Forty-eight years in the trade. One more lap, on cabinets.

At 18 Jim went to work for a general contractor in Tampa. The company sent him through four years of carpentry school and promoted him from laborer to superintendent of light commercial jobs. He stayed more than ten years, then started his own subcontracting business and moved into residential work.

He has been at it ever since. The legal name is Cooper Renovation Services, LLC. The name on the truck and this site is Jim Cooper Cabinetry, adopted in 2020. He is slowing down on purpose. Full renovations are giving way to the work he wants for this last lap: cabinets and built-ins, shop-built, fitted to the house, meant to stay.

A kitchen he built as part of an old farmhouse renovation aired on the Magnolia Network in 2003. He still measures every job himself, sketches it, and comes back with the crew to install it.

He met Karen on a commercial jobsite. They have been married more than 44 years. Two grown children. Four grandchildren, 16 down to 5. When you call, you get Jim.

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