Chapter 3: Craftsmanship and Attention to Detail
How to spot the difference between true finish work and “good enough” shortcuts
I've been in a lot of homes over the years, and I can’t help myself—I always end up looking around at the trim, the doors, the joints, the little details that most people walk right past. It all tells a story. You can tell how old a house is, how long ago it was last updated, and how much care the last crew put into their work just by paying attention to how the finish carpentry was done.
A lot of older homes are in rough shape, but it’s not just age that does it. If a house hasn’t been maintained well—or if the original work wasn’t done with durability in mind—the little things start to fall apart. You’ll see sticking doors, sagging cabinet hinges, trim pulling off the wall, sloppy miters, or big gaps in corners that someone tried to fill with caulk and crossed their fingers.
But when it is done right, those same little details are what hold up the longest. They’re the difference between something that looks good in a photo and something that still looks good ten years later.
Precision Isn’t Just for Machinists
A finish carpenter lives and dies by the angles. Most corners in a house aren’t a true 90 degrees, and a quality-first trim guy knows that. That outside corner your baseboard needs to wrap around? Probably not square. The inside corner where two pieces of crown molding meet? Same story.
Personally, I use test pieces on every trim job. I’ll cut two short scraps with exact 45-degree miters and press them into the corner to see how tight they close up. If there’s a gap, I adjust the angle—maybe 46 or 43 degrees—and make a new test set until it’s dead on. You don’t guess. You test. That’s how you get miters to close up clean with no filler, no excuses.
Coping Isn’t Old-School—It’s Professional
On inside corners, pros don’t miter—they cope. Coping is when you cut one piece of trim square, and the other is shaped to fit perfectly against it, tracing the profile. It takes more time, but it moves with seasonal expansion, and it doesn’t pull apart like a mitered joint would.
I personally cope just about everything—crown molding, baseboard, shoe molding, and quarter round. The only exception is cabinet trim, where I take extra time to make sure every miter is perfect. And when it comes to modern styles using flat-stock baseboard with no profile, butt joints at the corners are ok. But for anything with a profile, coping is the professional way.
Coping isn’t flashy, but it works. When I see a cracked inside miter joint, I know someone skipped a step. That’s fine on a builder-grade tract home.
It’s not fine when someone’s paying for quality.
Casing Reveals: Trick the Eye, Frame the Space
Door and window casing usually has a 1/4" reveal around the inside of the jamb. Why? Because no jamb is perfectly straight, and the reveal gives you a chance to create a clean, even visual line.
That little margin isn’t just for looks—it’s a cheat code for making things feel square and intentional, even when the framing behind it is anything but. Set your reveal tight or inconsistent, and it’ll jump out every time someone walks down the hallway.
I recently did a project for a homeowner who had previously hired someone with a much less trained eye—and probably a lot less real experience. As I walked through the house, I noticed that on every interior door they installed, the casing reveals were all over the place. Some changed dramatically every foot. On a few doors, the casing even overlapped the edge of the jamb completely. It looked terrible from every angle.
As I replaced some of the worst sections, the homeowner saw the difference and realized what a proper reveal was supposed to look like. She was pretty upset once it clicked, especially considering how much she had paid the last guy.
I didn’t let the poor quality of the previous work dictate what I did in her house.
I rebuilt it the right way—the way it should've been done from the start.
Door Reveals: The Subtle Signs of Quality
When a door is closed, the gap between the slab and the jamb should be consistent all the way around—usually about 1/8". That tiny space makes a big visual impact. If it’s tighter at the top, or wide open at the bottom, or rubbing anywhere, it tells the story: the installer didn’t take the time to get it right.
Sometimes that’s due to bad framing. Sometimes the slab is warped. But a good finish carpenter knows how to read the situation and adjust as needed. Shave the hinge side, plane the strike edge, tweak the shims—it’s not just about hanging the door, it’s about making it feel right.
