Suzanne O’Connor’s Bargains LA

Jorge Garcia Furniture Restoration

For the last three years, we have been restoring & repairing our collection of antique furniture. Most of it was inherited. Much of it came from different eras, but all of it needed to either be restored or trashed. We choose to restore most of the items.

Good refinishing and or restoration can be expensive. Often be as much as a purchasing brand new low to mid quality furniture. But trust me when I tell you that you won’t find the same level of quality or craftsmanship today without paying seriously high top dollar. Plus hanging on to better quality family pieces is a much better bargain long term and is a better, “greener” choice than chucking it into the land fill.

We started our search for a restorer by attending antique shows and looking for key Craftsman, Federal and Sheraton type furniture pieces that had been restored and then asked the dealers who did it.

We called a couple of guys, but one totally understood our concept of restoration and only refinishing pieces when necessary. Jorge Garcia works out of a small warehouse in Pasadena and specializes in antique polishing, restoration, refinishing as well as caning, rushing and carving.

We’ve found Jorge is especially good at matching wood tones and repairs. We have used him to refinish, restore and repair just about everything. He’s put a bar top on our Sheraton dining table, repaired two broken side chairs, restored and strengthened 6 dining chairs, stripped and refinished a dresser to match our other wood pieces, took off the old veneer on a 1800’s side table and then refinished the top, repaired broken dresser legs and finally restored our smaller Sheraton buffet.

He is not the cheapest or especially fast, but he does terrific work, gives accurate and fair estimates and is easy to deal with.  He currently is repairing a really sweet mahogany 1820’s rocking chair with mother pearl inlay.  After that is finished we will probably send in our Stickley rocker and in about a year he’ll get our rather large Sheraton sideboard.  Eventually when our kid goes to college he’ll also get to re-due the Veneer on my moms Victorian bed set that my daughter has.

We always talk to him at length about each piece before work is done to insure he understands what we want and are hoping to acheive. If you are thinking about keeping good older pieces have Jorge come by and give you a quote.  He’ll get the job done right and you’ll have a furniture piece that will last a lifetime.

Hint, if possible, you’ll save money by taking in or picking up your own stuff. Jorge does charge for pick up and delivery, 25 bucks each way.

Jorge Garcia
2739 Nina St.
Pasadena, CA 91106
626.644.6356.