Quick answer
Kitchen renovation in Mt Wellington splits two ways. Townhouses around Sylvia Park mostly need hardware, doors and edge repairs at year five to ten, costing hundreds to a few thousand dollars, while a full same-footprint galley replacement runs roughly $8,000-$12,000 installed. The older bungalow stock typically carries an L-shape rebuild at $12,000-$18,000 installed.
Key points
- Mt Wellington holds two different jobs: five-to-ten-year-old townhouse galleys with failing fittings, and 1960s-70s bungalows due a full swap.
- Developer-grade kitchens fail from the hardware out: hinges sag, runners stick, edge tape lifts. The carcasses are usually fine.
- A stripped hinge screw is a ten-minute fix with a hardwood plug, PVA and a redrilled pilot.
- Most townhouse galleys sit in rooms about 2,400 mm wide, so upgrades happen in place: better doors, hardware and benchtop on the same carcasses and services.
- In a terraced row, sort access, parking and body corp notice before booking trades; the carry route matters as much as the quote.
The door under the sink goes first. In a townhouse near Sylvia Park, six or seven years after code of compliance, somebody notices it hanging a couple of millimetres low and grabs the screwdriver. The top hinge screw turns and keeps turning, because the chipboard thread stripped years ago and the door has been hanging on habit. Next weekend it is two doors and a drawer front that will not sit flush, and the owner starts pricing whole kitchens at ten times the cost of the actual problem.
Across the ridge, the older Mt Wellington story is different. The 1960s and 70s weatherboard and brick homes up off the Panmure end have kitchens on their second or third owner: original carcasses, a laminate top scrubbed white at the sink, and a layout from an era when the fridge was smaller than the dog. Those kitchens are candidates for a genuine replacement, and the numbers behave differently.
One suburb, two completely different jobs. Sorting out which one you have is worth more than any quote you collect this week.
What fails by year seven in a developer kitchen
The townhouse wave along the Sylvia Park and Stonefields edge was fitted out to a price, and the price shows up in the moving parts first. Carcasses are standard 16 mm board and mostly fine. What wears is everything that moves or was stuck on: hinges, drawer runners and edge tape, in that order. Our repair crews see the same list so consistently that what fails first in a rental kitchen reads like a townhouse pre-purchase checklist.
- Hinges: NZ cabinet doors hang on 35 mm cup, clip-on European-pattern hinges. Budget versions lose their adjustment and sag; better ones clip straight onto the same mounting plates.
- Runners: cheap side-mount runners load up and stick under full drawers. Soft-close side or undermount runners retrofit to the same drawers in most cases.
- Edge tape: thin iron-on melamine edging lifts at the dishwasher and sink first. It comes in 21, 36 and 45 mm rolls, and contact adhesive re-sticks a lifted length in minutes.
- Stripped hinge screws: the chipboard thread gives out, the screw spins, the door drops. Fixed with a hardwood plug or dowel glued in with PVA, then a redrilled pilot.
Every one of those is a repair, not a renovation. The full method for the most common one, including when a wobbly door means something worse, is in fixing stripped hinge screws in cabinet doors. Stop and get help when the carcass itself is swollen at the bottom edge, because that is water, and water changes the conversation.
A Sylvia Park-edge townhouse galley at year seven: what needs attention, marked on the elevation.
The 2,400 mm galley reality
Most of these townhouse kitchens live in a slot about 2,400 mm wide, and that number is not an accident. A two-sided galley needs two 600 mm deep runs plus a workable aisle between them: 1,200 mm of cabinetry and 1,200 mm of air. Tighter than that and the dishwasher door meets the opposite kick. Plenty of the newer plans dodge the maths by running a single-sided straight kitchen against the party wall instead, which frees the aisle but halves the storage. The full set of numbers, including what one cook versus two cooks changes, is in galley kitchen dimensions for NZ homes, and standard kitchen sizes in NZ townhouses shows how your floor plan compares with the rest of the market.
The practical consequence: you upgrade a townhouse galley in place. There is no spare wall to migrate to, so the wins come from what the run is made of.
Upgrading developer spec without moving services
The good news about a tight galley is that a full swap is cheap by renovation standards. Sink, dishwasher and hob stay on their existing connections, the new carcasses land on the same wall, and the job prices like the small end of the market: roughly $6,500-$9,500 installed for a compact galley, $8,000-$12,000 for a longer straight run. The same-footprint discipline that makes those numbers work is set out in replacing a kitchen in the same layout.
| Job | Supply only | Supply + install |
|---|---|---|
| Compact townhouse galley swap | $4.5-7k | $6.5-9.5k |
| Longer straight run, same footprint | $5.5-8.5k | $8-12k |
| Doors, hinges and runners only (boxes stay) | priced per door, drilled to match | a fraction of a full swap |
| Older bungalow L-shape rebuild | $8.5-13k | $12-18k |
Where the money goes, in order of payback: hinges and runners one class up from builder grade, doors with 2 mm PVC edges instead of thin tape, and a benchtop chosen for the way the kitchen actually gets used. A 600 mm wide dishwasher, at 820-850 mm tall on adjustable feet, fits under the standard 900 mm bench either way; going integrated needs a matching door panel and a hinge kit, so decide that before doors are ordered.
