Free House Renovation Budget Template (Excel)
What's in the house renovation budget template
Renovation Budget logs up to 60 line items across room/area (kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom, exterior, basement, whole house, or other) and trade/category (labor, materials, plumbing, electrical, flooring, painting, cabinetry, permits, or other), with budgeted, quoted, and actual spent columns.
Variance and percent of budget spent calculate automatically for every row, and any line running over 100% of its budget is flagged in red immediately - not after you tally everything up at the end.
Contingency & Rollup pulls your total budgeted and total actual spent from Renovation Budget automatically, and lets you set a contingency reserve percentage once - contingency amount and total budget including contingency calculate from there.
One unified view versus the piece-by-piece and static templates
The largest template libraries sell renovation budgets as 25-plus separate pages - one for kitchen, one for bathroom, one for exterior - with no single sheet totaling everything together.
This template consolidates every room and trade into one table with a single rollup, so you see your whole renovation's budget, spend, and variance in one place instead of adding up separate documents by hand.
It also adds something none of the scraped competitor templates include: an auto-calculated contingency reserve on top of your budget total, so you can see your true committed number - budget plus buffer - not just the base estimate.
Who this template is for
Homeowners planning a renovation (whole-house or room-by-room) who want one place to compare what they budgeted, what contractors quoted, and what they actually spent - with a contingency reserve built in from the start.
It's a planning and tracking tool for your own project - it doesn't generate contractor bids, permit requirements, or construction schedules; use it alongside your contractor's quotes and your own project timeline.
How to use it
- On Renovation Budget, enter budgeted, quoted and actual spent for each room/trade line item.
- On Contingency & Rollup, set your contingency reserve % once - contingency amount and total budget calculate automatically.
- Check the remaining balance versus your budget-plus-contingency total as you log actual spending.
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Frequently asked questions
How is the contingency reserve calculated?
Contingency amount is your total budgeted amount times the contingency percentage you set on Contingency & Rollup - it's based on your planned budget, not your actual spend, so it's set once at planning time.
Can I use this in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload the downloaded file to Google Drive, then open it and choose File > Save as Google Sheets. Both tabs and every formula keep working.
How many line items does it support?
Up to 60 room/trade line items on Renovation Budget - add more rows if your renovation covers more categories than that.
What does the red flag on % of budget spent mean?
Any line item where actual spent exceeds 100% of its budgeted amount is flagged automatically, so you can spot over-budget items without scanning every row.
Does this generate contractor quotes or permits?
No. This is a budget planning and tracking tool for your own project - it doesn't generate bids, permit paperwork, or construction schedules.
What's the usage license?
Personal use or use within one business. It's not meant to be resold or redistributed as a template product.