre) gives you durability and warmth without the maintenance anxieties of real timber. Quality has improved dramatically in the past few years—some porcelains now feel genuinely convincing underfoot.
Polished concrete (£80 to £150 per square metre including grinding and finishing) suits the more minimal end of Japandi. Cold underfoot unless you run underfloor heating, which you should.
For a 15-square-metre kitchen floor, budget £1,200 to £3,000 for materials plus another £500 to £1,500 for installation.
Appliances and Fixtures
Appliances derail Japandi schemes more than any other element. You’ve spent months agonising over cabinet wood species and worktop edge profiles, then a hulking stainless steel fridge-freezer announces itself from across the room. The goal is integration: make appliances disappear into the cabinetry, or select pieces so beautiful they earn their visibility.
The integration premium:
A decent freestanding fridge-freezer runs £500 to £1,500. An integrated model with panel-ready fronts—so it hides behind the same cabinet door as everything else—costs £1,200 to £4,000.
Standard dishwashers: £300 to £800. Fully integrated: £600 to £2,000.
Standard built-in oven: £400 to £1,200. Premium integrated with minimal controls and handleless fronts: £1,500 to £4,000.
Add up those differences across four or five major appliances and you’re looking at £3,000 to £8,000 extra for full integration throughout.
Range hoods need special attention:
A traditional chimney-style extractor will dominate your kitchen in entirely the wrong way. Consider instead: ceiling-mounted extractors hidden flush in the ceiling above the hob (£800 to £2,500); downdraft extractors that rise from the worktop only when needed (£1,000 to £3,000); or extraction integrated behind cabinet panels that conceal the mechanism entirely (£600 to £1,800).
Some people compromise by integrating the big stuff—fridge, dishwasher—while leaving small appliances visible. If you go this route, pick items in matte black, white, or brushed steel that recede rather than shout.
Hardware:
In a minimal kitchen, every visible element carries weight. Cheap handles undermine thousands of pounds of careful work.
Matte black pulls at the budget end run £3 to £8 each. Quality brushed brass sits at £15 to £40. Designer hardware from the likes of Buster + Punch or Armac Martin reaches £30 to £100 per piece.
For a kitchen with 25 doors and drawers, that’s anywhere from £100 to £2,500 in hardware. Some Japandi kitchens eliminate handles entirely using push-to-open mechanisms or routed finger pulls integrated into the cabinet doors. This adds £200 to £500 to cabinet costs but removes the hardware expense completely—and looks stunning.
Sinks and taps:
Undermount sinks maintain clean lines. A quality stainless or composite model runs £200 to £600. Taps in matte black cost £150 to £500; brushed brass from a reputable brand costs £300 to £800.
Labour and Design Fees
Materials only tell half the story. What you’re paying for, ultimately, is craftsmanship—and Japandi’s precision demands more skill than ornate styles that hide imperfections behind mouldings.
Do you need a designer?
Not necessarily. But someone who genuinely understands Japandi can prevent costly mistakes. They’ll stop you over-specifying expensive materials where they’re not needed, help balance the Scandinavian and Japanese influences so neither dominates, and prevent that common failure mode: creating something that looks like a showroom rather than a home.
A one-off consultation runs £200 to £500 for a few hours of direction. Enough to validate your own scheme or redirect you before you order the wrong things.
A design package—full drawings, material specifications, supplier recommendations—costs £1,500 to £4,000.
Full service from design through project management and installation oversight: £5,000 to £15,000, or 10% to 15% of total project cost for larger schemes.
If your budget exceeds £25,000, professional design input usually pays for itself. For smaller projects, a single consultation might provide enough confidence to proceed on your own.
Installation labour:
Japandi precision costs more than standard kitchen fitting because errors show. A 3mm gap that a decorator’s bead would hide in a traditional kitchen becomes an obvious flaw when nothing distracts from it.
Rough ranges for labour:
Cabinet installation: £1,500 to £4,000 depending on complexity and whether you’re in London or Lincoln.
Worktop templating and fitting: £500 to £1,500.
Tiled backsplash installation: £400 to £1,200 depending on tile complexity (zellige costs more to lay than standard subway).
Flooring installation: £500 to £1,500.
Plumbing alterations: £500 to £2,000.
Electrical work: £800 to £2,500.
Plastering and final decoration: £600 to £1,500.
Custom carpentry for built-in benches, breakfast bars, or open shelving adds £1,000 to £5,000 depending on what you’re after.
