Trimming

Trim is the last thing to go into your house and the first thing anybody notices.

On our own builds, the crew hanging your casing is the crew that framed the walls behind it. They blocked for the railing, the wall cabinets and the built ins back at the framing stage, which is why the fixings land in solid wood instead of a hollow bay. Nothing has to be scribed around somebody else's mistake.

You can also bring us in as the trim crew on a job somebody else framed, anywhere inside 100 miles of Seekonk, and the estimate for it is free. Either way it is our own carpenters cutting the finish, and one person to call about it. No more than a third of the price is due up front. Massachusetts Home Improvement Contractor 213949 and Rhode Island Contractor GC-51642 are both numbers you can look up before you call.

Where the job gets judged

Nobody runs a finger along a stud. Everybody runs a finger along a casing. Trim is the only part of the build most people ever touch, so it carries the whole impression of the work behind it, fairly or not. That is why your inside corners get coped and not mitered. A miter on an inside corner looks identical on the day and opens into a visible line the first winter, because the wood moves and the joint has nothing to hold it.

A coped joint closes on itself as it moves. It takes longer on the day, and it is the difference between trim that still reads tight years later and trim that gets caulked every spring. Outside corners get glued as well as nailed. Long runs get a scarf joint over a stud rather than a butt joint in mid air. Nail holes get filled and sanded, not puttied proud and painted over.

How the job runs

Measure and price We walk the rooms and measure every opening and every run, and the estimate names the profiles and the stock we are pricing, so trim is not one line with a number beside it.
Doors and hardware Doors get hung and the hardware fitted before any casing goes on.
Casing Door and window casing goes on with the reveal consistent all the way round, and the same on every opening in a room.
Crown and ceiling detail Where the ceiling is out of level, which in an older house is most of the time, the crown is packed to hide it rather than following the dip.
Baseboard Baseboard is coped at the inside corners, scarfed on long walls and scribed where an old floor is not level.
Stairs and built ins Skirt board scribed to the stringers, treads and risers glued as well as fastened because a tread that is only nailed is a tread that starts squeaking, and built ins and shelving scribed to the wall so there is no gap behind.