RSB Empire → Construction → Kitchen & Bath Remodeling
Sheet A-106 · Bell Engineering & Construction
Kitchens and bathrooms carry the value of a home — they're where remodeling money works hardest. Pick your room below, or do both at once and save on the combined mobilization.
Scope of Work
Every job is run under general contractor license CGC1528750, and the company is an EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm (#NAT-F122701-2) — which matters the moment you open walls in a Palm Beach County house built before 1978. Pricing depends entirely on scope: call (561) 779-3213 for a free estimate.
Before Demolition Day
The single most common way a Palm Beach County kitchen or bath remodel goes sideways is starting work with only half the paperwork. There are two independent gates, and clearing one does nothing for the other.
A cosmetic refresh — paint, new flooring, replacing cabinet doors, swapping a faucet in the same location — often needs no permit. But the moment the work touches plumbing, electrical, gas, or structure, it does. In practice that means almost every real remodel: moving a sink or shower drain, adding the dedicated circuits a modern kitchen needs, relocating a range, converting a tub to a walk-in shower, or taking out a wall to open the kitchen to the living room. Kitchens usually pull a building permit plus plumbing and electrical trades; bathrooms pull plumbing, and electrical whenever exhaust, lighting, or GFCI circuits change.
Which office you file with depends on your address, not your zip code. Unincorporated Palm Beach County — including much of The Acreage — goes through the county's Planning, Zoning & Building department, while Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Loxahatchee Groves, Jupiter, Lake Worth Beach, Boynton Beach and Greenacres each run their own building departments with their own submittal rules and fee schedules. Straightforward permits that need no plan review are typically issued in a matter of days; anything structural — removing a load-bearing wall, adding a header, changing an opening — goes to plan review and takes longer. That review time is part of your schedule, so it belongs in the plan up front rather than as a surprise in week three. We pull the permits, we meet the inspectors, and the inspection card is ours to clear — not yours.
If you own a condo, townhome, or a house in an HOA community, your association almost certainly requires its own written approval before work begins — and it is a completely separate process from the permit. A typical package asks for a renovation request form, a written scope of work, your contractor's license and certificate of insurance, and sometimes drawings of what is changing. Boards also impose their own rules: permitted work hours, where a dumpster or material staging may sit, elevator and hallway protection in mid-rise buildings, how and when building water may be shut off, and in many condos a minimum impact-insulation rating under hard flooring so the unit below does not hear your new tile. Starting without that approval can mean fines, a stop-work order from the association, or being told to undo finished work.
This is where a contractor who is also a licensed Community Association Manager (CAM34850) is worth the phone call. Randolph has sat on both sides of that table — assembling the owner's submittal, and reviewing them for boards — so the package goes in complete the first time and the crew shows up already knowing the building's rules. He is also a licensed REALTOR®, which means the advice you get is about what the room will be worth, not just what it will cost.
Cost Factors
Two kitchens the same size can be worlds apart in price. It is rarely the square footage — it is these decisions, roughly in order of impact.
We do not publish package prices, because a real number requires seeing your room. What you get instead is a written scope that says exactly what is included, and a one-year written workmanship warranty when it is done.
How It Runs
Remodels feel chaotic when nobody explains the order. Here is the order.
The Florida Part
Kitchens and bathrooms are where a South Florida house wins or loses its air quality. Two rooms full of water, in a climate that runs above 70% relative humidity for months, connected to a cooling system that was probably sized before anyone thought about ventilation. So we treat the mechanical side as seriously as the tile.
Bath exhaust gets sized to the room and ducted outside the building — not dumped into the attic, which is how a bathroom fan becomes a mold problem in the roof deck. Range hoods get a real exhaust path where the layout allows one. Open walls are an opportunity nobody should waste: this is the cheapest moment in the life of a house to air-seal penetrations, insulate an exterior wall properly, and get plumbing chases sealed against the attic. Randolph is a RESNET® Florida Class 1 Energy Rater (RTIN 4516301) and a licensed blower-door tester, so those calls get made by someone who measures buildings for a living — see energy-efficient home improvement for how those upgrades can also lower your bills, and note that the same walk-through often finds insurance-credit opportunities elsewhere in the house.
