We carry custom, semi-custom and stock lines, and we’ll say so when the less expensive tier does everything you need. In a conditioned Tampa home, the cabinets that deserve the closest look are the sink base and the run beside the dishwasher. Those are the spots where a slow drip can go unnoticed for weeks.
Kitchen Contractors in Tampa, FL
Your kitchen, designed & installed by the same Tampa team
Kitchen contractors in Tampa come in very different shapes. Some are cabinet shops that deliver the boxes and leave. Others are remodelers who hand most of the work to subcontractors once the contract is signed. The question that separates them is simple: how many companies will work in your kitchen before it’s finished?
Your address shapes the job too. A kitchen renovation in Tampa Heights is permitted by the City of Tampa. The same project a few miles north in Carrollwood goes through Hillsborough County. A South Tampa house near the bay may also sit in a flood zone with rules of its own.
At Cabinet IQ of Tampa, we design your kitchen and supply and install the cabinets. Then we template, cut and set the countertops ourselves. Our showroom is on Gunn Highway in the Carrollwood area. The names you’ll hear most are Watson Occilien, who owns the business, and Katya, the designer our customers often mention in their reviews.
What a kitchen contractor handles in a Tampa kitchen renovation
In a Tampa kitchen renovation, the kitchen contractor is responsible for the parts of the room you see and use: the layout, the cabinets, the countertops and how they meet. Work inside the walls follows different rules. Florida requires new plumbing and electrical runs to be done by separately licensed trades, so a good kitchen contractor tells you early which of those your plan needs.
We install quartz, granite, quartzite and porcelain, each cut to a template taken from your installed cabinets. Porcelain is the surface many Tampa homeowners don’t think to ask about. It’s thin, it handles a hot pan, and it holds its color in strong light, which suits a kitchen that opens onto the lanai.
Nothing is ordered until your kitchen has been drawn in 3D with the real cabinet line, door and stone in place. Say you’re torn between an island and a peninsula in a kitchen open to the family room. The rendering shows how much floor you’d have left between the seating and the range.
Your kitchen renovation timeline, stage by stage
Your calendar depends mostly on two things: the cabinet line you choose and whether the work needs a permit. Each stage below closes before the next starts, and each one ends with what decides its length.
Visit the showroom on Gunn Highway or call (813) 210-9982 to set a time. Photos of the room help, as do the model numbers of any appliances you plan to keep. If you still have the survey from your closing paperwork, bring that too.
This first meeting is also where we settle the scope plainly. If your plan involves taking out a wall or moving gas or water lines, we’ll raise it right away. We’ll also tell you which licensed trades that work calls for, so the scope is settled before a single cabinet is ordered. The calendar really starts here, because the scope decides whether a permit belongs in the schedule at all.
Our design team builds the rendering around the cabinet tier, door style and stone you’re leaning toward. Every option is priced as you change it, so the budget moves on screen before it moves on paper.
Ask to see the kitchen from the doorway you use most, not only from overhead. In a Carrollwood ranch where the kitchen faces the sliding door to the lanai, that’s the angle you’ll look at every day. This stage lasts as long as your decisions do, and no install date is set until you’ve approved the design.
Florida licenses contractors through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). A certified license covers the whole state, while a registered one only covers the local areas where that contractor qualified, and both show up on myfloridalicense.com. We’re licensed and insured, with more than 20 years of experience in general contracting.
Cabinet work alone rarely needs a permit, but plumbing changes usually do. Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa each review permits on their own schedule. On a permitted job over $5,000, you’ll also sign and record a Notice of Commencement before work starts.
Our journeyman-level certified installers set the base cabinets first and bring them to level, because the countertop template is taken from them. Slab floors in older Tampa homes are rarely flat across a whole kitchen, so careful shimming along the base run comes before anything else.
Stock cabinets have the fastest lead time of our lines, while custom cabinets are made to order, so your cabinet tier is the biggest factor in the gap between approval and install day. The stone comes on a later visit, once every base cabinet is set and level.
