While I have an outdated framing carpentry experience, I've been working for a corporate giant for the last 15 years and I feel the need to stop traveling and get back to a settled home in Texas. Over the years, I've also dabbled with trim carpentry around the house and I'm thinking to reach out to some local builders in my area to see about trimming out an "Entry Level" house. If I could take that step, surely I could learn from that experience and hopefully move along from there.
One thought I have is this: I've never really paid attention to the exact order of installation in a house. I expect doors go in first, then everything else can follow at any time. Any suggestions/tips?
Also, is it ok to allow the base and door jambs to come in direct contact with the concrete slab, or should I leave a small gap?
Any advice or harsh criticism would be greatly appreciated.

In my opinion your first focus will be coming up with some sort of menu pricing to offer them as that will likely be the first thing they ask. How much per foot of xyz, how much per door hung and cased, on down the line. I'd start scouring the archived post at JLC forum and any other place you can find.

Id think your best hope would be to find a couple willing contractors who will hopefully be honest with you with regards to pricing.

With the experience level of dabbling, you will likely only get a helper position at a very low starting salary. Are you set up to take the financial hit? It doesn't sound like you are ready to start a business or work on your own. You need to find a journeyman that will teach you the skills of the trade.

Mike, you might be better situated to offer services as a punch list repair service following final inspection and/or warranty repairs. This would cover more aspects of construction than carpentry.

Rich is right, you can't start a business and expect to make money while also learning the trade. Texas is a tough market, the mix of poor quality standards and tons of people willing to work for $10-15/hr means an uphill battle to try to make a living.

Rich should be called Mr Sunshine

I would look for a niche as Michael suggests, trouble is the best way to find a niche is start doing the trim and keep your eyes open for a viable niche

E.G. look at the niches mentioned on the wood web, mainly you need to Look

If your location allows it I would think you'd have a decent shot at trim-outs if your eager, motivated, and can land on a couple contractors who may take you under their wing a little bit (read desperate for someone who shows up and does quality work). Mark's reply echos some of my concerns though its a broad brush assumption on my part thinking Texas is so close to the border but if your competing with "that" labor force I'd say you'd be hard pressed.

Bottom line is any of them are going to ask for some sort of menu pricing right out of the gate. How you leave casing tails (on the slab or off) is called out by what they want anyway so thats meaningless. They will likely tell you how they want the job so those details get taken off your plate.

Your main issues will be quality coupled with monster speed to land on price. Thats when you decide if is the kind of work that is profitable enough for you to even consider pursuing.

Pat Gilbert, Half my work career was in mechanical engineering. I just dealt with facts and figures. Another major factor was being brought up by stern German farming family. We just spoke the necessary amount to get the work done. No embellishment needed to work hard and get the work done. Sorry that I must come across as Mr. Negative, but I built my own business after quitting the corporate job. Mix facts and business experience, and I just speak the truth. I won't candy coat it, won't give a participation trophy. You can get a lot of training to build skills about anywhere. But building your own business is not the magic pill to success that most people still believe it is.

Rich, that is what I have come to expect from engineers.

OTOH I don't think anyone would go into business if they knew the odds against them, yet the difference between the standard of living today and the standard of living a century ago was implemented by small business.

BTW my dad was an engineer, he was responsible for making a minute man missile land anywhere in the world +/- 30', pretty good with facts and figures

His advice to me was to get into cabinetmaking, go figure... but like you, he also said don't go into business for yourself.

The issue becomes how do you hope your information comes across. Its simply black or white. You are either a my-way-or-the-highway type... which means you likely build a cabinet the exact same way you did in 1938 because "its just what youve always done"... or... you bend, meld, adjust, blend, the positives of your learning and upbringing and discount the negatives and hope to be as contributory as one can be at a given point in time. Best mentors in the world (family included) have insane value and a lot that should be banished to the darkness never to rear its ugly head again.

I have robbed miles of data and knowledge from ridgid folk but I choose to abandon the rigidity and try to carry forward as best I can with the quality data I can sneak into my sack and slink out the door.

