GRIT Furniture & Wood Finishing

Writing my first ever Unilocal review for Jamie because he is an incredible craftsman who stands by his work. About 6 months ago Jamie refinished the mahogany-​veneer top and metal base of a Saarinen tulip table that has been in my family for 50+ years. Chips, water marks, deep scratches — the table had seen a lot of abuse. For a very reasonable price, Jamie meticulously fixed every problem, helped me choose a stain and paint color, and restored the table to its former glory. He did such a beautiful job that everyone who comes over remarks on it.
Fast forward to March, through some combination of my housekeeper’s heavy hand and issues with the curing of the conversion varnish, I came home one day to big circular scratches all over the tabletop. I sent Jamie an email with photos, he responded promptly and tried to help me diagnose and troubleshoot the problem. We couldn’t find a fix, so he offered to redo the tabletop with a different varnish — for free! He even picked it up and delivered it himself. As a designer, I was so impressed by his integrity and commitment to his craft. The table has been back for a few weeks and the new finish seems to be holding up very well.
I would not hesitate to recommend Jamie to anyone who cares about their furniture and wants it treated right. He’s your guy.

I had trouble with iron steam stains on my beautiful Italian dining room table and had no idea what to do until I consulted Jamie. I contacted a lot of people in the city, but Jamie gave me the most useful, detailed advice. My table looks beautiful again. I really recommend him to anyone in need of professional consultation for furniture and wood finishing. He is amazing!!! Thanks so much, Jamie!

Jaime is amazing! I was ready to get rid of my dining set feeling like it belonged in my grandmothers house. Jaime reassured me he could make the dining set look great again and current, and that he did. He was patient with my availability so we could choose the color I was having trouble envisioning. I’m not very good at making decisions, but he never rushed me. He met me at a «stain shop» and we decided on a color. He made samples and I chose my favorites and then he put it on a chair just to make sure I loved it. He also repaired the chairs, which were wobbly and weak. In fact he repaired everything that he could. Everything came out perfectly and I’ve gotten so many compliments, especially from people who knew (and disliked) what this set looked like before. It’s just like brand new and better quality than anything I would’ve gotten for the price he charged me. He makes me want to hunt craiglist just so he can make old pieces have a second life. He’s a true professional and perfectionist and absolutely loves what he does.

I found GRIT, and Jamie, here on Unilocal when I needed to have my dining room table refinished, and would like to add my five stars to the many other five-​star ratings he gets. Jamie struck me right away as someone for whom furniture beautification and repair is more than just a job – he cares a lot about the craft. He really studied the table and what he could do to improve it in the process of fixing the inadvertent damage I had done to it. His decision to lighten up the color a bit so that the beauty of the grain would radiate more was a nice one. I liked that he took his time to do a careful job. He and the folks working with him are very friendly and easy to talk to as well!

Jamie refinished and reupholstered 6 dining chairs for us. He painstakingly lacquered them with multiple coats, hiding a previous ugly varnish and many scratches and dings. He also reupholstered them with beautiful fabric. PS, he’s a true artist and shouldn’t be rushed. Furniture will be there for years, so his great work is worth whatever wait.
My wife and I can’t say enough good things about Jamie’s work. It is in short the work of an artist, truly magnificent! We will use his services again and again, with pleasure.

I was referred to Jamie by another company, was considering refinishing an older mid century Danish piece. Jamie was incredibly helpful and informed and informative, giving me options and zero hard sell. His work is fantastic, his character impeccable. Highly recommended.

Jamie did gorgeous work refinishing our Mission Oak dining room tabletop. It had gotten pretty beaten up over the years and the finish was uncleanably sticky. I’d tried to strip it and ended up with a rather scary black stain from white vinegar, and he removed it easily.
He answered my initial email pretty promptly, was very friendly, gave me a fair estimate, and came in under budget. He picked up, dropped off, and kept me apprised of his progress. He even came to check the stain against the base just to be sure he’d gotten the right match. The table looks better than ever.
Highly recommended.

Jamie was a refered by a friend and I had 100 percent confendence in his ability to reserface my sink pedestal that was messed up by water damage. He told me he could get it back to a good looking condition. It WORKED for about four months then the problem came back. I call him and then he told me that there was nothing else he could do. He did not offer to pay me back anything.

