At New England Refinishing, our passion for furniture shows in every piece of furniture we refinish.
New England Refinishing began as a chance for the Owner and Founder, Ed Gillen, to “do what I love”, whose passion for a “hobby” led him to leave high technology 25 years ago and learn to repair and refinish furniture like a professional. New England Refinishing is his business now, but he still talks like a man crazy about a hobby.
“My wife says that the best thing that can happen to a customer is to have me fall in love with the piece they bring in. That happens a lot.”
Sometimes Gillen’s interest kicks in when he’s on the hunt for a small piece of old wood to patch a broken chair. Sometimes it’s the challenge of making a very old piece safe in a modern world by finishing it in a way that retains the old look, but ends the constant cracking and splitting central heating and air conditioning promote. And sometimes it’s the story behind the furniture.
“I see a lot of elderly people who have family pieces they want their children and grandchildren to live with and appreciate,” he said. “But often things are in pretty bad shape, and the parents suspect that after they’re gone, the dining room will end up in a flea market or the bedroom set will be the feature of a roadside yard sale. So they bring them in and have them patched, painted and pieced together again.”
Then there was the Stow woman who wanted to repair a cherry gateleg table as a surprise for her mother. The last time Mom had seen the table, which had been in the family for four generations, it was in pieces - cracked top, broken legs- in her daughter’s closet. Gillen plotted with the customer to drop the table off on a Saturday when her mother would be there, and elicited the unsuspecting woman’s help to get the refinished table off the truck.
“She cried when she saw it. I told her, “That’s OK - the finish is waterproof.”
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