We cut for a guy who is super nice, stuck in his ways, just always dun' it that way, will not share anything, thinks everyone is out to steal his knowledge and his customers,.. just is what it is. For his own reasons he's not willing or able to adjust which is fine. I still learn a few morsels in my interactions.

These new venture endeavor threads are always a rough.

To the OP:
Find a trim carpenter in your area and ask for a job. If the labour market is anywhere near what it is here in Canada, they will jump at the chance to hire an employee who will be on time and conscientious.
You will learn more in six months from working with a good group of profitable trades people than you can working for yourself in five years. You may make a small wage but you won't lose your shirt (or house).
I would think it would be better to aim for higher end trimming than bottom of the market for two reasons: 1 the margins must be better and 2 MDF thin mouldings are soul killing and you won't advance your skills beyond being really good with a caulking gun.
Read through a dozen "I want to start a shop" threads and it becomes a broken record - work for someone else until you have the experience and skills. And even then why would you want to have the headache of chasing the jobs and payments and all of the other hassles of being self employed.

If you ask the builder to trim a house, he, being the magnanimous sort, will "award' you a project and pay you the princely sum of $X. You will work your ass off and lose more money faster than you could at the local casino. The builder will act like you had a few bad breaks, but he can pay you more on the next one. "I'm hurting too" he claims. Ha, ha, ha, ha......

Truth is, he is paying you half what it takes, and laughing on his way to the bank. The 'next one' is a fallacy rampant in this business. More laughter.

Or, go to work for a trim crew. You will be paid half the usual starting wage, and be expected to do twice the work and all the lifting. You will learn slowly and only by dint of luck and guesswork. You will live under the threat of being fired at any moment. After 5 years, you will be bent and broken, but they will finally show you how to cope crown! You will also get a quarter raise.
Victory!

David has maybe slipped in the old grumpy column that many of us in business have succumbed to.. Or maybe just a bad day.

I dont think its quite as bleak but its without a doubt a hard grind especially on the new construction side. That world is pretty much all about cost reduction for any sub or the GC to make money.

The other thread about where have all the carpenters gone speaks to that clearly. I dont see many plumbers being millionaires like the video states and while many large electrical, HVAC, plumbing, shops may be billing 70-120/hr per man that is in no way shape or form what the individual earns (even if its a one man show).

The general rule now is you'd better double or triple what an individual hourly rate is to cover that individual. Thats whether its a one man show or a 20 man show. So a 25$ an hour man has to be billed a $75 an hour. Thats just for the man. Then you take an HVAC/Plumber/Electrician who has a fully equipped truck, tools, and so on, and that goes up from there.

I dont know a single plumber or electrician that has a 4 car garage and a fleet of import supercars to show for it.

Similar for GC's. They are not all scheisters.

Its expensive to be in business. And its a grind.

I appreciate all of the responses, tips, ideas and honesty. Before my original post, I've been kicking the can around about how to get home and get busy working for myself doing something I'd much rather be doing. At my current company, the rule of thumb is to get us home for a weekend every month, but that's been drawn out to be more seldom in the last few years. Although I'm not a refined trim carpenter, I'm very capable and well equipped for many carpentry tasks, projects, painting, fences, decks, repairs, etc. I have a relative who's a GC in a booming section of Louisiana. He knows what I'm capable of and he said if I could get a start somewhere, there's plenty of work out there to be found, which sounds promising, yet I'm not willing to set up any shop out of state. That completely goes against my goal of being home with my wife every night. I believe that pursuing a path in new trim installation at this time would be a futile endeavor, while taking any work as it comes would be more fruitful to get me started. I have some leads and some contacts to get me a few jobs from the start and surely a satisfied customer from time to time will get a word out.

A few mentions that stood out to me are:

Mark B - Menu pricing & quality with speed to land on price.
~ Excellent advice and points taken.

Rich C - Are you set up to take the financial hit? Building your own business is not the magic pill to success that most people still believe it is.
~ I AM set up to take a financial risk and hopefully I can turn that into a reasonable salary before my goose gets feathered. I'm not expecting to strike it rich, but I surely hope to make a fair living while learning a few things about self employment along the way.

Pat Gilbert - I would look for a niche.
~ Also great advice and something I'll be thinking about as I take this step.

