Free Home Renovation Budget Template (Excel Download)

A renovation budget template is a spreadsheet that helps you plan, track, and manage the costs of a home improvement or remodeling project.

Examples of home construction expenses are things like replacing existing hardware, trim, windows, flooring, and even appliances (if you’re doing a full kitchen remodel).

Your home renovation budget sheet should help you plan out and track:

• Materials needed.

• Quantities of materials.

• Material costs.

• Labor costs.

• Other associated expenses (permits, insurance, and the like).

When you put together a plan with a home renovation budget spreadsheet, you should have a clear picture of what your total project will cost.

Then, as your project gets underway, you should also be able to track your actual expenses and monitor how well you’re doing vs. your budget.

You’re reading through this article—and it seems like I know what I’m talking about. But do I really?

What’s my experience with home renovations and budgeting?

First off, budgets are kind of my nerdy passion. I graduated with my Bachelor’s and Master’s in Finance, and I’ve been running Life And My Finances since 2010 until it was acquired by MoneyZine.

Budgets are fun, especially when you nail them. (I told you—super nerd.)

I bought my first house in 2012. It was a foreclosure and needed work. I tore down the dining and entry walls, redid the kitchen flooring, and gave the half-bath a complete remodel.

Since then, I’ve purchased two other foreclosures. Again, both needed work, so I budgeted for the repairs and did a ton of the rehab myself.

I stayed on budget for both projects, even with a few surprise expenses that popped up along the way.

Finally, I’ve worked with spreadsheets and Excel since 2008, when I started my career as an analyst.

Making cool-looking spreadsheets is yet another nerdy passion of mine. They look awesome, work well, and usually get raving reviews from everyone that uses them.

Am I qualified to write this post on home renovation, budgeting, and Excel templates?

Yeah, I’d say so.

Have you ever wondered if your project makes financial sense? It can be tough to know.

As for me, I ask myself two questions:

1. How much am I spending vs. the increased value of my home?

2. How much will my family enjoy this renovation?

My wife and I were considering a second-story master suite addition over our garage a few years back.

The initial cost estimate was $75,000.

We asked our realtor how much she thought it would add to our home value—she said about $45,000.

So it added some value, but less than we’d pay for the project.

But like I mentioned above, there’s more than just the pure cost to consider.

With this master suite, my wife and I would have a place of solitude all to our own. Plus, this would free up our current bedroom, which would become a much-needed at-home office.

All-in-all, totally worth the investment.

When you’re asking yourself if your renovation project is a good investment, be sure to consider the financial implication—but don’t forget to ask yourself about the years of joy you’ll get from that project as well.

You may be pretty good with numbers—and you may have a great mind for project planning and leading.

So do you really need a renovation budget tracker?

Yes. Everyone does.

By using a remodel plan template, you’ll have a list of all the micro-projects right in front of you while figuring out your project scope and budget.

With a list of items, you will be much less likely to forget something. And no matter how good you are, I’m sure you forget something occasionally.

Thanks to a rehab template, you’re essentially putting a project plan together. If there are any deviations to the plan, you can quickly review the spreadsheet and tweak it where needed to get yourself back on budget.

Finally, your renovation template isn’t just for you. It’s for your contractors too.

Let them know when your plans and expectations are, and they can help you meet those goals—perhaps with suggestions that you never would have thought of yourself.

Alright. You’re ready.

You’ve considered the project, you know you want to move forward, and you understand the need for a renovation budget worksheet.

What should be your first steps? What do you do before you start budgeting?

Finally, it’s time to put your home renovation budget together.

To make one, you’ll need to list out every detail of your project into rows and then add columns for:

• Quantity of materials needed.

• Material cost per item.

• Total material costs.

• Labor costs.

• Total estimated costs.

• Total actual costs (to see how well you’re doing vs. your budget).

Sound overwhelming? Don’t worry about it—we’re supplying all of this to you for free with our home renovation budget template Excel download.

To keep track of your renovation costs, you simply add your daily spending into your renovation budget tracker.

Every dollar that gets spent needs to be added into your budget spreadsheet and constantly compared to what your budget was for each line item.

If you’re over in one category, you should be looking for another category where you can save. (Either that or become okay with going over budget.)

So how do you do this? How do you actually know what each line item of your budget should be?

Honestly, it’s super tough to do this from scratch.

It’s best to start with a free home improvement budget template (like the one we’re providing in this post) and then tweak it to fit your needs.

Want to see some examples of renovation budgets?

The most popular home renovation projects are the bathroom remodel, and a kitchen renovation.

Interested in seeing our template in action? Check out the budget snapshot of each below:

You like the remodel budget sheet, you want to use it—and you’d like to know more about how to navigate it.

It’s actually pretty easy.

Here are the bulleted how-to instructions:

• Open the worksheet.

• See the example entries at the bottom of the first section.

  • Notice how you enter the size/quantity, the cost per item, and the labor cost.

  • Only enter numbers into the light-colored (gray/green) cells.

  • Now that you understand, delete the example values in the gray/green cells.

• Enter your project cost estimates as you receive them. Your total estimates will show up in column G (“Total estimate”).

• When you start paying on your project, record those actual expenses in column H (“Actual cost”).

• To see charts of your estimates vs. the actual costs, click on the “Charts” tab. All the visuals will update automatically.

This sheet can be used for a full house remodel or a small closet update. It’s versatile, yet super simple.

The download links have been included throughout this post.

But—just in case you missed them—the below sections will help you download the renovation budget spreadsheet based on your needs (Excel, Google Sheets, or a simple printout).

Don’t like our spreadsheet? We’re a little hurt—but we get that we can’t please everyone.

Below are the other top free renovation budgets that we’ve discovered. (Honestly, though, they all pale in comparison to what we’ve put together.)

Monday.com is a well-known project management software company.

If you want to use their software for your project, you’ll need to sign up and create a login for their site.

But if you just want an Excel spreadsheet download, they do offer that for free.

The spreadsheet is a decent resource, but it doesn’t provide you with any suggested rows for your renovation.

It’s a clean slate, and you’ll need to fill everything in.

This site provides a free Google Sheets template for your renovation project budget.

It’s fairly basic, but it does provide an initial framework for your project. You can download the GooDocs template here.

When you click the “Edit template” button on the right side of the page, it’ll ask you to “Get copy” to open the Google doc on your drive.

Once you do that, you’ll have immediate access to their home renovation spreadsheet.