Furniture Repair. Back Together, Square.

Most of what comes in is structural, and most of it starts in the same place: the glue. Old glue crystallises, a chair racks a little further every time somebody sits down, and eventually the joints are carrying nothing at all. Rails split along the grain. Feet soften until the casters tear out of them. The right fix is almost always the original joint, cleaned back and glued up again, not a bracket or a screw driven through the side of it.

Joints come apart, the old glue is washed off the tenons and out of the mortises, and the frame goes back together clamped and square. Where a part is missing it is cut new in the same species with the grain running correctly, then coloured in so it does not announce itself. Metal fittings are welded or soldered where the piece calls for it, and glass and mirror are cut to the original sight lines rather than to the nearest stock size. Curved glass too, which is what a bowfront china cabinet needs and what most shops will send you away for.