Have your sink in the house before template day, with the faucet and cooktop models confirmed. Every opening in the stone is cut to fit them, and an opening can’t be made smaller once it’s cut.
When the stone is set, we go through the room with you drawer by drawer and note anything that needs adjusting. Pay closest attention to the tall pantry doors and the cabinets beside the refrigerator. Those doors swing the widest, so they’re the first to show if alignment is off.
Run water at the sink and open the dishwasher fully while the crew is still on site. A tight clearance is much easier to correct that day than after everyone has packed up. The project is complete once anything noted on this walkthrough has been adjusted.
Kitchen contractors for Tampa homes
A house usually tells us what the project needs before we’ve measured a wall. Four situations come up again and again around Tampa:
| Your home | What to plan for |
|---|---|
| A 1920s bungalow in Seminole Heights or Tampa Heights | It’s inside city limits, so permits run through the City of Tampa. Older wiring makes any new circuit worth pricing early. |
| A 1970s or 1980s ranch in Carrollwood or Northdale | Permits go to Hillsborough County. Soffits above the old uppers often hide ductwork, so find out what’s inside before planning cabinets to the ceiling. |
| A home near the bay in South Tampa or on Davis Islands | Some sit in a FEMA flood zone. There, the 50% rule can apply when improvement costs reach half the building’s market value. |
| A townhouse or condo near Westshore or downtown | Association approval and elevator bookings come first. Compact layouts make the most of deep drawers and an appliance garage. |
Not sure which applies to you? The Hillsborough County Property Appraiser’s records show the year your house was built and whether it sits inside Tampa’s city limits.
Living with a kitchen renovation in Tampa
A few weeks without a kitchen go more smoothly when meals, deliveries and the weather are planned for. Here’s what helps most:
- Set up a temporary kitchen near a working sink, such as the laundry room or a covered lanai with an outdoor outlet
- Keep the AC at its usual setting for the whole project, even on days the house sits empty, so the cabinets go in at the indoor humidity they’ll live with
- Read your HOA’s rules on contractor parking and work hours, which many Westchase and New Tampa communities set
- Choose a conditioned room for delivered cartons rather than the garage
If you live in a condo, the association’s sign-off usually comes before everything else on this list.
What’s included with Cabinet IQ of Tampa
Your project starts with a free design consultation and a 3D rendering of your kitchen. From there, one price covers the cabinets, the countertops we fabricate in house, and installation by our own crew.
Before install day, the finished design goes through our 57-point design Quality Assurance Check. When the work is done, we leave the kitchen vacuumed out and wiped down. You’ll buy the sink from your own supplier. We also don’t reface or paint existing cabinets, since we replace them.
Only replacing the cabinets?
Not every kitchen needs a contractor managing a full renovation. If the sink, range and refrigerator are staying where they are, new cabinets and stone may be the whole job. Our cost calculator gives you a starting figure from the length of your cabinet runs.
Try the cost calculatorKitchen contractors near Tampa
From our Gunn Highway showroom, we take on kitchens across Tampa and in these nearby towns:
North Tampa, Brandon, Plant City, Zephyrhills, Lakeland, Clearwater, St. Petersburg.
Frequently asked questions
The total follows your cabinet tier, your stone and how much of the room changes. The kitchen cost calculator gives a first range for cabinets. Your consultation turns your choices into a full price.
Florida’s owner-builder exemption lets you permit work on your own home, but you take on the legal responsibility a contractor would carry. If you sell or lease the house within a year of completion, the law presumes you built it to sell.
Yes. Builders and contractors bring their clients to our showroom to choose cabinets and stone together. We then design and install those pieces around the rest of their schedule.
Start by asking who pulls the permit and whether the installers are employees or subcontractors. The checks in how to choose a kitchen remodeling company in Tampa cover deposits, liens and the rest.
Ask for certificates of general liability and workers’ compensation, then confirm them with the insurer directly. If an uninsured worker is hurt in your home, the claim can end up on your own homeowner’s policy.