Heartwood Personal Carpenter — small carpentry jobs in Oakland
Heartwood logo Heartwood PERSONAL CARPENTER
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Request a visit Call 415.506.8668
Owner-operated·Small jobs welcome·Same person, every visit
Heartwood — Personal Carpenter
Good work, close to home.
SERVICES

The small stuff, handled

The everyday carpentry and repairs Bay Area houses need most — the jobs too small for a contractor and too fussy to keep putting off. A good share of it is helping people stay comfortable and sure-footed in a house they've lived in a long time.

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IS YOUR PROJECT A GOOD FIT?

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Work I can start soon and finish in a day or two, priced as one flat quote before I pick up a tool. No change orders, no surprise line items. Going about tasks lists this way allows me to one after another, remove the issues that are constantly grabbing at your attention.  Allowing you to experience the calm, rejuvenating connections to your own favorite spaces.  

  • Right-sized: repairs and small builds, typically a day or two of work
  • One flat quote: agreed up front from your photos and a short visit, if a visit is needed. 
  • Bigger than that? I'll say so honestly and point you to a licensed GC
HOW IT WORKS

Three steps: Let's begin the conversation.

1

Send photos

If you can include pictures with your text, and the best description you can muster. That much will give me a place to start with questions when we talk.  If you'd rather just describe it out loud, call and we'll sort it out on the phone.  

2

Get one flat price

Please give me at least a day to familiarize myself with your request.  I'll send a message or call the morning of the following business day to discuss further and land on a date.  If we agree, then you'll get a single all-in proposal with a cost and a start date. That price holds for the work we agreed on for 30 days. If something turns up behind the wall that neither of us could see, I stop and talk to you before anything changes.

3

Done, and tidy

I arrive when I said, or call you if that changes. I explain what I'm doing as I go, so you know your own house a little better after I leave. I clean up behind myself and don't sell you work you didn't ask about. Payment is due when the job's done.

Call or text 415.506.8668
Tap the number to call, or send photos any time.
Use the form →
QUESTIONS

The things people ask first

How soon can you come?

About seven to ten days from the first call. If something is urgent, say so — I can sometimes move things around.

What does a typical job cost?

Every job gets one flat quote before I pick up a tool, and it doesn't change after you say yes. I don't publish rates, because a number without the work in front of it helps no one. What I can tell you is the shape of it: I take work that fits inside about a day, and I'll say so plainly if yours doesn't.

Are you licensed?

No. I work under California's minor work exemption: every job stays under $1,000 in labor and materials combined, needs no building permit, and is done by me alone. That's not a workaround — it's the size of work I want to be doing. If what you need calls for a licensed contractor, I'll tell you, and I'll point you toward someone good.

What if the job is bigger than we thought?

I stop and call you. Nothing gets added to the bill without you saying yes first. Usually there are two ways forward — a different approach that still fits the day, or a separate job on a separate day with its own quote. You decide which, not me.

Do you charge for the visit?

Not within my regular hours and service area — the quote is free. If you need me outside those, it's a flat $125 for the hour, and you keep the plan whether or not you hire me.

Do you do things that aren't on your list?

Ask. Send a photo or two first and I'll tell you straight whether it's something I should be taking on. If it isn't, I'd rather say so early than do it badly.

How do I pay you?

Cash, check, Zelle, Venmo, Apple Pay or PayPal, due when the work is finished. No deposit.

Who buys the materials?

Usually you do, and it's simpler that way — you keep the receipts and the warranties, and you're not paying me to stand in line. For small hardware I'll bring what's needed and it goes in the quote.

HOURS

Tuesday through Saturday

8 – 9 AM
PHONE HOURS
I answer, or call you back that morning.
9 AM – 4 PM
ON SITE
The day belongs to one client.
4 – 6 PM
PHONE HOURS
Quotes, scheduling, questions.
Sun & Mon
CLOSED

If I don't pick up between nine and four, it's because someone else's house has my full attention. Yours gets the same when it's your turn.

Those are my regular hours, and I keep to them. If your situation needs an evening, an early start, or a Sunday, say so — I can often accommodate it, and I'll tell you up front what the accommodation adds to the quote.

WHERE I WORK

Within 8 miles of Adams Point

I'm based in Adams Point, right where Oakland meets Piedmont.  My preference is to keep my clients close to where I call home and invest within the community.  Of course, I'm available to discuss your projects with you.  Please check in with me, I might be willing to make up to a 30-minute trip.    

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RECENT WORK

The work behind the name

I have been a carpenter most of my life. The identity — the way these eyes measure, inspect and ponder our built world — is almost as much a part of me as being Jason. The pictures below are a small subset of what I've worked on across just the last ten years, shared so you can see the variety, width and depth of the experience. That breadth is what I'm asking you to trust. I've built some very cool things across our planet — I've been part of teams directly managing the construction of skyscrapers, from the digging of the foundations to the finishes in the penthouse and roof deck. These hands have built big, bold and beautiful things over decades.

