Countertop Replacement Davie, FL
Countertop replacement Davie, where the cabinets stay exactly where they are and only what sits on top of them changes, and nothing comes out until your new top is fabricated and on the truck.
- Cabinets
- Stay in place
- Template to install
- 2–3 weeks
- Warranty
- 2 years
- License
- CGC1524886
- Licensed & insured: CGC1524886
- 500+ kitchens completed
- 2-year workmanship warranty
- Answered 7 AM–10 PM, 7 days
A countertop replacement is defined by what stays, not by what goes. The cabinets stay, the layout stays, the plumbing stays where it is, and everything that sits on top of the boxes comes out: the old top, the four-inch splash if it is laminate, and usually the sink. It is the most common partial project we run, and it is the fastest visible change there is in a dated kitchen, which is exactly why it gets sold to people whose cabinets cannot carry it.
When Replacing the Counter Is the Right Move, and When It Is Not
Replacing the counter and keeping the cabinets is the right call in four situations, and there is a fifth where it is the wrong one.
The top is finished and the kitchen is not. Laminate in a Davie house from the eighties has usually been through thirty summers: the seam at the sink has opened, the deck under it is soft, there is a burn ring beside the range and the edge banding has lifted. None of that is repairable, and none of it says anything about the boxes below.
You are changing the sink or the cooktop. A drop-in sink cannot become an undermount without a new top, because the cutout has to be fabricated and polished from underneath. The same goes for a wider cooktop. If a fixture is changing, the counter was always part of the job.
You are selling, or you are three years from selling. The counter is the surface a buyer touches and photographs, and it is the single line item that resets how the whole kitchen reads without touching the layout. It is also the cheapest way to find out whether you actually need a remodel.
The cabinets are sound. This is the gate, and it is the reason we look before we quote. Most boxes in this market are particleboard, which is the panel that handles humidity worst of the engineered woods, a point building scientists have made bluntly for years, that particleboard is what mold picks when it has a choice. In a Davie kitchen the place it shows is the sink base: the floor of that cabinet, the back corners, and the deck right around the bowl. If those are dry and square, the boxes will carry a stone top for another twenty years and a replacement is a good decision.
Where it is the wrong call: when the sink base has already gone soft, and when the layout is the real complaint. A new counter on a failing box is money spent twice, because the box comes out in two years and takes the slab with it. And if what bothers you is that the fridge blocks the corner or there is nowhere to put a plate down, no surface fixes that. We will say so, and it costs you a measurement instead of a slab.
The Three Decisions That Change a Countertop Replacement
Three decisions get made before a slab is ordered. All three move the price, all three change how the finished kitchen looks, and all three are things people find out about on install day when nobody raised them beforehand.
The sink: keep it, or change it
A drop-in sink sits in a hole and rests its rim on the counter. An undermount hangs below the stone, which means the cutout is fabricated in the shop, the exposed edge is polished, and the bowl is supported from underneath with clips and a rail. Undermount is what most people want and it is why they are replacing the top in the first place. Reusing your existing sink is possible if it is an undermount already and it is in good condition; a drop-in almost never comes back, because the hole in the new slab is cut for the sink you are actually keeping.
The backsplash: what the new top meets at the wall
If you have a four-inch laminate splash, it comes off with the counter and leaves a raw band of wall behind it. That band has to become something: a stone splash cut from the same slab, tile, or paint after the drywall is patched. If you have full-height tile, it usually stays, and the new top dies into it with a caulk joint, but tile set on top of the old counter will have a gap under it when the new top sits at a different height, and that gets solved with a taller top or a course of tile. Nobody enjoys this conversation on install day. We have it at the measurement.
The edge and the overhang
Laminate is about an inch and a half of visible profile with a rolled front. A three-centimeter stone top reads thicker and sits differently over the cabinet face, and a two-centimeter with a built-up edge reads thicker still. That changes the overhang past the doors, the clearance at the dishwasher, and whether the outlet strip under the wall cabinets still lines up. It is a small dimension that shows in every photo of the kitchen, so it is worth deciding on purpose.
How a Countertop Replacement Runs, Step by Step
- Measure and look under the sink, at your house, free. We measure the run along each wall, open the sink base, check whether the boxes are level and sound, and write down the sink, the cooktop and what the counter meets at the wall.
- A written number before anything is ordered. One price, itemized: material, fabrication, edge, cutouts, seams, tear-out and disposal, plumbing disconnect and reconnect. It does not move unless you approve a change in scope.
- Material selection. Solid colors go off a sample. Anything with heavy veining, you go look at the actual slab, because the pattern is not repeatable and the sample does not tell you where the veins land on your run.
- Templating, on the cabinets you already have. A digital template is taken off the real boxes, which is also when a run that is out of level gets shimmed and recorded. Countertop height, overhang and the clearances around the sink and the range are set here, not on install day.
