Cabinet Service Area: Mobile and Baldwin County

Two counties, one bay, two different jobs

The service area splits neatly along Mobile Bay, and so does the work. Mobile County on the western side holds the city of Mobile, 187,041 residents at the 2020 census, with a housing stock running from antebellum and Victorian downtown through streets of raised cottages and craftsman bungalows out to post-war ranches. Saraland sits 9 miles north on US 43. That side of the bay is where scribing, out-of-square allowances and custom cabinet widths earn their keep.

Baldwin County on the eastern side held 231,767 residents at the 2020 census and is the fourth most populous county in Alabama. Daphne, Fairhope and Spanish Fort along the Eastern Shore have grown between 46 and 48 percent since 2010 between them, which means most of the housing there was built square and level. Gulf Shores at the coastal end adds condominium work and a salt air problem. That side is where the conversation is about layout, storage and finish rather than geometry.

The Mobile, Daphne and Fairhope combined statistical area reached 661,964 people at the 2020 census. The climate specification is the same across all of it: the USDA Forest Products Laboratory recommends an in-service moisture content of 11 percent for interior woodwork in the damp, warm coastal area against 8 percent across most of the country, and NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals for Mobile Regional Airport record 66.15 inches of annual precipitation and a mean dew point of 72.0 degrees in mid-July against 39.4 in mid-January.

Every place we cover

Mobile County

Mobile

The city itself is the largest part of the work and the part with the most demanding geometry. Older neighbourhoods have settled for a century on Gulf Coast soil, been re-levelled and been through more than one storm, so walls lean, floors slope and ceiling heights vary between rooms in the same house. Cabinets are measured at three heights, levelled to a laser line struck from the floor's high point, and scribed at every wall junction.

Saraland

Nine miles north of downtown on US 43, between I-65 and US 43, with 16,171 residents at the 2020 census and its own school district since 2008. Saraland has the most mixed housing stock in the service area, running from 1950s and 1960s mid-century ranches through steady newer development, which is why the advice there changes more by decade than by address.

Baldwin County and the Eastern Shore

Spanish Fort

Nine miles from Mobile across Battleship Parkway and the causeway, reached by US 90 and US 98 or by I-10 exits 35 and 38. Incorporated only in 1993 and up 47.8 percent between 2010 and 2020, which means almost no old housing stock and a great deal of square, level construction.

Daphne

The most populous city in Baldwin County at 27,462, about 11 miles east of Mobile, with I-10 running near the northern boundary and three exits into the city. Population rose 143 percent between 1990 and 2020, so the dominant housing is modern subdivision construction.

Fairhope

Six miles south of Daphne on a sloping plateau from sea level at the bay to about 115 feet at the town centre, founded 15 November 1894 as a single-tax colony. Two housing populations side by side: cottages and bungalows from the town's first decades, and newer growth behind a 46.7 percent rise since 2010.

Gulf Shores

The coastal end of Baldwin County, where the housing runs to high-rise beachfront condominiums behind low-rise cottages. Salt air and building access rules shape the work here more than the walls do, and hardware selection becomes a durability decision rather than an aesthetic one.