For part of that time I worked on my own, in a very unstructured way (2008–2020), and I watched the internet industries take their run at home repair — Arnie's List, Jack Rabbits, makea-dot-com — selling a premium subscription to what turned out to be a phone book, or sending anyone with a drill and a login to your door. All that money and code later, they learned what every carpenter already knew: the last mile of home repair is done by hand. My answer is a simple idea: operate within the rules but below the bureaucracy, and offer my neighbors affordable access to the long-alive list that never gets attention. That is exactly what I'm doing. This is what's behind Heartwood Personal Carpenter — welcome, and thanks for your interest.

The lessons of those decades live in individual projects, covering many of the categories of things that fill a home. I have made doors and windows, framed buildings, built jewelry boxes and jewelry. I have years of experience in spot and specialty finish repair, including shooting specialty finishes — auto primers, metallics and clears through epoxies and pre-catalyzed. I can remake period-correct trim, repair spot damage in leather, vinyl and fabric, and rebuild upholstery from portions of old patterns. I could go on — engines, motors and other technically sensitive equipment, stained glass panel restoration, model making. The point of the list isn't the list: whatever in your home has been waiting for attention, odds are I've already repaired its cousin.

Jason on site, Adams Point
Jason on site, Adams Point
Scribing a block to the tile line
Scribing a block to the tile line
A hand across freshly milled boards
A hand across freshly milled boards
Wiring an outdoor receptacle into its box
Wiring an outdoor receptacle into its box
Resetting a gate hinge on a picket fence
Resetting a gate hinge on a picket fence
A curved edge checked with a combination square
A curved edge checked with a combination square
A steel leg end fitted with a wood plug
A steel leg end fitted with a wood plug
Checks and splits in a weathered gate post
Checks and splits in a weathered gate post
Everything a day of repairs needs
Everything a day of repairs needs
Respirator on, inside a dust-contained work tent
Respirator on, inside a dust-contained work tent
A length of door stop, cut to match the jamb
A length of door stop, cut to match the jamb
Bench parts laid out on the floor before assembly
Bench parts laid out on the floor before assembly
Outdoor service hutch at dusk, lamp lit
Outdoor service hutch at dusk, lamp lit
Office door where there was none 6 STEPS →

Adding a doorway. Who knew it was so simple?

OAKLAND · COMMERCIAL

An open transit between a foyer and the offices, framed down to a doorway and given a solid door and lockset.

Primary bath, down to the joists 5 STEPS →

This! is a great example of how much change can be brought by considering shape and texture.

OAKLAND HILLS

Gutted, re-plumbed, re-wired and put back with a hex terrazzo floor.

Window bench in an A-frame 5 STEPS →

Built in seating ALWAYS add a degree of intimacy to a space.

OAKLAND · BUILT-IN

A dead corner turned into seating, drawers and a sill for the tomatoes.

Furniture back from the brink 5 STEPS →

Almost everything that costs good $ CAN  be maintained.   Lets do it.  

EAST BAY · REPAIR

Split frames, loose joints and broken feet — fixed instead of replaced.

Veneer and edge repair, on site 6 STEPS →

Sometimes accidents happen.  MOST of the time, YES, they are fixable.  

HOTELS & OFFICES

Chipped edges and gouged tops made right without pulling the casework.

Shop conversion 5 STEPS →

Cutting very specific sized doorways in a concrete wall SEEMS hard, until it happens near you. 

OAKLAND · COMMERCIAL

Masonry opened for a roll-up door, slab cut, header framed, room put back to work.

The wide-open gap between the foyer and the offices, about to become a proper doorway. Carpet taped off, floors covered — and the building never had to close.
From the office side — new studs standing plumb and straight, no matter what the old wall had in mind.
Closed in, taped and mudded. Ready for its jamb.
Stop and casing cut to match what the building already had — not what was easiest to buy.
Checking the jamb plumb before the door goes on. A door only ever closes as well as this moment allows.
Hung, latched and trimmed. It looks like it was always there — which is exactly the point. Simple, right?
Walls open. Before any of the new goes in, the framing and the plumbing get a proper look.
Supply, waste and wiring roughed in — with blocking placed exactly where the fixtures and grab bars will want it.
Ceiling still open, poly hung, subfloor down. Nothing gets buttoned up until everything above it checks out.
The hex terrazzo dry-laid first — this is the shape-and-texture moment — so no awkward cut ends up anywhere your eye lands.
Finished. Shape, texture, and a floor that will outlast the rest of the house.
The corner before — a run of glass, a lean in every wall, and nowhere to sit.
Every part cut and laid out first. An A-frame gives you no square corners to trust, so every piece gets scribed to its spot rather than measured.
The frame built in place along the glass — following the lean of the wall instead of fighting it.
Ply skins and lift-up lids on. The entire length of the bench is storage.
Done — a window seat, a sill wide enough for the seedlings, and the corner everyone gravitates to now. That's what built-in seating does.
Turned over for a proper look. Copper stretchers, steel frame, and the factory warranty card still stapled underneath — a piece worth saving.
The failure — a leg torn out of the curved rail, and it took the wood with it.
Dry-fit and clamped before any glue comes out. If it won't close cleanly dry, glue won't save it.
Pinned as well as glued — glue alone lets go a second time, usually with someone sitting on it.
Back together and back in service. Good pieces earn this kind of care — and the repaired joint is the one you can't pick out.
How it came in — a stone counter broken clean through, corner missing. An accident, and a fixable one.
The whole slab up on horses, the break running corner to corner. Big enough that most people would have ordered a new top.
Set up right where the piece lives. Drop cloth down, everything out of the bag, nothing left in the hallway.
Filler mixed and tinted against the actual stone before a speck of it touches the job.
Cutout squared and the edges sealed, so nothing can lift later.
Back on the hutch and back outside. You'd have to be told where the break was — yes, it was fixable.
Laid out on the cobble wall and left overnight. Cut lines get slept on before a saw comes out.
Opened — header in, and daylight where a solid wall stood that morning.
From the lot, late. An opening like this gets closed up the same day, or covered before anyone leaves.
A ramp built up to the threshold, so the height change stops being a trip hazard.
Roll-up hung, chain fall set, floor swept. The truck backs straight in — not so hard after all.
WHO YOU'RE CALLING