- Fabrication in the shop, while you keep using your kitchen. Cutouts for the sink, the cooktop and the faucet are cut on a CNC from the template. This is the two to three weeks, and your old counter is still in place and still working the entire time.
- Tear-out and installation, the same day. The old top comes out, the old sink and splash go with it, we haul them away, and the new slab is set, leveled and seamed. Nothing comes out until the new top is fabricated and on the truck. That is the whole reason this is a day and not a month.
- Plumbing reconnect and walkthrough. Faucet, disposal and drain go back the same day, we run water, and we go through the whole run with you and write down anything that is not right before we ask for the last payment.
What a Countertop Replacement Costs in Davie
A countertop replacement is priced off the square footage of the new top, the same as any counter, and the material decides the band. Our estimate for a quartz replacement is $4,500 to $7,500 on a typical Davie kitchen of around thirty feet of counter. That works out to the order of $55 to $85 per square foot installed for the standard series most kitchens land on. Those are our numbers, not a market average, and the one that binds us is the written estimate after we have templated. The per-material ranges live on the pages under countertop contractor, because the slab is most of the money.
What is specific to a replacement is the second list, the lines that do not exist when a counter goes onto brand-new cabinets, and the ones that separate two estimates that look identical:
| The line | What it covers | Who leaves it out |
|---|---|---|
| Tear-out and disposal | pulling the old top and splash, and hauling them away | quoted "material and install" |
| Plumbing disconnect and reconnect | faucet, drain and disposal off and back on, water tested | very often |
| The sink | a new undermount if yours is a drop-in, plus the fabricated cutout | quoted as "sink cutout" only |
| The wall behind it | the raw band a four-inch splash leaves, patched or covered | almost always |
| Levelling the run | shimming boxes that are out before the slab goes down | found on install day |
Ours are inside the countertop number, itemized so you can see them. That is not generosity, it is the only way a written price can hold: an estimate that leaves five known lines out is not a price, it is an opening position.
What actually moves the number
Square footage first, then the material and the series. After that: how many seams the run needs, how many cutouts, whether the edge is standard or fabricated, and whether the slab has a pattern that has to be matched across a seam. Your zip code is not on that list. We charge the same in Davie, Weston and Fort Lauderdale.
One question worth asking whoever quotes you
Ask who is actually fabricating and installing the slab, and whether that shop is accredited. The trade's own association publishes a list of countertop fabricators it has accredited against a written standard, and the reason it exists is that in this trade the company that sells you the counter and the company that cuts it are frequently not the same, and the second one is the one that decides where your seam lands. It costs you nothing to ask and it sorts a lot of the spread between three estimates.
Why Choose Us
Your old counter does not come out until the new one is fabricated and sitting on the truck. That is an operating rule and not a preference: it is what keeps a countertop replacement to one or two days of a kitchen you cannot use instead of three weeks of a plywood board on the boxes.
The plumbing is inside the number. Disconnecting and reconnecting the sink is the classic line that turns into a separate charge on install day, and ours is part of the countertop job: shutting the water, pulling the faucet and drain, setting the sink back, testing it. If you are comparing quotes, ask the other two whether theirs is.
We look under the sink before we quote. If the boxes cannot carry the top, you hear it at the measurement, with the cost to correct it, and you decide, instead of finding out on demolition morning when the number changes and you have no options left.
The crews work under Gaven Constructions, license CGC1524886, insured, with a two-year workmanship warranty on the installation. And someone answers this phone from 7 AM to 10 PM every day, which is the part most people end up caring about while they are collecting three estimates.
Licensed, Insured, and Permitted in Davie
Swapping a counter is usually the least regulated work in a kitchen: nothing structural moves, the cabinets stay, and the slab sits where the old one sat. What pulls it into review is anything that moves. Disconnecting and reconnecting a sink in the same place is one thing; relocating the sink, moving a drain or a supply line, or changing the electrical for a wider cooktop is another. The Town of Davie publishes the general rule it works from, quoting Florida Building Code 104.1: that altering or installing regulated equipment requires an application and a permit first, and that when in doubt you ask the Building Department. The determination on your particular scope belongs to them and not to us. We do not publish a table telling you which side of that line your job falls on, because following a contractor's table is your exposure and not ours. What we publish is when you find out: in the written estimate, priced, before you approve the project.
- License
- CGC1524886 Certified General Contractor, verifiable in the Florida DBPR licensee search.
- Insurance
- Insured and bonded Certificates are available before any work is scheduled.
- Workmanship warranty
- 2 years On installation labor. Most of this market publishes one.
- Permits and design
- Priced before approval Requirements vary by project scope. Any required permitting, drawings, engineering, or design services are identified and priced before the project is approved.
- Who contracts the work
- Gaven Constructions Kitchen Remodeler Davie was acquired by Gaven Constructions, a licensed contractor since 2015. Every estimate and invoice is issued in that name, which is what puts the license behind the job.
Common Questions
How much does it cost to replace kitchen countertops in Davie, FL?
