Big Dog Custom Carpentry LLC.

The name says where the focus sits: carpentry, the built-by-hand side of residential work, under a general contractor registration that lets the business take on broader projects around it. Big Dog Custom Carpentry is registered in Washington only, so its work stays on the Spokane side of the state line. A 25-mile radius from Spokane covers the city's older neighborhoods, the newer subdivisions out toward Liberty Lake and Mead, and the smaller towns to the west and south. Repair or replace is the first question on most carpentry jobs in Spokane, and the answer usually comes down to what's underneath. A lot of the city's housing stock dates from the early and middle twentieth century, with old-growth trim, solid-wood doors and stair parts that are hard to match new. Repairing those is often worth it when the wood is sound. Rot changes the math. Decks, porch framing, window sills and exterior trim take a beating from freeze-thaw cycles and spring melt, and once moisture has gotten into the structure, patching the surface tends to buy only a season or two. Ask the carpenter to open up a suspect area before committing either way, and ask what a repair will look like next to the original work.