Home Remodeling Projects by Room: A Complete Directory

Every remodeling project a house can take falls into one of three groups: work inside the rooms you already have, work that adds new space, and work on the shell that keeps the weather out. This directory lists the home remodeling projects by room across all three, with what each job involves, what it costs in 2026, whether it needs a permit, and what it gives back when you sell.

Use it as a menu. Nobody does all of this at once, and the order you pick things in matters more than most homeowners expect.

One warning before you start reading costs. The project that returns the most money at resale isn’t the kitchen, isn’t the bathroom, and isn’t a room at all. It costs less than five thousand dollars and it more than doubles its money, which is worth knowing before you commit a year of savings to something else.

Home remodeling projects by room, at a glance

Two tables. The first covers work inside the house, the second covers adding space and working on the shell. Costs are national 2026 ranges from published cost guides, and the permit column reflects the Pennsylvania state default before your municipality adds anything of its own.

Inside the house

Project	What it usually involves	Typical 2026 cost	Permit under the state code
Minor kitchen remodel	Cabinet fronts, counters, sink, appliances, paint, no layout change	About $28,000	Only if wiring or plumbing moves
Major kitchen remodel	New layout, new cabinets, moved plumbing and electrical, sometimes a wall	Most $14,586 to $41,549, high end $60,000 and up	Yes
Bathroom remodel	Fixtures, tile, vanity, lighting, often the shower or tub	Average about $16,500, most $8,000 to $45,000	Usually, plumbing and electrical
Tub to shower conversion	Removing the tub, new pan or base, new valve, waterproofing, tile	Within the bathroom range above	Yes, plumbing work
Basement finishing	Framing, insulation, electrical, egress, ceiling, flooring, often a bathroom	Average about $32,000, roughly $7 to $23 per square foot	Yes
Bedroom remodel	Flooring, paint, lighting, closets, sometimes minor layout changes	$14,000 to $30,000 for an average job	Only if wiring, walls or windows change
Living room and open concept	Flooring, lighting, trim, and sometimes removing a wall	Cosmetic work is modest, wall removal is not	Yes if a wall comes out
Laundry room	Cabinets, counter, flooring, utility sink, ventilation, appliances	Most $6,000 to $17,000, average near $11,000	Usually, plumbing and venting
Mudroom	Built in bench and lockers, durable floor, lighting, sometimes a wall	$6,000 to $15,000 for a remodel	Only if structure or wiring changes
Attic conversion	Structure, insulation, stairs, egress window, HVAC, finishes	Priced like an addition, not a room refresh	Yes
Whole house remodel	Everything at once, usually in phases	Most $19,500 to $88,400, gut to studs $100,000 and up	Yes

Adding space and working on the shell

Project	What it usually involves	Typical 2026 cost	Permit under the state code
Bump out	Extending one room a few feet on the existing footprint	About $85 to $200 per square foot, or $5,000 to $35,000	Yes
Ground level addition	New foundation, framing, roof tie in, full systems	Roughly $80 to $200 per square foot building out	Yes, plus zoning
Second story addition	Structural work below, new floor, new roof, full systems	Roughly $200 to $500 per square foot	Yes, plus zoning
Deck	Footings, framing, decking, rails, stairs	Pressure treated from about $2 to $5 per square foot in material, with labor roughly matching	Yes if the floor is over 30 inches up
Patio	Base preparation, pavers or concrete, edging, drainage	Varies widely with material and size	Usually no, unless it is raised
Siding replacement	Tear off, wrap, trim, new siding	Vinyl about $4.50 to $8.20 per square foot installed	Excluded by the state, and Wilkes-Barre requires one
Roof replacement	Tear off, deck repair, underlayment, shingles, flashing	A few hundred for a repair up to about $80,000 for a full roof with copper gutters	Yes in most municipalities
Window replacement	Removing and refitting in the existing opening	Priced per opening	Not if the opening stays the same size
Garage door replacement	New door, tracks, opener	About $4,672 nationally	Usually no
Entry door replacement	New door, frame, hardware, weatherproofing	About $2,435 for steel	Usually no

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Inside the house

Kitchens split into two projects that get confused with each other constantly. A minor remodel keeps the layout and replaces the surfaces: cabinet fronts, counters, sink, appliances, paint. A major remodel moves things, and the moment plumbing or a load bearing wall moves, the cost roughly doubles and the timeline stretches.

Most homeowners land somewhere between $14,586 and $41,549 on a kitchen, with a national average around $27,000. A high end job clears $60,000 without difficulty.

Bathrooms carry the highest cost per square foot of any room in the house, because everything in them is either plumbing, tile or waterproofing. The national average sits near $16,500 with most projects between $8,000 and $45,000, or roughly $70 to $250 per square foot.

A small refresh can be done for $6,000 to $10,000, while a primary bathroom with a custom shower runs past $30,000. Bathroom costs rose 4 to 6 percent over 2025, faster than most rooms.

Basements are the cheapest square footage you’ll ever add, because the shell already exists. Finishing one averages about $32,000, roughly $7 to $23 per square foot, and the range is enormous at $2,800 to $100,000, because a basement can be anything from a painted rec room to a full suite with a bathroom.

