How Much Does a Kitchen Remodel Cost in St. Petersburg?

A kitchen remodel in St. Petersburg typically costs between $40,000 and $150,000 or more, depending on scope. If you’re searching for a 12x12 kitchen remodel cost — the most common kitchen size in older St. Pete homes — expect $40,000 to $60,000 for a cosmetic refresh, $75,000 to $100,000 for a mid-range remodel with layout changes, and $100,000+ for a full luxury transformation.

Those numbers come from our project history — not a national survey. Revolution is a Florida licensed general contractor with 20+ years in St. Pete construction and 70% of our projects come from repeat clients and referrals. Your actual cost depends on what you’re starting with, what you want to change, and what your walls are hiding.

Kitchen Remodel Cost by Tier

Here’s how costs break down by project scope in the St. Petersburg market:

How Much Does a 12x12 Kitchen Remodel Cost?

A 12x12 kitchen — 144 square feet — is one of the most common sizes in older St. Pete homes. These are the galley kitchens and compact layouts from the 1920s through the 1960s that were built for cooking, not entertaining.

For a 12x12 kitchen remodel in St. Petersburg:

• Cosmetic refresh: $40,000–$60,000 with RTA cabinets and standard countertops
• Mid-range remodel: $75,000–$100,000 with semi-custom cabinets and some layout changes
• Full transformation: $100,000+ with custom cabinetry, high-end appliances, and structural modifications

The square footage doesn’t tell the whole story. A 12x12 kitchen in a 1940s bungalow with cast iron plumbing and an outdated electrical panel costs more to remodel than the same-size kitchen in a 2005 build. As our owner Jeremy puts it: “In a 100-year-old house, we know that there have been four generations of grandpas and dads doing their DIY bullshit work, so everything from electrical to the flooring to the framing inside the floor — things that we don’t know, that we can’t see until we really are doing some destructive demo.”

That’s not a scare tactic — it’s what we find on nearly every pre-1960s kitchen demo in Old Northeast and Kenwood. On a recent galley-to-open conversion in Old Southeast, cast iron drain replacement to the street added $14,000 to the project before a single cabinet was installed. The homeowner was glad we caught it during demo rather than discovering a backed-up drain six months after move-in.

That’s why getting a realistic estimate matters more than chasing the lowest bid.

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Where Your Kitchen Budget Actually Goes

Understanding what eats your budget helps you make smarter trade-offs. Here’s how costs typically distribute across a full kitchen remodel:

What Causes Kitchen Remodel Costs to Go Over Budget

Cost overruns aren’t random. They follow patterns, and most are avoidable:

1. Cast Iron Plumbing Surprises

St. Pete homes built before the 1970s often have cast iron drain pipes. Eighty years of buildup can mean the pipes need replacement — not just under the kitchen, but all the way to the street. That’s a $10,000 to $20,000 addition you won’t see until demolition day.

2. Starting Construction Without a Finalized Design

This is the most common and most expensive mistake. When the design isn’t locked in before construction starts, changes happen during framing and rough-in. Jeremy sees it regularly: “When people are making design changes on the fly — kitchens happen in a specific order, especially the layout. So if there’s a layout change to a kitchen that just got framed and had plumbing roughed in, that’s gonna cost some amount of thousands of dollars to backtrack.”

3. Cabinet and Appliance Lead Times

Custom cabinets take 6 to 12 weeks from order to delivery. High-end appliances can take longer. If these orders aren’t placed early in pre-construction, your construction crew sits idle waiting — and idle time still costs money on a time-and-materials project. (For a full breakdown of the kitchen remodel timeline, see our guide on how long a kitchen remodel takes.)

4. Outdated Electrical and Structural Surprises

Older homes may have insufficient electrical panels, knob-and-tube wiring, or load-bearing walls where you want open space. Each discovery adds cost and time. This is normal for St. Pete housing stock — it’s not a failure, it’s the reality of working with older buildings.

Why Pricing Model Matters as Much as the Price

Most kitchen remodel quotes in St. Pete come as fixed-price bids. The contractor estimates the job, adds padding for unknowns, and gives you a number. If the job goes easier than expected, they keep the difference. If surprises emerge, they either eat the cost (and cut corners to compensate) or hit you with change orders.

Revolution uses a time-and-materials (T&M) approach instead. Here’s what that means for your kitchen budget:

• Materials billed at cost plus a 30% markup — you see every invoice from every supplier
• Labor billed at hourly rates — you see exactly how many hours each trade works
• Weekly budget reports compare actual spending to the estimate, line by line
• By construction start, 75% of line items are confirmed fixed-price from subcontractors and vendors — that translates to 90–95% budget certainty before a single cabinet gets installed

The difference shows up when your contractor opens a wall and finds something unexpected. On a fixed bid, that conversation is adversarial — someone’s eating the cost. On T&M, it’s collaborative — here’s what we found, here’s what it costs to fix, here’s how it affects the overall budget. You decide how to proceed with full information.

Our 20+ W-2 carpenters handle cabinet installation, custom trim, and finish work directly — they’re not subcontractors juggling three other jobs. When your cabinets arrive, they get installed on schedule by the same crew that did the demo and framing. That consistency matters for quality and for your timeline. Every project includes a one-year bumper-to-bumper warranty.

Kitchen Remodel Cost FAQ

Key Takeaways

• Kitchen remodels in St. Petersburg range from $40,000 (cosmetic refresh) to $150,000+ (luxury transformation) — your cost depends on scope, materials, and what’s hiding in the walls
• A 12x12 kitchen — common in older St. Pete homes — follows the same tiers but often costs more due to aging infrastructure (cast iron plumbing, outdated electrical)
• Cabinetry is your biggest line item (29–40% of budget), followed by countertops and appliances
• The three biggest cost overrun risks are cast iron plumbing surprises, starting without a finalized design, and misaligned lead times
• A T&M pricing model with weekly budget reports gives you real cost visibility — not a padded number with hidden margins

Planning your remodel? Read about how long a kitchen remodel takes or explore kitchen design trends worth the investment. Have an older home? Our guide to small kitchen remodels in older St. Pete homes covers what to expect behind the walls. Compare costs across rooms with our bathroom remodel cost guide, or explore our kitchen remodeling services.