Eagle · Garfield · Pitkin · Summit · Routt County, Colorado
Trim Carpentry & Finish Work
Baseboard, crown molding, door and window casing, wall paneling — cut to fit the room it’s going in.
I’m Esaú Bejarano. Twins Wood Works is a family business out of Silt, Colorado. Trim is the part of a house people look at every day from three feet away, which is why it’s the part that has to be right.
Most of the trim complaints I get called about aren’t about the cut. They’re about wood that went up before it was ready, and opened up a season later.
This is also work I can do in January. When the ground is frozen and nobody’s building a deck, the inside of the house is still open for business.
- 11 years in these mountains
- $0 for the estimate
- 1 carpenter, start to finish
A question people actually ask
What’s the difference between a trim carpenter and a finish carpenter?
In practice, not much. Trim carpentry and finish carpentry overlap almost completely, and anybody who makes a big distinction is usually selling you the more expensive word. Here’s how the trade generally uses them.
The moldings themselves: baseboard, crown, chair rail, and the casing around doors and windows. The pieces that cover the joint between two surfaces and make the room look finished.
A wider term. All of the above, plus wall paneling, wainscoting, mantels, stair parts and built-in woodwork. Everything that goes in after the drywall and gets looked at closely.
I do both under one name, and I’ll tell you what your job actually needs. If it’s four rooms of baseboard, you don’t need a specialist — you need somebody who shows up, cuts it tight and cleans up.
The part that separates good trim from trim that lasts
Wood keeps moving until it matches the room
Wood takes on and gives off moisture until it’s in balance with the air around it, and it changes size doing it. Put a board up wetter than the room it lives in, and it shrinks. Across a mitered corner, that shrinkage shows up as a gap you can put a fingernail in.
The USDA Forest Products Laboratory publishes the numbers. For interior woodwork it recommends a moisture content of 6 to 10%, averaging 8% across most of the country — and 4 to 9%, averaging 6%, in the dry areas of the West. Its own list of what excessive shrinkage looks like includes “open joints” and “distortion of door openings.”
Up here that matters more than most places, because a house that’s heated hard all winter is a dry room, and trim that came off a truck in the morning and got nailed up that afternoon hasn’t caught up yet.
So I let the material sit in the house before I cut it. It isn’t a trick and it isn’t expensive — it’s a few days of doing nothing, which is exactly why it’s the first thing skipped when somebody is racing to finish.
Source: Wood Handbook — Wood as an Engineering Material, USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Chapter 13, Table 13–2.
What I do
Baseboard, crown molding, casing and paneling
Interior trim and exterior trim, in wood. One room or a whole house.
New baseboard, or replacing what’s there. Scribed to the floor you actually have, not the flat one the catalog assumed.
Coped inside corners, not just mitered — a coped joint stays closed when the wood moves, and a mitered one doesn’t.
Door casing, window casing, jamb extensions and sills. If I’m already putting in the window, the trim around it is the same trip.
Paneling, wainscot and accent walls, laid out so the pattern lands right in the corners instead of dying in a sliver.
I don’t hang doors and I don’t install cabinets. The casing and the trim around a door, yes — the door itself, no. I’d rather tell you that on the phone than take the job and figure it out later.
From a customer
★★★★★
“Esaú completed a deck remodel for us and provided a reliable timeline for the project’s completion. The deck exceeded our expectations; he listened to our request, incorporated the details we wanted, and paid close attention to everything we envisioned. Everyone compliments its beauty, and we are thrilled we chose him for our remodel. Thank you, Esaú!!”
Cherie’s job was a deck, not trim. But “paid close attention to everything we envisioned” is the whole job on a trim project, and a reliable timeline is what people are really asking about when they call.
What it costs
Trim is priced by the room and by the linear foot, and both depend on the house
A straight run of baseboard down a hallway and the same footage in a room with six corners, a bay window and a floor that isn’t level are not the same job. Neither is paint-grade pine and stain-grade hardwood.
What sets the number: linear feet, how many inside and outside corners, ceiling height for crown, how square the room actually is, the material, and whether the old trim has to come off first.
So I come look, I measure the rooms, and you get it in writing before anything starts. The visit is free and there’s nothing owed after it.
Room by room, corners counted, and I check whether the walls and floors are as straight as they look.
What profile suits the house, paint-grade or stain-grade, and where it’s worth spending and where it isn’t.