In Luzerne County the honest first question is water, not finishes. Nothing you build downstairs survives a wet foundation, and that work happens before the framing does.

Bedrooms are usually flooring, paint, lighting and closets, which is why a straightforward job lands at $14,000 to $30,000 and works out near $100 to $200 per square foot. Push into moving a wall or adding an ensuite and you’ve left the bedroom category entirely.

Living rooms are the same story with one exception. Removing a wall to open the space to the kitchen isn’t a living room project, it’s a structural one, and whether the wall is load bearing decides everything about the cost.

Laundry rooms and mudrooms are the two most underrated projects in this list. A laundry room remodel runs $6,000 to $17,000 with an average near $11,000, and a minor refresh can be done for $1,500 to $5,000. A mudroom typically lands between $6,000 and $15,000. Neither one will impress anyone at a dinner party, and both of them fix something you touch every single day.

Attics look like a cheap room and price like an addition. Between the structural work, the stairs, the egress window and getting heat and air up there, an attic conversion belongs in the next section rather than this one.

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Adding space: the three ways to do it

There are exactly three, and they cost wildly different amounts.

Bumping out extends one room a few feet without a full new foundation. It runs about $85 to $200 per square foot, or roughly $5,000 to $35,000 in total, and it carries a trap worth understanding.

Per square foot, a bump out is often more expensive than a full addition, because the fixed costs don’t shrink with the footprint. Design, permits, tying into the roof, matching the exterior, extending heat and electric: all of that costs nearly the same whether you gain 30 square feet or 300. A 30 square foot bump out at $25,000 works out near $830 a foot. A 300 square foot addition at $90,000 works out near $300.

Building out at ground level runs roughly $80 to $200 per square foot, with all in figures for additions generally landing between $125 and $250. You’re buying a foundation, framing, a roof and a full set of systems, and you’re also spending part of your lot, which means zoning setbacks decide the shape before your budget does.

Building up is the expensive one: roughly $200 to $500 per square foot, with a partial second story around $100,000 to $250,000 and a full second floor running $200,000 to $750,000 and beyond. The premium is structural. The house below has to carry the new floor, which means engineering, and the entire roof comes off and goes back on.

The rule of thumb that survives contact with reality: build out if the lot allows it, build up if it doesn’t, and bump out only when the extra few feet genuinely solve the problem, because the small job isn’t proportionally cheap.

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Working on the shell

Roofing, siding, windows and doors aren’t glamorous and they aren’t optional. They’re the projects that protect everything you spend indoors, and in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where freeze and thaw cycles work on a house all winter, they age faster than they do in milder places.

Vinyl siding installs at roughly $4.50 to $8.20 per square foot, with basic products starting near $3 and premium lines over $12. Roofing spans from a few hundred dollars for a repair to around $80,000 for a full roof with copper gutters, which is the top of a very wide range. A pressure treated deck starts around $2 to $5 per square foot in material with labor roughly matching it.

The thing to understand about this group is the sequencing. If the roof leaks or the siding is failing, that work comes before the kitchen every time, because interior finishes installed under a compromised envelope get replaced twice. The order of operations on a remodel exists for exactly this reason.

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What each project actually returns

This is where the folk wisdom falls apart. Zonda publishes the Cost vs Value report every year, now in its 38th annual edition, built from surveys of real estate professionals and remodeling estimate data across 115 US markets. The most recent national top ten:

Project	Job cost	Value at sale	Cost recouped
Garage door replacement	$4,672	$12,507	267.7%
Steel entry door replacement	$2,435	$5,270	216.4%
Manufactured stone veneer	$11,702	$24,328	207.9%
Fiber cement siding replacement	$21,485	$24,420	113.7%
Minor kitchen remodel	$28,458	$32,141	112.9%
Vinyl siding replacement	$17,950	$17,313	96.5%
Backup power generator	$13,534	$12,902	95.3%
Wood deck addition	$18,263	$17,323	94.9%
Composite deck addition	$25,096	$22,199	88.5%
Fiberglass grand entrance	$11,754	Not quoted	84.7%

That first row answers the question at the top of this page. A garage door replacement returns more than two and a half times its cost, and it’s the cheapest project in the table. Eight of the top ten are exterior replacements.

A minor kitchen remodel is the only interior project in the top five, and it beats a major kitchen remodel by a wide margin, because buyers pay for a kitchen that works rather than for the one you’d have designed for yourself.

Zonda’s own summary of the pattern is blunt. As Clay DeKorne, chief editor of Zonda’s JLC Group, put it, exterior replacement projects remain the clear winners for resale value, while large interior remodels are often too subjective to return the same. Basement remodels were newly added to the report and proved the most consistent performer nationwide, which fits what the basement costs above suggest: cheap square footage tends to pay.

Two honest caveats. These are national figures and regional differences are pronounced, so treat them as a ranking rather than a promise. And the return only matters if you’re selling. If you’re staying ten years, the project that improves your daily life wins, and no report can price that.

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Which room to do first

Don’t start with the room. Start with your situation.

