How Should You Compare Remodeling Companies in Central Florida?

A finished KBF kitchen — a rift-cut oak island under a veined marble counter, painted perimeter cabinetry, a custom plaster hood banded in oak, brass bridge faucet and pot filler, and dark ceiling beams above a white-oak floor — Every remodeling company in Central Florida can show you a photograph like this one. None of the decisions that produced it are visible in it — which is exactly why a gallery is the worst place to start a comparison.

Three proposals, three numbers, and no honest way to tell which one is even the same project. Here is how to compare remodeling companies on what can actually be checked.

By Ashley Sheaffer and Adam Vellequette · September 14, 2026

Do you have proposals on the counter that do not agree with each other? Is one well under the rest, with nothing in it that explains why? Does every company’s website show a beautiful kitchen, and none of them show how it got built?

Then compare what can be verified: the licence that covers your scope, whether design and construction sit under one contract or two, what the design phase puts on paper before anyone prices the work, where selections get made, what the warranty says in writing, and how a change gets priced once the walls are open. Those questions have checkable answers. “Who is the best remodeler in Orlando?” does not.

A kitchen, a whole-home remodel or an addition is months of design, engineering, permitting and trade coordination inside a house you still live in. You are not buying a finished room. You are buying a company’s ability to make several hundred decisions in the right order.

What should you verify before you compare anything else?

The licence, because it is public and takes two minutes. Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation publishes a free licence lookup: type the company name, confirm the licence is active, and confirm the classification covers your work. Do it before the first meeting, not after the third.

Then check the shape of the company. A contractor who builds beautifully from finished plans is the wrong first call if your project still needs space planning and cabinetry design. A designer without build-side accountability is the wrong fit if structure and permitting will drive the job. Neither is a flaw. Both are a mismatch.

For the record, so you have a template: KBF Design Gallery is Remodeling Reimagined, LLC, Florida certified general contractor CGC 1529022, family-owned by the Vellequette family since 2003. We are the licensed contractor of record on our projects and pull every permit ourselves. You should get that same paragraph from every company on your list. The ones who cannot have answered the question.

Is the “best remodeler” the same for every project?

No. The best remodeling company is the one that fits your project type, your risk tolerance and the way you like to decide things. A same-footprint bathroom refresh and a whole-home remodel that moves structure are not the same product. The filter:

What to compare	Why it matters	What to ask
Licence	The one claim you can verify yourself, today.	Which licence covers this scope, and what is the number?
Accountability	A seam between two companies is a seam you manage.	Who draws it, who prices it, and is that one contract?
Design output	Drawings and selections are what make a price mean something.	What exists on paper before construction is priced?
Selection support	Materials read differently at full size than on a screen.	Where do we choose cabinetry, stone, tile and lighting?
Warranty	Someone has to be accountable after the final payment.	How long is it, and how do I make a claim?
Changes	Remodels come apart when changes stop being written down.	How is a change priced and approved, and who is my contact?

What does a real design phase actually produce?

Drawings somebody can build from — the fastest way to separate firms that design from firms that sketch.

A KBF construction plan sheet — one kitchen drawn in plan view with separate legends for floorplan, plumbing, electrical, lighting and cabinetry dimensions, and numbered trade notes running down the right-hand margin — One sheet from a KBF plan set. The same kitchen is dimensioned five ways — floorplan, plumbing, electrical, lighting, cabinetry — and the trade notes are numbered past seventy, so nobody on site has to guess. Ask to see one of these before you compare prices.

A rendering shows what a room might feel like. A plan set tells an electrician which outlet goes at which end of the island, at what height, on which circuit. Ask each company for one from a completed project.

In our six-phase process, the completed design becomes a line-item scope and one fixed-scope construction agreement: what you sign is what we build, and anything that changes afterwards goes through a written change order you approve first. That is also the honest answer to the pricing question: a number produced before the design exists is not a price, it is a placeholder. Clause by clause, here.

What should a showroom do before construction starts?

Turn opinions into decisions. That is the job.

