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FAQs
| Q: What services do you provide?
A: We are able to undertake a wide range of
furniture related jobs, from simple repairs to
more complex restoration or conservation work. Whether you have modern, vintage or antique furniture, even architectural work, no job is too small.
Listed below are just some of the services we can provide:
Furniture
restoration,
furniture repairs, upholstery, re-upholstery, chair
repair, caning, French polishing, wood staining, colour matching,
removing marks from finishes, lifting dents from surfaces, veneer
repairs, woodworm treatment, repairing tears and rips, fixing or
remaking broken parts, fixing sagging or broken springs, stripping and refinishing, designing and making bespoke pieces.
We have a
large number of samples for you to choose from: fabrics, leathers, wood
veneers and finishes. You can of course supply your own materials if you wish, as long as they meet the requirements. Some of our suppliers are listed on our links page but we are able to order materials from almost anywhere.
Whether
you have a
simple repair job or a much larger project we can either help you or point
you in the right direction, please don't hesitate to ask us.
| | | Q: Do I have to bring my furniture to you or can you come to my home or business address to give estimates?
A: No, you don't need to bring your furniture to us, we can come to you to provide an estimate.
| | | Q: Is it possible to have my items of furniture collected and delivered back to me?
A: Yes, we can collect your furniture and redeliver it back to you once the work is completed.
| | | Q: Can the work be carried out in my home or business address?
A: Yes, in some cases although most work must be carried out in our workshop, please do contact us to discuss your particular situation.
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| Q: Will my furniture will be safe when it is in your care?
A: Yes, we carefully wrap and protect our customers items whilst in transit and
store them in a safe place, the environment in our workshop is monitored to ensure that
it does not adversly affect the timber/materials. While your
furniture is in our care we are very careful to handle and treat it so
that no harm comes to it.
| | | Q: I have some broken furniture, what should I do while I wait for a professional to repair or restore it?
A:
Please, whatever you do, do not put nails or screws into furniture to
hold it together. This does more damage than good and hidden nails and
screws are the bane of a restorers life!
Place
the furniture somewhere out of the way, make sure to keep hold of any
small parts which may have broken off, do not use tape to attach these parts or anything else to the piece as this could damage the surface finish.
Contact us for advice and to arrange for an estimate.
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| Q: How are you able to offer such reasonable estimates?
A:
We try to keep our
prices as low as possible without ever lowering our standards. We do this by tailoring each job to the specific needs of each
customer, the cost implications of each individual part of the job can be discussed so you only pay for what work you want to be done.
We are a small company and so do not charge any VAT on our labour, additionally no profits are made from the cost of materials, we charge by the half hour and have fairly low overheads.
We also save money by being green - by
avoiding waste, ordering larger deliveries of materials, by
using reclaimed timber and reusing materials. We walk, cycle, use public transport or city car club cars where possible which further reduces our environmental impact and saves us money.
Substantial savings can be made in these ways and in other ways too, please contact us for more information.
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| Q: You seem to have two websites: FurnitureRestorationAndUpholsteryServices.co.uk and fraus.co.uk - why?
A:
The long website address was our old site, we felt there were too many
characters in the name, it's quite a long website address and the email addresses were even worse!
We still like the furniturerestorationandupholsteryservices.co.uk address and decided to keep it, you can use either, whichever you prefer. Both addresses end up at fraus.co.uk
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| Q: Why should I choose to restore or reupholster an old piece of furniture when new furniture is so cheap?
A:
There are many reasons why someone might want to keep using old
furniture instead of renewing it. Sentimental reasons, reasons of style, for comfort, environmental and or cost reasons. Whilst it may seem
like that £999 sofa or chair is a good deal, the same money spent on an vintage or
antique sofa and the cost of restoration or reupholstery is
likely to give you a higher quality item, outlasting the modern furniture by
many years and having a greater residual value if you ever chose to sell it.
Furniture can be
picked up very cheaply from auctions, you can then pick what sort of
stuffing and covering materials you would like - have a
custom sofa, made to suit you and your home. Some of the modern furniture we see now
is nothing more than a softwood frame with cardboard and foam over it, hardwood frames with proper jointing methods are always going to last longer than that.
We feel that good furniture should be comfortable, useful, beautiful and should last longer than the materials it was made from took to grow.
"If recessionary penny-pinching has taught us anything, it’s that buying cheap, disposable furniture can be a false economy. Quality pieces, however, deserve to be cherished over generations" -
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article7137789.ece
"Choose good quality furniture which can last you a lifetime or longer! It will save you money in the long term." -
http://www.recyclenow.com/what_can_i_do_today/can_it_be_recycled/miscellaneous/furniture.html
"The
UK throws away millions of items of
furniture every year, many of
which could be re-used. Every tonne of furniture rescued from landfill
saves nearly three tonnes of carbon emissions." -
http://www.fairhome.co.uk/2009/02/20/big-womble-encourages-furniture-re-use/
"Reuse and renovate furniture and flooring. Producing floor coverings and furniture uses energy and resources and may do environmental harm ... You can help by: buying to last rather than replacing often if you have the choice ... buying second-hand, sourcing vintage furniture or exchanging items"
"instead of throwing away your old furniture, try donating it to a
charity shop, selling it on an online auction website or recycling it"-
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Greenerhomeandgarden/Greenershopping/DG_064377
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