I'm well aware of the risk and all the financial security, per diem, insurance, 401k I'm willing to walk away from to take this risk, but I've decided to take it. On a planned trip home for the Memorial Day weekend, Im going to make it a one-way flight and hit the ground running, working for myself. In the meantime, I'll start to get the word out and hopefully have a job or two to start me off with so there's not too much down time out of the gate.

Thanks again to everyone for replying here. This helped me focus.
Also, I too am a straight shooter, so I have NO problems with truth and honesty. They're merely suggestions and opinions, so I'd never be offended by anything like that.

Mike

I enjoyed being the closer on many million dollar homes. Trim installation, railings, built-ins, cabinet installation, flooring...etc.
As David would say, do not work too cheap on the front end, it will be expected in the future.
Good luck!
If you charge enough, life will be better than if you are too inexpensive. You will not have to work eight days a week.

Patrick probably makes one of the most valuable contributions when your starting out. Dont under price or get too aggressive out of the gate trying to get things rolling because you will set a precedent. While your getting word out I personally would make it a plan to have your first week or so primarily be out on the road meeting and shaking hands with contractors any component of your plan still includes contract(sub) work for them. If you land on a couple good ones who will be honest with you and you make it clear to them your not a threat, not looking to steal their business, etc.. they will likely share miles of valuable (pricing) information with you.

If your going just straight to the public all bets are off and you just have to hang out a shingle. Keep in mind however there is a massive cost associated with dealing directly with the public (residential). Calls all hours of the day and night, weekends when they are off work to go over plans, pick out colors and details, and so on.

Being behind all that as a sub contractor/supplier takes all of that burden (both financial and frutration) off your plate an allows you to price your work more aggressively.

No one ever does but do us all a favor and keep us updated.

1 Year Review

So, this weekend marks one year for me to start working for myself as a carpenter. As I live in a bustling beachside tourist community, there is a fair amount of construction taking place on the regular. There's a facebook group in this area for services needed/offered and I started to reply to some of those requests. After some small jobs with siding repairs, a patio door installation, misc. improvements, I found a few worthy of pictures to post and that obviously helps show what I'm capable of. Soon after, I connected with a local concierge company for short term rentals because they find something needing repair in almost every house on any given day (times 10). That led to building a laundry cabinet, an outdoor shower, built in bunk beds, etc, teaming with the occasional painter, electrician & plumber to complete many projects with one invoice. That was going fairly well when a relative in a neighboring state asked me to trim out some of his custom homes because his trim guy fell ill. So, my son (24) & I took the occasional drive and stayed with family while we trimmed out, off and on, a total of 6 houses. Set doors, wrap windows, base, 1/4 round, crown and closets. While that was a great experience, we were expectedly pretty dang slow. Obviously speed improved as we went along, but my main point of going off on my own was to be home every night, so we called off the out of town trim and came back home. Soon after that, we were asked to install outdoor louvered walls on a new beach house to include some roll-up doors, outdoor sinks and bar/entertaining area, plus some bar stools. The pictures posted of that really started to garner some attention, plus coming from a framing background, that was more up my alley than running trim (note: our trim looked pretty good. It wasn't high end stain grade. It was rather basic, but it was neat and tight). I'm now into my third "louver" job with a bar and outdoor shower and this will again provide for some good free advertising. I feel like this is going to be my niche. I've also made some decent deck furniture to accommodate the area and the new customers constantly call about anything not right at their lovely houses. The concierge company mainly only refers me now to clients wanting work done, as opposed to calling for handyman repairs all the time.
If I could only build these louvered walls, bars, showers, outdoor TV cabinets and furniture, I'd be pleased as punch. Not only do I feel that's the way things are going, I'm obviously only talking about and posting those items and looking for more ways to increase that work.
island-crown.com
My crew is only my son and he has other interests part of the time, but he's an amazing young man and the perfect assistant. I have a truck and haul a well outfitted enclosed trailer everywhere I go and I've been well insured from Day 1.
Thanks guys.
Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Nice update. Thanks.

Good to hear you can make a go at it as a 1.5 man show. That can be pretty tricky. In my experience its often times tough to produce enough flow when your wearing all the hats so its good your location will support it.