• If you’re selling within about two years, go down the resale list rather than the wish list. Garage door, entry door, siding, a minor kitchen refresh. Small, visible, exterior.
• If you’re staying five years or more, fix what’s failing you daily. If the bathroom queue every morning is the problem, the bathroom wins over a kitchen that merely looks dated.
• If anything is wrong with the roof, siding, windows or foundation, that work goes first regardless of what you’d rather be doing, because it protects everything after it.
• On a tight budget with a lot of frustration, laundry rooms, mudrooms and small bathroom refreshes deliver the most improvement per dollar of anything in this directory.
• With several rooms on the list, decide deliberately whether you’re going one room at a time or everything at once, because the two approaches carry very different costs, timelines and living arrangements.

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Cost and permit reality checks before you pick

Three things flatten more remodel budgets than bad taste in tile.

Plan a contingency of 10 to 20 percent on a straightforward job, and 20 to 30 percent on an older home. Much of Wilkes-Barre’s housing stock predates modern wiring and plumbing, and what’s behind the wall isn’t knowable until the wall is open.

Labor is most of the bill, typically 40 to 60 percent of a remodel budget, which is why the same materials cost dramatically different amounts depending on how much work it takes to install them. Material prices have also moved: tariffs add roughly $10,900 to a typical project according to the National Association of Home Builders, with appliances up 16 to 18 percent and metal products up around 20 percent.

Permits change the timeline, not just the cost. Most of the projects in the first table need one, and Pennsylvania’s state code sets only the floor: your municipality can require permits for work the state exempts, which is why siding needs a permit in Wilkes-Barre and not in the state regulation. Check whether your project needs a permit before you set a start date, not after.

For the whole house arithmetic behind all of these numbers, the full breakdown of what it costs to remodel a house works through the per square foot ladder and the scope tiers.

When you’ve got a shortlist and you want real numbers for your own house rather than national ranges, that’s the point to have a contractor walk the property. A conversation about scope costs nothing and it’s the fastest way to find out which of these projects your house is actually a candidate for.

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Frequently asked questions

Which room should I remodel first?

It depends on your timeline. If you’re selling within about two years, exterior replacement projects return the most. If you’re staying, fix whatever is failing you daily. And if the roof, siding, windows or foundation need work, that comes first regardless, because interior finishes installed under a leaking envelope get paid for twice.

Which home remodel adds the most value?

By the most recent Cost vs Value report, garage door replacement leads nationally at about 267.7 percent of its cost recouped, followed by steel entry door replacement and manufactured stone veneer. Eight of the top ten projects are exterior replacements. These are national averages with pronounced regional variation, so treat them as a ranking rather than a guarantee.

Is a kitchen remodel worth it?

A minor kitchen remodel is, and it’s the only interior project in the national top five, recouping about 112.9 percent of its roughly $28,458 cost. A major kitchen remodel returns considerably less, because buyers pay for a kitchen that functions rather than for someone else’s design choices. If you’re staying in the house, that calculation matters much less.

Is it cheaper to build out or build up?

Building out is usually cheaper per square foot, at roughly $80 to $200 against $200 to $500 for building up. The premium on a second story is structural: the house below has to carry the new floor, which means engineering, and the whole roof comes off and goes back on. Build up when the lot leaves you no other option.

What is a bump out addition?

A bump out extends one existing room a few feet without a full new foundation, typically costing $85 to $200 per square foot or $5,000 to $35,000 in total. Watch the per foot math: fixed costs like design, permits, roof tie in and matching the exterior don’t shrink with the footprint, so a very small bump out can cost more per square foot than a full addition.

Do I need a permit to finish a basement?

Yes. Finishing a basement involves framing, electrical, insulation and usually an egress requirement, and all of that is permit work under the Pennsylvania Uniform Construction Code. The state code carves out cosmetic alterations that change nothing structural, but a basement finish rarely qualifies. Confirm with your municipal code office before you frame anything.

Does finishing a basement add value?

The Cost vs Value report added basement remodels recently and found them the most consistent performer nationwide, which is unusual for an interior project. The reason is arithmetic: at roughly $7 to $23 per square foot, a basement is the cheapest living space you can add, because the foundation, walls and roof already exist.

Is a laundry room remodel worth it?

For daily life it’s one of the best returns per dollar in this directory. Most laundry room remodels run $6,000 to $17,000 with an average near $11,000, and a refresh with paint, flooring and better storage can be done for $1,500 to $5,000. It won’t headline a listing, but it fixes something you use several times a week.

What adds more value, a bathroom or a bedroom?

A bathroom, in most cases, and particularly if the house is short on them. Adding usable bathroom count changes how a house is listed and searched for, while a bedroom remodel that doesn’t add a bedroom is largely a finishes project. Adding an actual bedroom is a different question, and that’s an addition rather than a remodel.

Which projects have the best return on investment?

Small, visible, exterior work: doors, garage doors, siding and stone veneer. The pattern has held for years and the most recent report reinforced it, with eight of the national top ten being exterior replacements. Large discretionary interior remodels sit at the bottom, not because they’re bad projects, but because taste doesn’t transfer to a buyer.