Terraced rows: access, parking and the body corp
In a terraced row the kitchen is often the easy part. Getting it there is the planning job: no driveway of your own, a shared lane with a courier van in it, and forty metres of carry from the closest legal park to the front door. Before booking anything, walk the route a 2,400 mm benchtop has to travel and check every turn, because a top that cannot make the stair turn becomes two tops and a join. Give the body corporate or building manager notice of working hours and skip placement; the rules differ complex to complex, and the manager is the person who confirms them. Protection for shared surfaces is on the installer, so ask how they handle it before you sign.
The older Mt Wellington bungalow is a different job
Up the hill from the townhouse rows, the 1960s and 70s stock plays by state-era rules: kitchen in its own room, solid framing, services in sensible places. These jobs are usually L-shape rebuilds in the $12,000-$18,000 installed band, and the complications are era ones. Window sills commonly sit at 750-850 mm, below the 900 mm bench line, so the run at the window either drops, stops short, or the sill gets raised while joinery is out. None of those is wrong; they cost different amounts, and the right answer depends on whether the window is being replaced anyway.
Is it worth replacing a ten-year-old townhouse kitchen?
Usually not, and we say that as people who sell kitchens. If the carcasses are dry, square and solid at the bottom edges, the honest sequence is: re-stick or re-edge lifted tape, plug and redrill stripped screws, upgrade hinges and runners, and only then ask whether the doors themselves owe you anything. Doors are replaceable individually while the boxes stay: measure width and height, note the hinge cup positions and the overlay, and new doors arrive drilled to match. A hardware-and-doors round costs a fraction of the $6,500-plus a full galley swap starts at, and it buys years.
Replace the kitchen when the boxes themselves have failed, when the benchtop is swollen along a cut edge, or when you are changing what the kitchen is: an integrated dishwasher, a different sink position, storage the original developer never drew. At that point do it once, properly, in the same footprint.
The next 48 hours
Open every door and drawer and sort what you find into three lists: moves badly (hardware), looks tired (doors and edges), failed structurally (carcass or top). List one is a repair visit. The second is a doors-and-hardware order. Only list three is a kitchen. Photograph the runs square-on, measure the room width to confirm what your galley can carry, and send the lot through; a priced answer comes back within 24 hours with a reference number, whichever list you landed on. If it helps to see the swap costed properly, the designer on our site prices a galley run cabinet by cabinet in millimetres.
Frequently asked questions
Why are the doors dropping in my seven-year-old townhouse kitchen?
Almost always the hinges, and the doors themselves are usually fine. Developer-grade 35 mm cup hinges lose adjustment and the chipboard screw holes strip with use. Doors clip off, stripped holes take a glued hardwood plug and a fresh pilot, and better hinges fit the same holes. It is a repair measured in minutes per door, not a reason to replace the kitchen.
How much does a townhouse galley kitchen replacement cost?
Roughly $6,500-$9,500 installed for a compact galley and $8,000-$12,000 for a longer straight run, keeping the same footprint and services. Supply-only sits around $4,500-$8,500 depending on length. Moving plumbing or the hob adds trades and rarely pays in a room 2,400 mm wide.
Can I fit a two-sided galley in my townhouse?
Only if the room gives you about 2,400 mm or more of clear width: two 600 mm runs plus a 1,200 mm aisle. At less than that, a two-sided layout leaves the dishwasher door clashing with the opposite run. Narrower rooms do better with one full-depth run and storage solved vertically.
Do I need body corporate permission to renovate my kitchen?
For a like-for-like kitchen inside your unit, usually no consent is needed, but the rules on working hours, contractor access, lifts and skip placement vary by complex, and anything touching shared walls or services can need approval. Check your body corp rules and tell the building manager before trades arrive. It costs nothing and prevents the job being shut down mid-carry.
What should I upgrade first in a developer-spec kitchen?
Hardware, then edges, then doors. Better hinges and soft-close runners change how the kitchen feels every day and retrofit to existing carcasses. Re-edging worn doors in thicker tape, or replacing the doors entirely while keeping the boxes, handles the looks. The benchtop only enters the conversation once it is damaged or you are changing appliances.
Is a Mt Wellington bungalow kitchen dearer than a townhouse one?
Generally yes, because there is more of it. Bungalow kitchens usually carry an L-shape in the $12,000-$18,000 installed band versus $8,000-$12,000 for a townhouse straight run, and era details like 750-850 mm window sills below bench height add joinery decisions a townhouse never faces.
When is a wobbly door a sign of something worse?
When the carcass around the hinge is soft, swollen or dark, especially at the bottom of the sink unit. Stripped screws in sound board are cosmetic; screws pulling out of swollen board mean water has been in the particleboard, and that cabinet needs the leak found and the damage assessed before any hardware is worth fitting.