Furniture Repair and Restoration Specialists
For over 30 years furniture refinishing has been the signature service at FINIsmith. In the time since, we have steadily increased our knowledge base of hands-on project experience and working with clients. We have also learned a great deal from attending advanced workshops and from our relationships with our product vendors.
Refinishing is the best solution for many of the cases that come to us. Most of these items are in such poor condition or altered by paint or other previous refinishing work such that stripping and replacement with an appropriate finish is the only way to restore beauty and function to the piece.
Refinishing furniture entails more to us than just stripping the wood, applying stain and spraying lacquer. It starts with a thorough inspection of the piece to understand what it requires to look great and function as it should. An essential part of this process understands your desires and expectation for the project.
An assessment of repair work is essential before the refinishing takes place. Different situations call for different methods or materials to be used. Quality work involves the use of a broad range of professional coloring and finishing materials, mostly unknown and unavailable at local home centers or paint stores.
We can repair wood parts and entire structures or fabricate new parts and structures as needed. Broken chair parts can be repaired or made new. Badly damaged veneers can often be patched and glued down where loose, or we can reveneer or build new veneer surfaces when needed.
A variety of accessory services may be needed and these will be part of our written price quotation. Hardware is cleaned and polished as needed or we can help you choose replacement hardware that is appropriate. We coordinate glass replacement and mirror resilvering or replacement as needed. Chair caning and other types of seat weaving are available.
At FINIsmith we offer much more than refinishing. We want to be your resource for furniture care and restoration of all types- period.
To define what is entailed in “restoring” a finish is entirely subjective. Our view is that the word “restore” is an accurate general description of various solutions we offer- and that includes stripping and finish replacement- but is not limited to that or to any one process. In fact we are finding more and more that each project seems to have unique requirements, and our menu of choices for solutions is becoming more broad. This is a good thing, but it does make it more difficult to describe what we can do in a brief outline.
We are constantly researching materials and techniques to further add to our knowledge base and improve quality. A prime example of this continuing effort in the last 10 years has produced a new menu of services and treatments we can offer to restore or improve older existing wood finishes that do not obviously need complete stripping and refinishing. Sometimes the existing surface has intrinsic value. More often there is personal historic value. Or, you may simply desire to clean and restore some luster to the piece that has faded over the years. Doing nothing can be an option, but in many cases when these pieces are being used, treatments are needed to prevent or limit further deterioration. We are finding a healthy and growing demand for this type of restoration treatment and we are pleased to offer alternatives to finish replacement.