We used Jamie to restore an old dining room piece that we had for years. It was quite beat up. We asked Jamie to come over to give us a price because he got good Unilocal reviews. He came over to look at the piece, and his price was reasonable. He also gave us some different options on how to resotre it, color /​stain ideas, etc. He picked the furtniture up, gave us updates throughout the process, and even stopped by during the process to share some different color samples with us so we knew what the end state would look like. Jamie also made some good repairs to the doors and shelves, and even built us a new shelf for it. overall Jamie did an amazing job, and I would highly recommend him.

Jamie did an amazing job restoring a set of nesting tables that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. He had abused and neglected them for years and they were in sorry shape; faded, water rings, broken, etc. Now they are perfect and we will treasure them. Thanks Jamie.

My table top looks beautiful thanks to Jaime! A couple of accidents with nail polish remover led me to Jaime. He was friendly, professional, and easy to communicate with. To be honest, I wasn’t all that concerned about what the table top would look like as long as the damage was gone, etc. Jaime’s work has made me absolutely love my coffee table and really appreciate the beauty of the wood. He receives my highest recommendation!

Jaime recently refinished a vintage oak Platner dining table for me that had been covered by the previous owner (a bank) in a hideous, thick, very red stain. He stripped all of the awful stain off and refinished with a custom medium walnut stain that looks phenomenal. His prices were on the low to mid range of the bids that I received, plus he did pick up and delivery.
The reason I selected Jaime was that when I reached out to him, I had intended to do the refinishing myself, but realized it was going to be much more difficult that I thought. But I hadn’t planned on the added cost, so I was looking for a solution where I would put in a lot of the initial elbow work on stripping the stain (with sandpaper), and then hire someone to do the last bit (that turned out not to make a lot of sense, or save a lot of money, so I ended up having him do the whole thing). I mentioned that I was using 60 grit sandpaper, which Jaime told me to stop doing immediately (and which others subsequently confirmed could have done some major damage). He took the time to educate me about the process, even though when I initially reached out, it was clear I was unsure whether I’d proceed. Throughout the process, he took the time to listen to what I wanted, and to educate me about how the stain would react on my wood, the differences in grain fill levels, etc.
When it came to the final color, it ended up being slightly lighter than the sample I chose, but he absolutely made the right decision — I told him that I wanted it to be a dark color, but that I wanted enough contrast so that the grain was highlighted. He could have just exactly matched the sample, and given me what I ‘asked’ for, but I had also asked him to make the final call once he saw what the stain was doing on the table, and he made the call that I would have made.
The finished product exceeded my expectations and was worth every penny.

Jamie from Grit Wood Finishing is a true craftsman. He’s knowledgeable and a cool guy to work with. He just finished a vintage 3 seat spindle-​backed sofa that we bought on eBay. The wood was a bit rough and faded and some parts were loose.
Jamie re-​did the entire sofa and made it absolutely new again. He paid great attention to detail and made sure we loved it.
He even charged us less than his estimate because it took him less time than expected to complete. We will definitely be using his services again.

After my sending email pictures to him, Jamie offered to come look at our table to assess if it was worth the repair costs. He came today, Saturday, for free, and was totally honest about the reality of refinishing our table. He was candid and professional, not getting our hopes up with our veneer problem. He cared about us and brainstormed ideas and possible other collegues who could help. I would highly recommend!

