THE BENCH PROMISE · MIDDLEGATE · SINCE 2014
Wood moves. Houses move with it. Everything I cut is shaped around that truth — so the day after install and the tenth year look the same.
Services & rates
Published rates, not riddles
Most shops quote from a napkin and a mood. These are the 2026 rates — the same numbers on every estimate, raised once a year, in daylight.
Interior door, hung & latched$240 ea
Hardware set, stops adjusted, nickel-slide guaranteed
Window casing, coped corners$165–285 per opening
Stool and apron included
Crown molding run$11–17 per foot
Up to 10 ft ceilings, every inside corner coped
Wall of built-ins, paintedfrom $6,900
Eight feet, drawers on soft-close runners
Stair rebuild in oakfrom $9,400
Treads, risers, skirts and rail
Mantel & paneled surroundfrom $3,200
Hidden-steel float option available
What we do
Where the money actually goes
The coping, by hand
Every inside corner is coped with a file and a candle — twenty minutes a joint, invisible forever. It is the part nobody photographs and the reason nothing cracks open in February.
Scribed, not forced
A built-in meeting a 1909 wall is cut to the wall, not to the drawing. We trace the plaster and stone and follow them — gap-free for the life of the piece.
Finished at the bench
Sanding and oiling happen lying flat at the shop, three coats hand-rubbed, because finishing an installed board is apologizing for the install.
Middlegate & the valley
Recent bench work
2024 to 2026, photographed at walkthrough — not staged, not graded.
Who is signing
Ruth Underhill, Lic. FC-45208. Eleven years at the bench, four of them apprenticed under a stair builder who called everyone champ and measured everything twice. She cuts, finishes and installs every project personally — the promise above hangs on the shop wall, beside the first board she ever coped.
The promise is load-bearing
If a joint I cut opens within five years, I come back and cut it again — no invoice, no discussion. Wood moves; the guarantee does not.
How it goes
The rhythm of a job
The measure
Rooms lasered, conditions photographed, budget spoken out loud. About an hour, free.
The bench week
Cut, coped, sanded and oiled flat — numbered and crated so nothing travels unfinished.
The install
One to three days on site, one room at a time. You get the pen at the walkthrough.
Ruth quoted from the published rates, to the dollar, and finished two days ahead of her own schedule. The rate card is why we called; the coping is why the neighbors have called.
Our 1911 stair had been butchered by two previous crews. Ruth scribed the skirts to those old walls like they were new. The inspector asked who did the original millwork.
The ledger
Are these rates really the rates?
Yes — the table above is the one on the shop wall. Your estimate applies it to your rooms and adds nothing for the asking. The only surprise I allow is a pleasant one, like clear grain where I budgeted for select.
Do you take whole-house jobs?
Up to about three weeks on site. Beyond that the promise stops being personal, and the promise is the product — so I will quote the trim and recommend two crews I trust for the rest.
Can I supply my own lumber?
Gladly, if it is dry, flat and honestly graded. The rate is the same either way; badly stored stock costs us both time, and time is on the card.
How should I prepare for the measure?
Clear the rooms if you can, dig out any photo of the original trim if some survives, and know your paint colors — casing width reads differently against a saturated wall. I bring the laser, the profile gauge and the rate card.
Bring the measurements — or just the idea
The measure is free, the rates are published, and the promise is signed.