[ljf]

My brother is a 'proper' carpenter and sadly struggles to find people like you.

People seek him out because of his skill, but then upon being told that it might be £600 for interior door to be made, or more, suddenly want him to fit a store bought one. His daily rate is low, but a lot of rich people still don't want to pay for a job to be done properly.

Quite sad to see people buying amazing historic houses and then filling them with ready made fittings, after tearing out the old hand made stuff.

[tristor]

I recently renovated two rooms in my house and took out the mid-grade carpet that the builders had put in and installed real hard wood flooring. I wanted proper trim in the room and I hired a trim carpenter. What I ended up with was pre-made trim from Home Depot and mitered corners. I hired someone who claimed to be a carpenter, and charged a carpenters rate, expecting, at minimum, that the corners were coped rather than mitered. I own a VERY nice sliding compound miter saw in my wood shop, and I could have very easily taken pre-made trim from the home store and mitered the corners myself, I hired someone who claimed to be an expert with the expectation of hand-coped corners, because that's a skill I don't have.

Just one of several instances where I found out that local carpenters weren't real carpenters. If you only know how to use power tools and have a pickup truck to get materials at the home store, you're not a carpenter, you're a handy-man. A carpenter should be able to work wood by hand. I aspire to gain those skills myself, and at some point I'll probably re-do the sad work that was done previously. At least they caulked and painted the caulk-line. At some point I plan to install crown moulding, but at this point I've decided I won't do it until I can make it myself.

[leobakerhytch]

When you say historic buildings, I suppose (hope) you don’t mean listed ones, since they’d be breaking the law? Regardless, it’s a crying shame what people have ripped out of even very ordinary Victorian and Edwardian houses. Decorative mouldings, cast iron fireplaces, original doors, geometric tiling.

[ljf]

He lives in Portugal, where the rules are different especially for those restoring farm houses and villas that have fallen into disrepair, but even in the UK people get rid of amazing Victorian features in houses there aren't listed.

As he likes to make things properly, he rarely takes the 'fitting' jobs - and keeps and restores anything he removes. Someone else usually wants it.

The sad fact is that a bespoke wardrobe costs good money, as do hand made window friends, but they should last for years, centuries even.