When finish carpentry happens, and what has to come first
Cabinets, doors and trim go in near the end. The decisions that make them fit are made months earlier.
It is the last carpentry in the room
Finish carpentry is the woodwork you see: cabinets, built-ins, doors, casing, baseboard, crown, stair rails. It follows drywall and usually the first coat of paint, and it comes before final paint, hardware and the last floor finish. Our trade guides show the whole order, and you can watch a house get built stage by stage.
- FramingAppliance sizes, sink sizes and ceiling heights are already fixed.
- Rough plumbing and electricalBlocking goes into the walls for cabinets and handrails.
- Insulation and drywallThe drywall is finished and given time to dry out.
- First coat of paintThe wood sits in the house and settles to its air.
- Finish carpentryCabinets, built-ins, doors, casing, baseboard, crown, stair rails.
- Final paint, hardware, floor finishThe last coats go on after the woodwork is in.
What has to be true before it starts
- The house is closed in and dry: roof on, windows in, exterior doors hung.
- Drywall is finished and has had time to dry out.
- The finished floor height is known in every room, even where the floor is not laid yet.
- The wood has sat in the house long enough to settle to the air it will live in.
Wood moves with moisture. A cabinet door fitted in a damp, unheated shell will not hang the same once the house is lived in.
What gets decided much earlier
Cabinets are measured from finished walls but ordered against the drawings, so appliance sizes, sink sizes and the ceiling height above the uppers are fixed before framing is done. Blocking, the solid wood inside a wall that holds a cabinet, a handrail or a heavy mirror, goes in before drywall. Door swings decide where switches go. None of it can be seen at the end, and all of it decides whether the finish work fits.
Shop work and site work
Custom pieces are built in a shop, where joints can be cut clean and finish can cure out of the dust, and then fitted on site. Ours are built in Carpinteria. Fitting is its own skill: no wall is flat and no floor is level, so every piece is scribed to the house it meets.
Near the ocean
Salt air is hard on hinges, latches and any wood left unsealed, including the top and bottom edges of a door. Near the beach in Carpinteria and Summerland, hardware is chosen for its metal first and its look second.
If it is the only work you are doing
Finish carpentry does not need a remodel around it. New baseboard and casing, a wall of built-ins, replacement doors or a mantel can be done on their own, usually with no permit for interior work. Windows and exterior doors are different, and the answer depends on the town. Ask before ordering.
Related: all finish carpentry services, cabinetry: what to expect, and Tom’s past projects.
Built by Matt Newman. Licensed since 2001. Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, twenty years on this coast, and on every AMN site himself. One name on the contract. His story
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