The slab is most of it, so the material sets the band. Our estimate for a quartz replacement is $4,500 to $7,500 on a typical Davie kitchen of about thirty feet of counter, which works out around $55 to $85 per square foot installed for the standard series; granite, quartzite, marble and porcelain each sit in their own range. What is specific to a replacement is the second list: tear-out and disposal of the old top, plumbing disconnect and reconnect, a new sink if yours is a drop-in, whatever the old four-inch splash leaves behind on the wall, and shimming a run of cabinets that is out of level. Those five lines are why two estimates for the same kitchen can differ by a lot while both look like fair prices. Ours are inside the countertop number and itemized. When you compare quotes, compare that list and not the headline rate per square foot.
Can you replace countertops without replacing the cabinets in a Davie kitchen?
Yes, and it is the most common partial project we run, but it depends on one thing we check before quoting, which is whether the boxes can carry the new top. Most cabinets in this market are particleboard, the panel that handles humidity worst, and in a Davie kitchen the place it shows is the sink base: the cabinet floor, the back corners and the deck around the bowl. If those are dry and square, the boxes will hold a stone top for another twenty years and you should absolutely keep them. If the sink base has already gone soft, a new counter on it is money spent twice, because the box comes out within a couple of years and takes the slab with it. That is a five-minute look with a flashlight at the measurement, and it is the difference between buying a counter and buying a kitchen.
How long does a countertop replacement take in Davie, and how long is my kitchen unusable?
Two to three weeks from template to installation, and one to two days without a kitchen. Those are different numbers and the second is the one that matters. The weeks are fabrication: the slab is cut, the cutouts are made and the edges are worked in the shop, and during all of it your existing counter is still in place and you are still cooking on it. Nothing comes out until the new top is finished and on the truck. On install day the old top and splash come out, we haul them away, the new slab is set, leveled and seamed, and the faucet, drain and disposal go back the same day, tested before we leave. Some installers pull the old counter first and leave you with plywood while the slab is made. That is a scheduling choice and it is worth asking about before you sign.
Do you have to replace the backsplash when you replace a countertop in Davie?
It depends entirely on what you have now. A four-inch laminate splash is part of the counter and comes off with it, which leaves a raw band of wall that has to become something: a stone splash cut from the same slab, tile, or drywall patched and painted. Full-height tile usually stays, and the new top dies into it with a caulk joint. The catch is height: tile that was set down onto the old counter can leave a gap when a thicker top sits higher, and that gets solved with the slab thickness or a course of tile, decided at the measurement rather than discovered on install day. There is no universal answer here, which is exactly why we ask for a photo of what your counter meets at the wall before we quote anything.
Can I keep my existing sink in a Davie countertop replacement, or do I need a new one?
If it is an undermount in good condition, it can usually be reused: the new slab is cut for that specific bowl and the sink is refitted with new clips and support. If it is a drop-in, the kind whose rim sits on top of the counter, it almost never comes back, and the reason is that people replacing a counter are usually replacing it to get rid of that rim. An undermount cutout is fabricated and polished in the shop from the template, so the sink has to be chosen before the slab is cut, not after. Faucets are the same conversation: if the new top has a different thickness or a different hole layout, this is the cheap moment to change the faucet, and an expensive one later.
Is it cheaper to replace the countertop or to resurface it in a Davie kitchen?
Resurfacing is cheaper on the day and it is a real option for a specific kitchen: one where the deck under the laminate is sound, the layout is right, and what you want is a different look for a fraction of the money. Replacement costs more and buys something different: a new substrate, a new sink cutout, a real stone or engineered surface with its own manufacturer warranty, and no dependence on what is underneath. The honest way to choose is to start with the deck. If the top is soft anywhere, resurfacing is putting a new finish on a failing base and you will pay twice. If it is solid and the budget is the constraint, resurfacing is not a compromise, it is the right call. We quote both and we will tell you plainly when your kitchen is not a candidate for the cheaper one.
Recent Kitchen Remodeling Projects in Davie
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Kitchen opened to the living room, with a seated island Luxury kitchen remodeling -
Galley kitchen opened up on one wall Galley kitchen remodeling -
Island cabinetry with seating and a full perimeter run Kitchen island cabinetry -
Refaced cabinets, shaker fronts and a tile backsplash Cabinet refacing
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Cabinets refinished in navy under the existing granite Cabinet refinishing -
Drawer bank under the cooktop, pantry beside the fridge Custom kitchen cabinets -
Counter at two heights, open underneath Accessible kitchen remodeling -
A wider walkway between the wall run and the island Kitchen layout redesign
Replacement is one of the jobs we do under countertop contractor, where the per-material pages break down what each surface costs and how it behaves in this climate.
Send us the linear feet, the sink and a photo of the backsplash.
Measure the run of counter along each wall, tell us whether the sink is dropped in or undermounted, and send a photo of what the counter meets at the wall. That is enough to put you in a band before anybody schedules a template.
Call (786) 780-2728