Published on Aug 01, 2026
Welcome to another Q&A session where I answer questions from y'all on the internet.
Today's question is:
Kolten details several craftsmanship practices that set Next Gen apart. On finish carpentry, he describes a meticulous three-step millwork prep used on all freshly installed doors and trim: first painter's caulk on inside corners and where trim meets drywall; then wood filler on outside corners and pinholes, dried and sanded; then red Bondo to prevent cracking, sanded and primed again before everything is sprayed. This applies to casings, baseboards, crown molding, and any sprayed millwork, and guarantees the work won't crack over time. He also cites edge work using forty-five-degree miters rather than butted corners. On flooring, he notes that while SPC and LVP are easy to install, Next Gen always double-layers and preps the subfloor, preventing the shifting, separation, and chipping that occur over a single-layer subfloor, so the floor lasts as long as the manufacturer promises.
Like you mentioned, forty-five-degree miters on edges versus just butting corners up. Certain things like our millwork: when we install doors and trim, we do a three-step process for prepping all of the freshly installed millwork. You go through and install all your painters caulk first, getting all the inside corners and where the trim meets the drywall. Then we come back through and do wood filler everywhere on all the outside corners and pinholes, let it all dry, sand it, then come back again and apply red Bondo, which prevents all cracking. Then you sand all that down, primer it all again, and come back through and spray all the millwork. We do this to all the door casings, baseboards, crown molding, really any woodwork or millwork that has to be sprayed, and that guarantees nothing will crack over time. Another example is flooring. We install SPC or LVP flooring a lot. Tons of people love it, and because it's very easy to install, all sorts of people install it, flooring companies, handymen, all sorts. But there are different things that separate us, and that's why we charge a little more. We always ensure your subfloor is double layered, because if you lay LVP on top of just a single-layer subfloor on top of your floor joists, you get shifting and lifting of the subfloor, and that causes long-term problems with your LVP, separation where two pieces come apart, edges shifting out, chipping. When we double layer the subfloor and prep that second layer we put down, we guarantee your floor is going to last what the manufacturer says it will.