Questions, Answered
If you can, yes — one permit package, one mobilization, one dust-protection setup, and the trades (plumber, electrician, tile) overlap efficiently. Combined projects almost always cost less than doing the rooms a year apart.
Both rank at the top of return-on-investment for Florida homes. Kitchens influence buyers most; bathrooms are cheaper to transform. As a licensed REALTOR®, Randolph can tell you which one your specific house needs before you spend a dollar.
Licensed trades work under our GC license and our supervision. One contract, one responsible party, one phone number — ours.
If the work touches plumbing, electrical, gas, or structure — yes. That covers moving a sink or shower drain, adding dedicated kitchen circuits, converting a tub to a walk-in shower, or removing a wall. Purely cosmetic work like paint, flooring, or a same-footprint cabinet-door change usually does not. Where you file depends on your address: unincorporated Palm Beach County goes through the county building department, while Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Jupiter, Lake Worth Beach, Boynton Beach and Greenacres each run their own. We pull the permits and meet the inspectors as part of the job.
Almost always, and it is a separate approval from the building permit — one does not substitute for the other. Expect a renovation request form, a written scope, your contractor's license and insurance certificate, and sometimes drawings. Boards commonly set work hours, staging and dumpster rules, elevator protection requirements, water shut-off scheduling, and minimum sound-insulation ratings under hard flooring. Randolph is a licensed Community Association Manager (CAM34850), so we assemble that package the way boards want to receive it.
Most of the calendar is permitting and material lead times, not swinging hammers. A bathroom is typically a few weeks of on-site work; a full kitchen usually longer, governed by cabinet delivery and the countertop template that can only happen after cabinets are set. Add plan-review time on the front end for any structural change. You will get an honest schedule before you sign — including the waiting weeks.
For a bathroom, yes, as long as the house has another working bathroom — we will tell you straight if it does not. For a kitchen, most clients stay and set up a temporary counter with the fridge and microwave; we can usually keep the refrigerator live through most of the job. Work areas get dust containment and floor protection, and the water is only off for scheduled windows we tell you about in advance.
Because stone is templated off the cabinets after they are installed, not off the drawings. Digital templating, fabrication, and install is a real interval, and any shop that promises to skip it is guessing at your dimensions. We schedule it in from day one so it is expected rather than alarming — and yes, you get a temporary work surface in the meantime.
Four common ones: cast-iron drain lines that have thinned from the inside and are worth replacing while the floor is open; galvanized supply piping; an electrical panel with no room for the dedicated circuits modern kitchens require; and bath fans that were never ducted outside. There is also lead paint to consider in anything pre-1978, which is why we hold EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm #NAT-F122701-2. None of these are disasters — they are just much cheaper to find during scoping than during demolition.
Either way. Bring a designer's plan and we will build it, or bring a photo you like and we will help you land on cabinets, tile, counters, and fixtures that fit the room, the budget, and the lead time you can live with. What we will not do is order from an unresolved decision — selections get locked before the permit goes in, because that is what keeps a project on schedule.
There is no honest package price, and anyone quoting one over the phone is guessing. Whether the plumbing moves, what is behind your walls, cabinet tier, countertop material, tile pattern, and structural changes drive the number far more than the room's size. Call (561) 779-3213 for a free estimate and you will get a written scope that states exactly what is included — plus a one-year written workmanship warranty on the finished work.
Yes, and this is the part most contractors skip. Open walls are the cheapest moment in a house's life to air-seal penetrations, insulate properly, and duct exhaust fans where they belong. Randolph is a RESNET® Florida Class 1 Energy Rater (RTIN 4516301) and a licensed blower-door tester, so those measures get specified by someone who measures buildings for a living. See energy-efficient home improvement.
Free estimate, 24-hour response, and a licensed contractor who answers his own phone.
Cabinets, counters, islands, and lighting — the full kitchen scope, permitted and inspected.
Walk-in shower conversions, tub-to-shower, vanities, tile and waterproofing done to last in a humid climate.
Contained interior tear-outs, hauled and cleaned — including lead-safe practices in pre-1978 homes.
Air sealing, insulation, and exhaust ventilation specified by a RESNET® Florida Class 1 Energy Rater while your walls are open.