Golden Age Furniture Restoration

I took a child-sized rocking chair, an emotionally important item with a history in our family, to Golden Age for repairs. One of the rockers (the curved pieces of wood on the bottom) was split, and a wedge-shaped piece of wood from the side of the seat was missing. Owner Don was friendly and seemed genuinely interested in the chair. When I picked it up, I noticed a large glue spill below the repaired area. His response was “Wherrre? Whaaat? ” I was so startled by being gaslighted in this way that I just wanted to get out of there. When I got home, we discovered that Golden Age had done additional new damage: the finish in the reglued area of the rocker was dulled, there was a new gouge in that area, and the missing piece of the seat was replaced by a blob of wood putty. Not trusting Don to listen to my concerns or repair the new damage, I stopped payment on my check, notified Don, and went to a different shop to have Golden Age’s damage repaired. The second shop said, among other things, that the finish was dulled because when the two broken pieces had not stayed lined up completely after being reglued, Golden Age had simply sanded down the areas that were sticking up. When I contacted Don about the other shop’s comments, he was apologetic, said he would more carefully supervise the new employee who had done the damage, agreed with my stopping payment, and offered to pay my costs at the second shop. Given Don’s behavior when I had picked up the chair from him, I declined that offer, not wanting him involved in any way in my transactions with the second shop. My rating of Golden Age is D, not F, because of Don’s attempts to make things right financially.