Ask five contractors what a kitchen costs and you'll get five numbers, because the question is incomplete. A cabinet-and-counter refresh in a builder-grade kitchen in California or Wildewood is a different project from gutting a 1970s galley in Lexington Park and taking out the wall between it and the dining room. The scope drives the number, not the square footage.
The first line item that moves budgets is cabinetry, and it moves in tiers rather than smoothly. Stock, semi-custom, and full custom are separated by weeks of lead time as much as by dollars, and the lead time is what wrecks schedules. We order cabinets before demolition day for exactly this reason.
The second is what's behind the wall. Older Southern Maryland homes routinely hide undersized electrical service, drain lines run at the wrong slope, and framing that was never meant to carry a modern island. None of that is visible during the estimate walkthrough, which is why our estimates state what we expect to find and what it costs if we find it, instead of pretending it can't happen.
The third is the layout change. Removing a wall to open a kitchen to the living room is often the single best thing you can do to a house here — and if the wall is load-bearing it needs a properly sized header, temporary support during the cut, and an inspection. That's real work with a real price, and it's worth knowing about before you fall in love with the drawing.
The way to keep all three honest is an itemized written estimate: labor, materials, and allowances broken out line by line, so you can see exactly where a different tile or a simpler layout saves money and where cutting would show every single day. Hold ten to fifteen percent back as contingency, treat it as insurance rather than budget, and make every change an estimate before it becomes work.