Free written scope consultation - allowances, timeline, and change-order rules on paper before a single trade is scheduled
Wellborn Kitchen Remodeling: The Tampa Owner’s Guide
If you have a Wellborn kitchen and something has failed – a cabinet door that won’t close, a drawer slide that binds, a hinge that’s pulled loose from the frame – we match the part to your specific Wellborn line, price the repair in writing, and install it. Most Wellborn cabinet part replacements in Tampa run between $200 and $900 installed, depending on whether we’re swapping hardware on a few doors or rebuilding a drawer box, and we carry common Wellborn hinges, slides, and touch-up kits on the truck. A full kitchen remodel around existing Wellborn cabinets – new doors, new drawer fronts, new counters – typically lands between $14,000 and $45,000 in Tampa. The way owners usually find us: a drawer started grinding three months ago, got ignored, and finally dropped a wheel onto the kitchen floor at 6:15 on a Tuesday morning. The kids heard it. The dog heard it. We answer the phone when you call.
Here’s the part that matters before you scroll any further: we give you a written price before any work starts. Not a range that grows once the crew arrives. Graham Stein, our owner, writes the scope down, names the exact Wellborn part numbers and the labor, and signs it. We write it down before we start so nobody is guessing mid-project. That has been the rule since day one, and the 365-Day Done Right Promise backs it – if the repair isn’t done right, we make it right.
Which Wellborn Models This Applies To
Wellborn builds across three main series lines – Estate, Premier, and Select – and the catch is that hinge and slide hardware differs between them. Estate cabinets, Wellborn’s all-plywood construction line, use a thicker door profile that takes a different hinge cup depth than Premier or Select doors. If you buy a generic hinge off a home center shelf assuming “it’s all the same,” the door will sit proud of the frame by a quarter inch and never close flush. We’ve seen that install more than once in Tampa, and fixing it means re-drilling a hinge cup that should have been right the first time.
How to identify your Wellborn line before you call us: look inside the sink cabinet door. Wellborn stamps a code there, usually a four or five digit number with a letter series marker, along with the door profile name. If the stamp is gone, measure the door thickness – Estate is a full 3/4 inch, Premier and Select run 5/8 inch. That single measurement narrows the hardware pool by about 80 percent. For the OEM-versus-aftermarket question: for hinge and slide replacements on Wellborn boxes that are under 15 years old, we use Wellborn-spec hardware from the same suppliers Wellborn uses, because the mounting footprints match without filler plates. On older Wellborn cabinets where the original hardware is discontinued, a quality aftermarket hinge such as Blum or Salice with the correct overlay works and carries its own lifetime mechanical warranty. We’ll tell you which one applies to your kitchen and why, in writing, before you spend a dollar.
Elmstead Remodeling Tampa is an independent contractor. We are not a Wellborn dealer or factory arm, and we don’t represent ourselves as one. We work on Wellborn cabinets daily, we know their hardware, and we source what we don’t stock.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Wellborn Kitchen Remodeling Is Failing
- Drawer slides that grind or catch mid-pull. The ball bearings inside the slide have worn flat or the nylon rollers have cracked. On Wellborn Premier and Select lines, the original slide is usually a 3/4-extension epoxy-coated unit; once it catches, the drawer will eventually derail and drop.
- A cabinet door that won’t stay closed. The self-close mechanism inside the hinge has lost spring tension. In Tampa’s humidity, fine metal springs inside concealed hinges corrode faster than in dry climates, and when they go, the door hangs open a half inch all day.
- A door that sags so the top corner scrapes the frame. The hinge screws have stripped out of the particleboard stile, or the hinge plate has bent. On a Select line cabinet, the plate is thinner steel; once it bends, tightening the screw just buries the plate deeper.
- Finish wear or peeling along the bottom rail under the sink. Water has gotten under the conversion varnish. Florida kitchens see more standing moisture on cabinet faces than almost anywhere in the country – a drip from a sink edge that never quite gets wiped down will lift Wellborn’s finish on the bottom rail within a few years.
- A drawer front that wiggles freely from the box. The screw holes in the drawer front have stripped or the glue joint between the front and box has let go. This is one of the most common Wellborn repairs we do in Tampa, because the drawers take the most daily abuse in a family kitchen.
See the difference
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AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
A full Wellborn kitchen remodel in Tampa – new cabinet doors, drawer fronts, hinges, slides, and countertops – runs $14,000 to $45,000 installed. The lower end covers a smaller kitchen, say ten to fourteen boxes, with Select line doors and a laminate top. The upper end is a larger Estate line kitchen with hardwood doors, soft-close everything, and a Cambria or Silestone countertop. We also complete smaller scoped parts of the work: cabinet installation alone runs $4,000 to $13,000, countertop installation $2,000 to $6,500, backsplash $800 to $2,500, and a kitchen island from $3,000 to $10,000.
Every one of those numbers is a written, fixed price before any work starts. The written price includes the parts, the labor, the delivery, and the clean-up. No change orders unless you change the scope. If the job is done and something fails inside 365 days, we fix it – no invoice, no arguing. You also get the clean-up on record: a photo of the finished work and the cleaned site before the crew leaves, every time.
DIY or Call Us?
The safe DIY checks on a Wellborn kitchen: tighten a loose hinge screw, check whether a drawer front has stripped its screw holes, wipe the slides clean and re-lubricate with a dry silicone. None of that requires pulling a cabinet apart. Where owners in Tampa get into trouble is replacing concealed hinges themselves – the cup hole diameter and depth are not standard across the industry, and drilling a new cup into a Wellborn door without a jig usually results in a blown-out back panel and a door that has to be replaced. Same with drawer slides: the mounting plate width is either 45 millimeters wide or 35 millimeters, and if you guess wrong, the drawer sits crooked and binds. If the job involves any structural repair to a cabinet box, or anything electrical in the kitchen, that’s a call to us, not a ladder and a flashlight. Call (850) 779-4017 and we’ll tell you over the phone whether it’s a screwdriver fix or a truck roll. Estimates are always free.
FAQs
Wellborn all-plywood Estate cabinets can last 30-plus years in a Florida kitchen with basic care, while Premier and Select boxes – which use particleboard in the stiles and rails – typically give you 15 to 25 years before door hinges start pulling loose in Tampa’s humidity. The hardware usually fails before the box does, which is why a hinge or slide replacement is often the right repair rather than a full tear-out.
Most failed Wellborn parts – hinges, slides, drawer fronts, finish wear on a bottom rail – can be repaired in place without replacing the whole cabinet. We assess the box, match the part, and write the repair price. If the cabinet box itself is water-swollen or delaminated, replacement of that single box is usually the honest call. Call us at (850) 779-4017 and we’ll tell you which applies after a look.
A hinge or slide replacement on one or two cabinets takes about an hour on site. A full kitchen of new Wellborn doors and drawer fronts typically takes two to four working days in Tampa, including re-hanging, adjusting, and the clean-up walkthrough. We’ll tell you the day count in writing before work begins.
We stock common Wellborn-compatible hinges, slides, and touch-up materials on the truck for immediate repair calls around Tampa. For Wellborn-specific door profiles, drawer fronts, and finish-matched components, we order from Wellborn’s supply network with a standard lead time of two to three weeks. We’ll tell you which path your job takes before any charge.
Written by Graham Stein, Owner, Elmstead Remodeling Tampa at Elmstead Remodeling Tampa, serving Tampa and nearby areas.
