Custom woodwork for Pinecrest homes on acre lots

Big lots, big rooms

Pinecrest grew in the 1950s and 1960s as ranch-style homes on acre lots, per the Village’s history, and keeps a rural, heavily landscaped character. It was incorporated in 1996 and is recognized as a Tree City USA. When one of those ranches is enlarged or replaced, the rooms usually get taller and wider.

Large rooms change the carpentry. A 9-foot ceiling takes a single crown profile. A 14-foot great room needs a built-up crown, a beamed or coffered ceiling, or a vaulted tongue-and-groove ceiling to keep from looking bare. A covered loggia facing the pool is common here, and a wood ceiling there has to survive humidity and rain.

The High Velocity Hurricane Zone and your entry door

Miami-Dade County sits in the High Velocity Hurricane Zone, and the county describes its rules as the most advanced requirements in the Florida Building Code. For a Pinecrest homeowner, the woodwork it touches most is the front door. How it works:

• Approval comes first. The county requires product approval before doors, windows, shutters and other envelope products can be used in construction. Its Product Control Section reviews exterior doors among them.
• The approval covers an assembly. The approved product is the slab, frame, glass, hardware and anchoring tested together. Swapping one part, such as a taller slab or different glass, can step outside the approval.
• The installer follows the document. Anchor type, spacing and shimming come from the approval drawings, not from habit.
• The Village checks it. Pinecrest lists new doors among the work that needs a permit, so the approval goes in with the application and the installation gets inspected.
• Interior doors are exempt from all of this. A library door or a pair of French doors between rooms needs no product approval.

That is why we install the door you or your builder select, after checking that its approval matches the rough opening. A mahogany or walnut double door with glass can meet the code, provided the whole assembly was tested. We then case the inside to match the rest of the house. See our door installation page for how we hang them.

Permits from the Village

The Village of Pinecrest Building and Planning Department issues permits from 12645 Pinecrest Parkway. Its FAQ names floors, cabinets, windows and doors as work that needs a permit, and says to contact the department when in doubt. Permit processing runs 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays.

For a large house, the interior finish package of stair railings, crown and ceilings usually comes after the permitted structural work is inspected. We quote once we have seen the drawings and the space.