A full-scale working kitchen display in the KBF Design Gallery showroom in Maitland — an island with lit display niches and a pot filler, a black hood with brass straps set into a timber surround, open shelving, and a bar-height table with stools — A working display in the Maitland showroom — a real island, a real pot filler, real cabinetry you can open. A drawer glide and a mitred corner do not photograph.

Our Maitland showroom holds 4,500+ square feet of working displays — full kitchens, complete baths, a slab-fronted bar — built the way we build them in your home. Walk-ins are welcome; a booked visit reserves a designer whose whole hour is yours, and a designer can read your floor plan on the spot: which walls are likely load-bearing, where the plumbing wants to stay.

It is also the most honest way to vet a remodeler, ours included — walk in and inspect the cabinetry and finish work the company intends to put in your house.

What proof should outrank the marketing?

Awards, reviews and photography describe outcomes. The proof that reduces your risk describes process, and most of it is documents rather than pictures.

A KBF selections board for a wine bar — prep sink and brass faucet, wine racks, black glazed backsplash tile, stone countertop, black and white marble flooring, brass cabinet hardware, a fluted glass sconce, the paint colour and the cabinet door style, laid out together on one labelled sheet — A selections board for a wine bar. Note the signature and date block at the lower right: this is a document you approve, not a mood board you like.

A selections board is a good example: every item named, specified and laid out against the others, on a sheet with a signature line, because these are decisions being approved rather than moods gathered.

The finished wine bar behind open arched steel-and-glass doors — green cabinetry with brass ring pulls, a black glazed tile backsplash, floating shelves, a brass faucet and a black-and-white marble checkerboard floor — The same room, built. Every labelled item on the board is in this photograph — the tile, the checkerboard floor, the brass, the green, the wine racks through the left-hand door. That correspondence is the proof; the photograph on its own is not.

Warranty is where this gets concrete fastest. A one-year workmanship warranty is the common standard in Florida, so the useful question is what happens in year two. Every KBF project hands off into a 5-year craftsmanship warranty — in writing, with a published claim path. Ask every company for both.

Then the operational questions, which predict how the next six months will feel. Who owns the design decisions? Who manages the site? What happens when something unexpected turns up behind a wall, and who pays for it?

What should you ask before you book a consultation?

Bring questions that expose how a company operates, not how it decorates:

Which licence covers this scope, and are you the contractor of record?
Do you handle design, construction or both — and on how many contracts?
What exists on paper before you give me a construction price?
Which parts of the proposal are allowances, and which are fixed scope?
Who is my contact once work starts, and how many other jobs do they carry?
How long is the workmanship warranty, and how do I claim against it?

The longer version is already written and printable: 9 questions to vet a turnkey remodeling firm. Take it to every consultation, ours included — how a company reacts to the list is itself a data point.

Where we would start

Put the proposals side by side and compare what each one includes before what each one costs. Nine times out of ten the gap between two numbers is not a discount — it is scope one company drew and the other left to be discovered later, or an allowance sitting where a real selection belongs.

Then choose the company whose process makes the invisible part of the project visible before you commit. That is what keeping design and construction under one roof is supposed to buy you, and it is fair to make any firm prove it — including this one.

Sources and Further Reading

Let’s Start the Conversation

If you are comparing remodeling companies in Orlando or Central Florida, bring us your list and your questions. You will get a straight read on fit — whether it is a same-footprint Studio KBF refresh, a full kitchen or bathroom remodel, or a whole-home project.

Visit the Maitland showroom or book a complimentary consultation to get started.

About the Authors

Ashley SheafferCo-Principal

Adam VellequetteCo-Principal

Ashley and Adam, co-principals and siblings, lead KBF Design Gallery with a shared passion for inspired living spaces. Ashley heads the design team, bringing creative vision and aesthetic expertise to every project, while Adam oversees production, ensuring that each detail is executed to the highest standard. Together, they blend artistry and precision to deliver the personalized, high-quality remodels that have become the hallmark of KBF Design Gallery.