For a mid-range Japandi kitchen, expect £6,000 to £12,000 in total labour. High-end projects with bespoke joinery and specialist craftspeople can run £15,000 to £25,000 in labour alone.
Getting the Look for Less
Japandi rewards restraint, which can help smaller budgets. You’re buying fewer things, so you can sometimes stretch to better versions of those fewer things.
Material substitutions that work:
Birch plywood with visible edges costs 40% to 60% less than solid timber and looks entirely appropriate to the style. Some would argue it looks more Japandi than expensive oak.
MDF with real wood veneer: 30% to 50% cheaper than solid wood, requires careful finishing to avoid a factory look.
Painted MDF with selective timber accents: use solid wood only for open shelving and a few visible details. Paint everything else in a soft off-white or pale grey.
Bamboo plywood: sustainable, affordable at £50 to £80 per square metre, and has the right visual temperature.
For worktops, solid surface materials like Corian or its competitors (£60 to £100 per square metre) give you seamless, repairable surfaces that work with the minimal aesthetic. DIY polished concrete suits adventurous homeowners—materials cost £30 to £60 per square metre, though you’ll need to invest time learning the technique. Large-format ceramic tiles can mimic stone at £40 to £80 per square metre. Real timber worktops are surprisingly affordable at £50 to £120 per square metre and extremely Japandi-appropriate, if you accept they’ll need periodic oiling.
The key is material honesty. Laminate that pretends to be wood fails. Actual wood—even humble birch or bamboo—succeeds.
DIY opportunities:
Open shelving is weekend-project territory. Timber brackets, a length of oiled oak or scaffold board, basic tools. Materials cost £50 to £200; you save £200 to £500 in labour.
Flat-panel cabinet doors are among the easiest to make if you have basic woodworking skills. Simpler still: buy them ready-made and fit them to existing carcasses yourself.
Simple tiling—large format or subway-style—suits confident beginners. Complex patterns or handmade irregular tiles like zellige need professional hands.
Painting existing cabinets can transform a kitchen for a few hundred pounds if you prepare surfaces properly. The prep is 80% of the job.
Upcycling fits the philosophy:
Wabi-sabi celebrates imperfection and history. A vintage Japanese tansu chest repurposed as kitchen storage tells a story that new cabinetry can’t. Scandinavian mid-century sideboards work brilliantly as pantry storage. Reclaimed timber adds warmth and narrative. Antique brass hardware from architectural salvage develops patina you can’t fake.
A realistic budget Japandi kitchen might combine IKEA cabinet boxes (they’re genuinely good quality) with custom plywood door fronts, a DIY concrete or timber worktop, open shelving made from scaffold boards, and vintage brass handles. Total spend: £6,000 to £10,000 including basic installation help where needed. I’ve seen this approach produce results that rival kitchens costing three times as much.
Long-Term Value
Kitchen renovations return about 70% to 80% of their cost in added property value. Japandi kitchens likely perform toward the upper end of that range for two reasons: the style appeals broadly without polarising potential buyers, and the materials commonly used age gracefully rather than simply degrading.
Nobody walks into a well-executed Japandi kitchen and thinks “that’s very them” in the way they might react to a bold colour choice or statement tile. They just see a calm, well-designed space. That neutrality sells.
The materials help too. Natural wood develops patina. Stone shows gentle wear. Brass hardware oxidises toward warm bronze tones. These changes enhance the aesthetic rather than undermining it. Meanwhile, high-gloss finishes and trendy colours that looked fresh in 2018 now date properties.
If you’re staying in your home for a decade or more, investing in quality Japandi materials makes straightforward financial sense. The higher upfront cost spreads over years of use. Cheaper alternatives might need replacement within that timeframe—I’ve seen laminate worktops give up after eight years of family use.
For those selling within five years, a well-executed Japandi kitchen still offers strong returns. The style photographs beautifully for Rightmove listings, appeals to design-literate buyers who might pay premiums, and suggests overall property care that reassures everyone.
Your Japandi kitchen investment might range from £8,000 for a thoughtful refresh with some DIY sweat equity, to £60,000 or more for a fully bespoke renovation with no compromises. Most people land somewhere between £20,000 and £40,000 for a complete remodel that genuinely captures the style’s essence.
Whatever your budget, remember that this is a design philosophy built on “less, but better.” A smaller investment in high-quality materials with careful execution will always outperform a larger budget spread thin across too many elements. Pick fewer things. Pick them well. Then let the natural beauty of honest materials create the space you’re after.