What a personal carpenter is

Personal carpenter means I can be available to you. The more informed and confident you are about your own house, the more useful I get to be.

Jason DeCook
Jason DeCook
Journeyman carpenter, prototyping, model making, furniture design, and repair.  The consistent happy expression of my days is spent making things and learning ,  I owe the whole circuit from my hands through my heart and picking up inspiration from my eyes and mind; a great deal of gratitude, they sure have helped craft and assemble many beautiful things. Heartwood represents the best parts of my talent and attention.  

In 2008, when a handful of new buildings came onto the market in San Francisco, there is a good chance I finished the punch list on one of them. Five buildings over those years, something like a thousand units in total. When those same families started moving in and had a question about the building, or found a still unattended issue marked with a small bit of blue tape, I may have been the guy who showed up, introduced himself, and handled it.

I had always gravitated to positions like that. It is the nature of the work: every project reaches a point where the people who conjured it into existence move on. Grading the lot, pouring the foundations, standing the steel, pouring the decks, up and up. Kitchens and baths go in. Then someone comes in last. I kept falling into versions of that role — a person set in front of details. It is not right; make it right.

Isn't it a really funny thing, when I perform my role impeccably, that means my visit should go un- noticed.  Unless you enjoyed the high pitch squeak of dry hinges or developed a fondness for the cracked faceplates or the hallway that's just been dark because that fixture is too high. Let me help, let's make it better.  
It is an inherently self-deprecating career — coming to remove the evidence, methodically and considerately. It's rewarding work and I love doing it.

Over time the network grew by suggestion. Knowing the smaller neighborhoods of San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland — where the best Ace is, or where to get friction rings and valve components on a holiday — turns out to be easy value to see.

For about a decade of my life, I was lucky to have a ongoing series of odd, uncommon and sometimes eccentric opportunities kept presented themselves... and I followed ever curious.  All leading to adventurous periods of traveling from one large scale art project to another.   Then I fell in love in a new way and shifted focuses, changing where my attention goes.  I went out into the world and what I kept noticing was that there are some needs not being attended too very well.  Helping people tend to the basics of home care.  I have a notion that I can do something to change things for the better.  It starts here, with me helping you live in your home easier.  In the first I loved making things because it was a good way of making money.  The second, more adventurous portion was complex and strange projects with a whole different kind of people, who seemed to be fueled only by what scared them or moved them — the edges of art and industry. I still got to make things, and I got to be celebrated alongside others who did too. It was fabulous. It was also exhausting.

Now I get to make things and synthesize the best of both, and enjoy all of it, because it is what makes the most sense and exudes the most joy. I love knowing that when I leave, your life should be a little easier. It is part of a mantra: leave things generally better than I found them.

On pricing

You won't find an hourly rate on this site — not because it's a secret, but because a number without context helps no one. Every job gets one flat, written quote based on the actual work: materials, access, and how long careful work takes. The quote is free, and it doesn't change after you say yes.

My word on it

My word and the work I leave behind are the two most valuable things I have. If what I repaired fails at the thing it was meant to do, I come back and make it right.

Workmanship is the constant. What varies is the approach — some repairs are meant to hold for a season, some are meant to outlast the house, and we decide which one you're buying before I start. Whichever we choose gets the same attention.

Within reason, and not covering: normal wear, materials you supplied, conditions I flagged in writing before starting, or damage from misuse or neglect.
REQUEST A VISIT

Tell me what the house needs

A sentence or two is plenty. I reply within one business day — usually sooner. Prefer to talk? Call or text 415.506.8668.

— Heartwood, Adams Point
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