This is a working finish carpenter's library: how doors, trim, closets, stairs, and the rest of interior finish work actually get done - written from the jobsite, not from a content calendar. Guides are free. Here's how to get the most out of them.
Three kinds of readers
Homeowners use the guides to do a job once, do it right, and know what they're looking at when they hire the rest out. Newer carpenters use them to get faster and cleaner - the guides show the standard, not just the steps. People running crews use the references, checklists, and kit lists to get new hires up to speed without repeating themselves. Everything on the site is written to serve all three, which is why we show the why along with the how.
The guides are the core
Every guide opens the same way: what the finished job should look like - the standard - then the method. Most guides carry a category, a difficulty level, and a per-unit time estimate at the top. The levels are explained here, and here's how the categories work.
You'll notice some jobs have several versions: a base guide plus variants - a 6'8" solid-core door and an 8'0" hollow-core get their own guides, tall windows get their own guides. That's deliberate. Trim work goes wrong in the gap between "roughly like the other one" and your actual situation, so when your situation matches a variant, use the variant and you're never adapting on the fly.
The cheat sheets are the numbers
Standard closet heights, reveal dimensions, jobsite checklists - the stuff you'd otherwise scribble on a scrap of shim. They're free printable PDFs. Print them, get sawdust on them.
Tools: what we actually run
The tool posts cover the personal kit every trim carpenter carries and the shared equipment a crew needs, and task-based kit pages are rolling out - what you need if you're just hanging doors, or just running baseboard. Guides keep a short "what you'll need" list and link to the kits for the details, so the how-to stays about the how-to.
Straight talk on money: some tool links are affiliate links, marked as such, and they help keep the guides free (full disclosure here). The picks are what's in the trailer or what we'd buy again - not affiliate reviews. If the budget option is the right call, the page says so.
The glossary speaks the language (rolling out)
Finish carpentry has its own vocabulary - reveal, cope, proud, hinge-bound - and its own slang, and we're building a searchable glossary of all of it, aisle by aisle. In guides, the first mention of a term links to its definition so you can check it without losing your place. If your crew has a word for something that we don't have yet, send it in.
Fixes: for when it's already wrong (starting soon)
A monthly series - video plus written guide - that takes one problem at a time, filed by symptom: the door that won't stay shut, the miters that opened up. Each one walks the diagnosis before the repair, because the fix depends on which cause you've got. Until it lands, the exterior door adjustment guide covers the most common door complaints.
Where to start
- Homeowner with a free weekend: pick a Level 1 guide - base shoe or bath accessories - and get a win on the board.
- Newer carpenter: read How to Trim a House, Start to Finish to see how the whole job sequences, then go deep in the aisle you're working.
- Running a crew: start with the crew equipment post and the cheat sheets - they're built for the van binder.
- Bidding the work, not just building it: we built PieceWrk Takeoff for that - upload the plans, get a trim takeoff in minutes. It's our own software and early access is open.
- Something's misbehaving right now: ask us. Real questions steer what gets written next.