How subcontracting a finish carpentry package works, end to end

Subcontracting a finish carpentry package with a crew like ours runs the same loop every time. You send the plans and the finish schedule, we build an itemized bid against that scope and send it back, you sign it, and you go on the schedule. From there we install, punch our own work, and leave the site clean for the next trade. Once a builder or cabinet shop has run that loop once, it gets faster every time after.

This is written for the people who hire that work out — general contractors running custom builds around Knoxville and Farragut, and cabinet shops that need a dependable set crew across Blount and Loudon counties. We're install-only labor. We don't design and we don't supply material. What we do is take a defined trim or cabinet scope and turn it over at a high level without dragging out your job.

How do you bid a finish carpentry package?

It starts with the plans. Send us the trim package or the cabinet set — prints, elevations, and the finish schedule if you have one — and we go through and price it against the actual scope. Our pricing is modular, so we're not building a number from scratch every time. We know what casing a door runs, what base costs per linear foot, what a coffered ceiling costs by the square foot. We line-item the bid so you can see exactly what's in it and what isn't.

What moves the price is the scope itself. Linear footage and door count set the size of it. Height and profile build-up move it up, because a tall stacked crown with a lot of build-up is more work than a single-piece base. Paint-grade versus stain-grade matters, since stain-grade takes more care and there's no filler hiding anything. And how far out of square and out of plumb the space is drives the scribe and corner count, which is real time on site. For a rough sense before a real bid, installed crown molding tends to land around $5–12 a linear foot, baseboard around $3–8, and coffered ceilings anywhere from $20–50 a square foot. Those are ballparks. The bid we send is the number that matters.

How fast is bid turnaround?

Fast, because the pricing is dialed in. Once we have the plans in hand, most bids go back inside a few days, and a straightforward cabinet set can turn quicker than that. If something needs a conversation — a detail that isn't drawn, or a design call that hasn't been made — we flag it before we price it so the number holds. If you want to negotiate a line or two once it's in your hands, we'll do that. Then it gets signed.

What happens after you sign?

Every bid has to be signed before we lock it in. The terms and conditions in there protect both sides and set expectations up front, so there's no gap between what you think you bought and what we think we're building. Once it's signed, you're on the schedule. We run several trim packages at once and fill the gaps between them with cabinet sets, so with about a month's notice we can fit almost anything in. The wider the calendar, the easier it is to slot you where you need to be.

How does scheduling work around the other trades?

Finish carpentry is a late trade, and it doesn't show up as one event. It comes in waves, and each wave keys off the trade in front of it being truly done. We can't case doors over drywall that's still un-sanded, and cabinets can't set until the floor is decided and the walls are true. We coordinate our start off your actual readiness instead of a date on the Gantt chart that already slipped. If you want the full breakdown of what gates trim, we wrote up how finish carpentry affects your schedule separately.

How do trim packages and cabinet sets fit together?

A trim package on a decent-sized custom home might be three to four weeks of total working time, but that time is split over several months as the house comes together. Doors and base go in after drywall, then built-ins and architectural work, then cabinets, then final trim and shoe after flooring. In between those visits we run cabinet sets — a full custom cabinet install runs about a week, a single room or a small set a couple of days. Whether it's a custom build in West Knox or a lake home near Lenoir City, mixing short cabinet jobs with long trim packages is how we keep a full calendar and still hit your dates.

What do you handle, and what don't you?

• Install-only labor. We set and fasten the work — cope the inside corners, miter and glue the outside corners, scribe to out-of-square walls, and fasten into framing and blocking so nothing works loose. We do not fill our own nail holes, sand, or paint; that's the finisher's trade.
• No material supply. You or the shop provides the trim, doors, and boxes. We show up and install them.
• No full design and no CAD. A simple accent wall or built-in we can sketch and work out in the field. Bigger design comes off your plans or routes to a design partner.
• No flat-pack assembly. We install pre-built modular, stock, and custom cabinets, and we build cabinetry on site only for true built-ins.

We say it plainly to every builder and shop we work with: we will never be the problem sub. That means high-quality trim at a pace that moves your job, and a back end handled so there's little to no friction coming from our end.

How does a job wrap up?

When the work's done we punch our own installs before we call it, checking miters, reveals, and contact on the door stops, catching the small stuff a homeowner will stare at for years. Then we clean. Extra material stacked neat and out of the way, sawdust and scrap swept and vacuumed, cut shims and wrappers picked up, a room-by-room pass before we pull off. A clean site reflects on the builder as much as on us, and that reflects on the GC who put us on the job.

If you're a builder or a cabinet shop looking for a finish crew that turns work over without dragging out the job, send us the plans and we'll build a bid to your scope. See how we work with general contractors and cabinet shops, then send over the plans and your timeline. Before you do, our finish carpentry scope checklist covers what to nail down so the bid comes back tight.