Why Entry Door Gaps Matter Even More
On interior doors, a slightly imperfect gap isn’t the end of the world—it’s mostly about clean sightlines and a smooth swing. But on entry doors, the stakes are a lot higher. If the gap between the door and the jamb is too wide, it can compromise the relationship between the door and the weather-stripping. That means drafts, lost energy efficiency, and in some cases, letting in bugs or water.
The gap at the top of the door also matters more than people realize. If it's too tight or too wide, it could signal that the door wasn’t set properly in the opening. A bad fit can cause air to leak under the sweep, reduce the lifespan of the sweep itself, and allow outside elements into the home.
An entry door’s perimeter weather-stripping and the door sweep aren't separate — they work together as one system. If the door isn’t set right, that whole system is weakened.
A clean, consistent reveal isn't just about looks—it’s the foundation for an efficient, weather-tight seal.
Fastener Placement: Where Strength Begins
This is one of those things nobody notices—until it fails. Baseboards, crown molding, and door casing need to be fastened into studs.
Not just glued.
Not just caulked.
Nailed to the structure.
I once worked with a guy in an apartment complex who didn’t even bother nailing baseboard half the time.
“It’s not structural,” he’d say, as he caulked the top edge and called it a day.
I’ve had to go back and fix those jobs when the baseboard started peeling away from the wall.
Crown molding especially will sag over time if it’s not secured properly. And if you’re splicing long runs of trim?
You have to land that splice on a stud.
I always cut my splices at 22.5° or 45°, glue both mating surfaces, and make sure it’s tight and flush.
If you can feel it with your fingernail, it’s not ready.
“Caulk and Paint Make the Carpenter I Ain’t”
I worked with a retired union framer for a while whose favorite phrase was:
“Caulk and paint make the carpenter I ain’t.”
We were working on a historic reno project in Holly Hills, reinstalling old-style baseboard and casing profiles — all stain-grade.
He said it one day after nailing down a section of base, and I had to remind him:
"Simon, this is a stain package (there’s no caulk and paint to hide behind here)."
Caulk and paint can’t cover bad craftsmanship.
Maybe for a few weeks, sure. But caulk shrinks. Paint fades.
And once that happens, you’re left staring at a gap that never should’ve been there to begin with.
I've heard way too many people use that phrase seriously, and every time, it makes me cringe.
It tells me exactly how they view quality — or more accurately, how little they value it.
You see it all the time with the "I can do it all" crowd you find on Facebook and contractor boards.
For a lot of them, "caulk and paint make the carpenter I ain't" isn’t just a saying — it’s the closest thing they have to a work philosophy.
And it shouldn't be.
Caulk is not a job.
Caulk is a tool.
It’s not meant to fix bad work. It’s meant to polish and finish good work.
Of course there will always be places where caulk is needed — no house is perfectly framed, and drywall inconsistencies, seasonal movement, or shifts in framing can create unavoidable gaps.
Sometimes, keeping trim square and proportionate to windows, doors, or floors means it won’t sit perfectly flat to the wall — and that's fine.
But the parts the carpenter can control — the miters, the splices, the joints — those should be tight and clean before a single tube of caulk is ever touched.
"Caulk and paint make the carpenter I ain't" might make for a funny punchline.
It should never be the standard you build by.
If you’re a homeowner and you ever hear a contractor in your house say it seriously?
Show them the door — and don’t let them back in.
Craftsmanship is in the little things.
The kind of things most people don’t consciously notice — but they feel when they walk into a room.
It’s the sound of a door closing perfectly.
It’s the shadow lines of casing that match all the way around.
It’s the tightness of a corner joint.
It’s the way the trim feels like it belongs to the house, not just stuck onto it.
That’s what real finish carpentry is about.
And the details?
That’s where the difference lives.
If you’re wondering how to tell whether someone actually does this kind of work — or just talks like they do —
the details matter, but so does how they carry themselves.
That’s where real communication and professionalism start showing up... or don’t.
(More on that in the next post.)