This review is a combo review and «thank you» letter to Jamie.
A little background story: My husband, who is in his fifties, was gifted a mid-​century desk from his aunt in the late 60s when he was in high school. My husband’s aunt was traveling through Europe at the time, she took care to have the desk boxed up and shipped it over to my husband who grew up in the upper midwest. My husband left his home state for good not long after college, and the desk made the rounds through his family. Needless to say, after more than 40 years, we finally got it back when a sister-​in-​law who had taken the desk with her to AZ decided that since it was originally a gift for my husband, that he should be the one to have it and we could pass it down to our daughters. Needless to say, after my sister-​in-​law dropped it off on a road trip through CA on her way to OR, we could not believe what a poor state the desk was in and how shabbily it had been treated. Water rings, magic marker stains, even burns from cigarette ash, and that was only the writing surface. I said to my husband, «What did your siblings do to it? It looks like they c****ed and p***ed all over it!»
We decided to go ahead and try to get the desk refinished because we felt it was worth it for the sentimental value alone, plus the lines of the desk were really sweet, and we felt that it was a worthy heirloom for our daughters.
When I first e-​mailed Jamie pics of the desk, he sent me back a reply that he thought it was a really cool desk and that he would really love to work on it. I had him come by in person to take a look at it so that he could fine-​tune his estimate. He ended up packing it up and taking it away that day.
Over the following weeks, Jamie kept me up-​to-​date on his progress, e-​mailing pictures, discussing stain and finish options with me. He even dropped off a sample board of stain colors and finish (glossy or matte) samples.
Finally, he dropped off the desk last night and after he unwrapped his meticulous packaging job, we were just absolutely STUNNED that this was the same desk! It looks like a brand-​new desk. Jamie is nothing short of a miracle worker — I’m still in disbelief that he was able to pull this off!
I’ve attached before-​and-​after pics; please excuse the flash in the after pic, it was at night and couldn’t be helped. The desk looks even better in the daylight, but these pics should give you an idea that Jamie is the real deal.
Honestly, considering how much work goes into refinishing a piece, Jamie is very reasonably priced. My husband and I just purchased a desk from West Elm that was two-​thirds the price that we ended up paying Jamie to refinish the desk from my husband’s aunt, but Jamie’s craftsmanship and quality shine through in a way that’s not apparent in mass-​produced furniture.

Jamie does incredibly detailed and professional refinishing work. We recently had him restore and refinish four interior Victorian era panel doors during our renovation. He painstakingly removed literally decades of paint — including lead-​based I’m sure — and stained them this beautiful lacquered ebony color. They look incredible and maintain the integrity of the Victorian, something that was equally important to us. Then we hired him to do our two antique maple, two of a kind Victorian era parlor chairs — inherited from my great grandmother. Once again, Jamie didn’t disappoint. The chairs look as good as they must have new and he was meticulous about ensuring that the stain didn’t seep on the existing upholstery. He’s also very communicative during the process and met deadlines which we admit were aggressive. He also hauled the items up and down a steep flight of stairs. I would recommend him without question.

Jamie did an AMAZING job refinishing a reclaimed wood table I purchased at Crate & Barrel outlet. It had scratches, paint splotches, and cracked corners and Jamie restored it to even better than what new «first quality» versions of the same table look like. He helped me pick it up at the store, took it to his shop, refinished it, and then helped me carry it up FOUR flights of stairs to its final place in the dining area of our new loft. I will post photos as soon as we have cleared some boxes out.
SO HAPPY.

I bought a bed a couple months ago, but while I loved the design, I wasn’t really thrilled with the finish. I decided to see if I could get it refinished, and since I was doing that, decided I wanted something totally different — a glossy piano black finish on all the wood.
Enter Jamie. In short, his work surpassed my highest expectations (and I had high expectations). He was careful to make sure he knew exactly what I wanted, and then created a piece of furniture that puts everything else in my apartment to shame.
No seriously, I have never seen such a beautiful finish on wood. The bed is an inky black that still somehow retains some of the warmth of the wood grain, polished to a mirror finish.
It was obvious how much he cared about his work, and when he went over the time he originally estimated, because he’s a perfectionist and he wanted it perfect, he didn’t even ask to change the price he originally quoted me. I still paid him more. It was totally worth it.
I would recommend him instantly and without reservation to anyone. You won’t find anyone better.

You can add me to the list of Grit Woodfinishing fans. I needed to have an old maple table refinished, It was in horrible condition; it had water rings, scratches, and the finish had worn off from many years of use as a kitchen table. Jamie’s quote was the most reasonable. He was very professional to work with, making sure that we identified just the right color stain that I wanted for the wood. He completed the work well within the estimated timeline at his quoted price and the table looks more beautiful than I could have predicted. I would have no hesitation in using his services again.

Jamie is a genius with wood. He restored the original front door to my 1903 building in Palo Alto. He has managed to show off the grain of the redwood. It is complemented often, and is truly stunning. He has a remarkable eye and talent.
I would trust him with any wooden treasure– or in making a treasure out of anything wood.