In the house, before I cut it. That’s the step that decides whether the joints stay closed.
When you hire me, I’m the one who shows up. No chain of subcontractors.
Who you’re calling
Esaú Bejarano Williams
Twins Wood Works is a family business based in Silt, Colorado. Eleven years of carpentry in these mountains — trim, decks, windows, siding and fences — most of it in Eagle and Garfield County.
“I tell people what works for them and what doesn’t, and nothing else. If I can’t do the job right, I’ll say so and tell you to find someone who can.”
When you call this number you get Esaú — not a call center, not a dispatcher, and not a company that sends the job down a chain of subcontractors until whoever shows up is three people removed from the price you agreed to.
Request your free estimateWhere I work
Trim carpenter for Eagle, Garfield, Pitkin, Summit & Routt County
Most of my work has been in Edwards, Avon and Eagle. I run the I-70 corridor from Rifle and Glenwood Springs up through Vail, down the Roaring Fork Valley to Carbondale, Basalt, Snowmass and Aspen, and over to Summit County and Steamboat Springs.
Edwards, Avon, Beaver Creek, Vail, Eagle, Gypsum, Minturn, Wolcott
Glenwood Springs, New Castle, Silt, Rifle, Carbondale, Parachute
Aspen, Snowmass Village, Basalt, Woody Creek
Breckenridge, Frisco, Silverthorne, Steamboat Springs
Not sure if you’re in range? Call and ask. I’d rather tell you no on the phone than waste your time.
Common questions
What people ask about trim work
What is a trim carpenter?
A carpenter who installs the moldings that finish a room: baseboard at the floor, crown at the ceiling, chair rail, and the casing around doors and windows. It’s the work that happens after the drywall and the paint, and it’s the work people stand three feet away from and look at, so the tolerances are tighter than anywhere else in the house.
What is the difference between a trim carpenter and a finish carpenter?
In everyday use they mean close to the same thing. “Trim carpenter” usually points at the moldings specifically — baseboard, crown, casing. “Finish carpenter” is the wider term and takes in paneling, wainscoting, mantels, stair parts and built-in woodwork as well. I do both, and I’d rather talk about what your job actually is than which word to put on it.
Why did my baseboard and crown molding open up at the corners?
Almost always because the wood dried out after it went in. Wood takes on and gives off moisture until it matches the air around it, and it changes size doing it — so trim that went up wetter than the room shrinks, and the shrinkage shows up at the joints. The USDA Forest Products Laboratory recommends interior woodwork be at 6 to 10% moisture content, averaging 8%, and 4 to 9% in the dry parts of the West. A heated mountain house in January is a dry room. Letting the material sit in the house for a few days before cutting it is what prevents this, and it’s the step that gets skipped.
Can the gaps be fixed, or does the trim have to be replaced?
Usually fixed. Small gaps get caulked and touched up. Bigger ones at an inside corner can often be re-cut and coped so the joint closes and stays closed. Replacing a whole run is the last option, not the first — and if somebody quotes you a full replacement for a few open miters, get a second look.
Do you work in winter?
Yes, and trim is the work that makes the most sense then. It’s inside, it doesn’t care what the ground is doing, and it’s the time of year when the house is at its driest — which is actually the right time to be putting wood in it.
Paint-grade or stain-grade?
Paint-grade is finger-jointed or lower-grade stock that gets painted, and it costs less. Stain-grade is solid, matched for grain and color, and finished clear so you see the wood. Neither is the right answer everywhere: in a mountain house I’d usually put stain-grade where you touch it and see it up close, and paint-grade where it’s reading as a white line at the floor. I’ll tell you where I’d spend it.
Do you do the trim if another contractor is doing the rest?
Yes. A lot of trim work comes in at the end of somebody else’s remodel. Tell me who else is on the job and when they’re out, and I’ll give you a real date instead of a hopeful one.
How much does trim work cost?
It’s priced off linear feet and corners, and the house decides both. A hallway run and a room with six corners, a bay window and a floor that isn’t level are different jobs at the same footage. Crown costs more than base because it’s overhead and the ceiling is never as flat as it looks. Material grade moves it too. The estimate is free and I do it on site with a tape measure, not over the phone.
Tell me what rooms
Call or text and I’ll come measure. No charge, no obligation, and a straight answer about what the job actually is.
(970) 315-7766