Your carpenter in Suffolk County, NY

A carpenter for the parts of the house you notice

When people look for a carpenter in Suffolk County, NY, they’re usually after one of two things. Either something in the house doesn’t work, like a door that won’t latch or a window that won’t open, or a room just looks plain and they want it to look finished. Carpentry fixes both. Trim, doors, windows and built-ins are what separate a room that looks done from one that looks like a rental.

We’re a carpentry company first. The name says it. This page covers our six carpentry services: baseboard, trim and crown molding, interior doors, window replacement, built-in bookshelves, cabinet installation and framing.

How the carpentry services fit together

It helps to think about carpentry in two groups: the rough work you never see, and the finish work you see every day.

Framing: the part inside the wall

Framing is the wood skeleton of walls, closets and soffits. When you add a closet, split a room, close up an old doorway or finish a basement, framing comes first. It also includes blocking, which is extra wood inside the wall where heavy things will hang later, like cabinets, shelves or a TV. If the framing is out of plumb, everything built on it will be too, so this is where a finished room starts.

Doors and windows: the openings

Doors and windows both sit in rough openings in the framing. A door that sticks, rubs or swings open by itself is almost always an opening that isn’t square, or a frame that wasn’t shimmed right. New interior doors are one of the quickest ways to change how a house feels. Many 1970s and 1980s houses on Long Island still have the original hollow-core doors. Windows are similar. The new window is only half the job. The trim inside and the seal around it are the other half. See replacement windows vs. new construction windows for how the two types differ.

Trim and molding: the edges

Baseboard covers the joint where the wall meets the floor. Casing frames doors and windows. Crown runs along the top of the wall. Together they’re the lines your eye follows around a room. Clean, tight trim makes an average room look expensive. Gapped miters and thick caulk make a new room look cheap. Our answer on whether crown molding is worth adding to an older Long Island home is a good place to start if you’re on the fence.

Built-ins and cabinets: the furniture that stays

Built-in bookshelves and cabinets are carpentry you use every day. Built-ins are made to fit a wall, an alcove, the space around a window or the side of a fireplace. Cabinets for kitchens, laundry rooms and mudrooms have to be hung level and anchored into the framing, since they carry real weight. If you’re wondering about older walls, see can you hang new cabinets on old walls.

Why old houses make carpentry harder

Most of the houses we work in are capes, high ranches, split-levels and colonials built decades ago. Houses settle. Walls bow a little, floors slope, and door openings go out of square. None of that is a problem for a careful carpenter, but it changes how the job is done.

• Corners aren’t 90 degrees. We measure each corner and cut the miter to match it, instead of assuming.
• Walls aren’t flat. Baseboard gets scribed, which means trimmed along its edge to follow the wall, so the gap is small enough for a thin caulk line.
• Floors aren’t level. Doors get cut to clear the floor, and shelves get shimmed so they sit level even when the floor doesn’t.
• Openings aren’t square. Door and window frames get shimmed plumb and square before they’re nailed.

This is where most of the time goes on a carpentry job, and it’s why a cheap trim job looks cheap within a year.

Planning carpentry work

A few decisions up front make the job go smoother.

• Do the whole room, or the whole floor. New trim in one room next to old trim in the hallway always shows. Many people do doors and trim for a whole level at once.
• Pick the style before the pieces. Trim height, door style and hardware finish should match across the house. Bring a photo of a room you like.
• Decide on paint timing. Trim can be primed before it goes up and painted after, or painted all at once. We explain the tradeoffs in should baseboard and trim be painted before or after installing.
• Think about floors first. If new flooring is coming, it should go in before the baseboard, so the trim sits on the finished floor.
• Know what goes on the shelves. Books, a TV, display pieces or storage bins all need different depths and supports.

What drives the price of carpentry

We don’t give prices without seeing the house, but here’s what moves the number:

• How many rooms, how many feet of trim, and how many doors or windows
• The trim profile and material, and whether it’s painted or stained
• Solid-core or hollow-core doors, and whether frames are replaced
• How out of square the house is, which adds fitting time
• For built-ins: the size, the number of doors and drawers, and the finish
• Whether painting is included

For two of the most asked-about jobs, see what it costs to replace interior doors and what built-in bookshelves cost.

How to choose a carpenter

• Look at close-up photos. Wide shots hide gaps. Ask to see the corners of trim, not just the room.
• Ask how they handle out-of-square walls. The answer should include words like scribe, shim and cope. Coping is cutting the end of one piece to fit the shape of the other on an inside corner, and it holds up better than a plain miter.
• Ask who paints. If the carpenter leaves and a painter comes in, the painter is stuck with whatever gaps were left.
• Get it in writing. A written, itemized price with a start date and how long the job will take.
• Check the license. Suffolk County requires a home improvement license. Ours is HI-73429.

What to have ready for the walk-through

You don’t need drawings or a finished plan. These things make the first visit more useful:

• A list of the rooms, and what you want in each one: new trim, new doors, crown, shelves or cabinets
• A photo of a room or a piece of trim you like, even from a magazine or a friend’s house
• Which doors stick, rub or won’t latch, and which windows are drafty or hard to open
• Whether new flooring or paint is planned, so we can put the steps in the right order
• For built-ins: what’s going on the shelves, and whether you want doors, drawers or open shelving
• For framing: what the new wall or closet is for, and where you want the door

If you send a few photos with the quote form before we come out, we can bring ideas and samples that fit the house.

Living in the house during carpentry work

Carpentry makes less mess than sheetrock, but cutting trim and doors still makes sawdust. We set up our saw outside or in the garage when we can, cover the floors in the rooms we’re working in, and clean up at the end of every day. If we’re replacing doors, we plan the order so a bathroom or bedroom isn’t left without a door overnight when we can help it.

Carpentry as part of a bigger job

Carpentry usually happens alongside other work. New trim often means patching and painting the walls. New doors look best with fresh casing. A framed-in basement needs sheetrock and flooring. Since our crew handles sheetrock, painting and tile too, the carpentry and the finish come together without a second contractor. We’re based in Medford and do carpentry work up to about 45 minutes away.