Serving the greater Tampa Bay area
Kitchen Updates in Clearwater: Cabinets, Counters, and Tile
A new kitchen is a big check and a bigger act of trust. You're letting people you just met work in your house for weeks. The fear isn't the new counters. It's the crew that vanishes, the price that climbs, the job that drags into next season. So before anything else, here's how we run a job, and you can judge for yourself.
I'm Ricky Powers, 30+ years running my own crews, and I walk every single job myself. When you reach out, you get me.
What we do in a Clearwater kitchen
Cabinets, countertops, backsplash, tile, flooring, paint and trim, hardware, and a sink and faucet set back where the old one was. The surfaces are the job.
Houses and condos ask for different things
A lot of what we walk into out here are the mid-century block houses and the coastal homes off the water, built decades back with a small kitchen and the original cabinet run still hanging. Those want new boxes, a counter that isn't laminate, and a floor that ties the room together.
The condos near the beach are their own animal. Tight elevators, a loading dock with hours, shared walls with a neighbor who works nights, and an association that wants paperwork before anything comes off a truck. We plan a condo kitchen around those rules from the first walkthrough instead of finding out about them on day two.
One piece of free advice: ask your association what they need in writing before you order a thing. Getting that out of the way early saves more schedule than anything else on a beach-side job.
Salt air decides what holds up
This close to the Gulf, the finish on your hardware matters more than the shape of it. Plated pulls and cheap faucet finishes pit and spot fast here. Humidity gets into a cabinet box at the toe kick and under the sink if the material and the seal aren't right.
None of that shows in a photo on day one. It shows in year three. We pick for the coast you actually live on and tell you where the money is worth spending.
Where the money goes
Cabinets are usually the biggest line, and the jump from stock to custom is steep. Counters come next, where the install matters as much as the slab. Backsplash, flooring, paint, and hardware fill in the rest.
Counters get templated after the cabinets are set, and then the shop needs its own time. On a condo, add the building's rules about deliveries and elevator hours on top of that. A kitchen takes weeks, and we'll be honest about the calendar instead of telling you what you want to hear.
One crew, start to finish
You won't get passed around. The crew that pulls out your old kitchen is the same one that sets the cabinets and hauls off the last of the mess. We cover your floors, sweep up daily, and keep you posted on where things stand.
If we pull up a floor or take an old backsplash off and find something behind it, you hear about it that day. And if the budget won't carry the wish list, I'll say it plainly. I would rather walk away than take a job on a plan I know ends in disappointment.