Carpentry & Trim in Arlington, TX

Rot, and where to look for it

Exterior wood in North Texas fails where water sits or runs, and it fails from the back long before it shows on the face. The places worth checking once a year:

• Fascia behind the gutters, especially at corners and anywhere the gutter has been overflowing.
• Soffit near a roof valley, which is where the most water lands.
• The bottom of door casings and garage door jambs, where splash-back hits.
• Window sills and the trim below them, particularly on the weather side.
• Any board that has been caulked repeatedly - caulk is a seal, not a repair, and a board that keeps needing it has usually already gone.

Built-ins, and what they are worth

Built-in storage is one of the few things that adds usable space without adding square footage - a mudroom locker run, a window seat with drawers under it, a wall of shelving in an awkward alcove, a laundry room with pull-out cabinetry. Anaya's Touch has done exactly this work; one customer's review describes a built-in locker system, dog crates and storage cabinets in a mudroom, and a laundry room fitted with a quartz counter and pull-out cabinetry. It is carpentry, joinery and paint in one job, which is why it suits this company.

Trim, and why the profile matters

Trim is the one place where matching the house beats picking what you like. A 1970s ranch with narrow colonial casing and a modern flat baseboard looks like two houses. Crown moulding in a room with a 1970s eight-foot ceiling needs a different proportion from the same detail in a 2005 two-storey with a vaulted entry. The right answer is usually the profile that is already there, carried through - and if the existing trim is being replaced throughout, that is a free hand and worth using deliberately.