Stateside Carpentry

Stateside Carpentry, run by owner John Pryce, is a Dorchester operation built around decks, porches, and finish carpentry — the specific work every review on file keeps circling back to. The Better Business Bureau lists the company as J P Stateside Inc., a corporation with three employees that BBB records as started in 1999 — a 27-year history — though Angi and HomeAdvisor separately describe it as having 10 years of experience, so it's worth asking directly how long the current operation has been running. The written record is a strong, consistent one, but it's an old one: the ten reviews on file run from 2011 to 2019, with five of them dated 2013–2015 and the newest from March 2019. Within that window, the praise is specific and repeated. In a 2013 review, a homeowner called finished stairs, railing, and landing work excellent and asked Pryce back for another project. A 2014 review of a completed porch and deck job called the work reliable, fair-priced, and quick. A 2015 review called Pryce honest, hardworking, and fair — language that recurs across multiple reviewers over the years — and the most recent, from 2019, describes a deck job finished on time and on budget. BuildZoom's permit records back this up with breadth: 13 permitted projects from 2010 through 2024 across nine towns including Somerville, Cambridge, Milton, and Braintree. On licensing, BuildZoom shows an active Massachusetts Home Improvement Contractor registration (#186463), verified by BuildZoom against the state board as of March 2026, alongside an earlier number (#147785) that Mass.gov shows was cancelled at some point — worth confirming which is current before signing anything. The BBB gives the business an A+ rating, though the same profile states it has not sought BBB accreditation. There's no reporting on work more recent than 2019 in the written reviews, and the business's own stated tenure doesn't match its BBB filing, so a homeowner considering a larger project might reasonably confirm current licensing and ask for recent references directly. For a deck, porch, or finish-carpentry job — the kind of work this record actually documents — the history points to steady work reviewers keep calling honest and fair; for a full kitchen or bathroom remodel, which the business lists as a service but no review here describes, it's worth asking to see recent examples of that specific work.