Serving the greater Tampa Bay area

Home Updates and Repairs in Tampa

Tampa is really a dozen housing stocks stacked in one city. A 1925 bungalow in Seminole Heights, a block ranch off Dale Mabry, and a twelve-year-old build in New Tampa are three different jobs, and treating them the same is how a house ends up with work that doesn't suit it.

I'm Ricky Powers. Thirty-plus years working in people's homes, and I'm on every job myself. Call us and you get me.

The kind of homes we see around Tampa

South Tampa and Seminole Heights run old: heart pine, plaster, real wood windows, and additions from three different decades that never quite matched. Beautiful houses that punish shortcuts.

Then there's the concrete block belt from the fifties and sixties across Town 'N' Country and Carrollwood, and the newer subdivisions out toward New Tampa where the bones are fine and the finishes came off a builder's list.

Old or new, most of what a Tampa house actually needs is surfaces, carpentry, and keeping the outside ahead of the weather.

What we do

A short list, done properly, with the same crew from the first day to the last.

Cabinets. New doors and fronts, new hardware, refinishing, or new boxes set in the same layout.
Counters and backsplash.
Tile on floors, showers, and backsplashes.
Flooring. Vinyl plank, laminate, and wood, plus the transitions that make or break the look.
Interior and exterior paint, with the prep and caulking that decide whether it holds up.
Trim, doors, and hardware, and the carpentry that goes with them.
Fixtures swapped in place, a faucet or a vanity going back where the old one was.
Repairs and upkeep. Drywall, rotted fascia and trim, caulking, pressure washing, gutters, screens.

Three of these have their own pages: kitchen cabinets and counters in Tampa, bathroom tile and vanities in Tampa, and deck repair in Tampa.

What an older Tampa house asks for

In the older neighborhoods the finish work is the whole job. Plaster doesn't patch like drywall, original trim profiles don't come off a shelf, and a floor that's been refinished four times has a fifth in it only if somebody checks first.

The upkeep is relentless everywhere in this county. Caulk lets go at the joints, paint chalks on the south wall, screens tear, gutters fill, and the pressure washing you meant to do last spring is now a stain that takes two passes.

The honest part

Not every item on the list earns its money. If the cabinet boxes are sound, doors and paint get you most of the result for a good deal less, and I'll tell you that even though it's the smaller job. If the budget and the wish list don't match, you'll hear it before you spend anything.

The bigger projects

Moving walls, adding square footage, or reworking the wiring and plumbing behind them is a different kind of job, and it isn't what we take on. Permits inside the city limits run through the City of Tampa, and addresses outside them go through Hillsborough County. Call the right one early and ask two things: what your project needs, and who has to pull it.

Still worth telling us. There's usually a piece we can handle while the big decision waits.