LJ Refinishing & LJ Cane & Rush

unknown

I cannot say enough great things about George. I am so happy that I ignored his one bad review. He was absolutely exceptional. He was punctual, meticulous about his work, did NOT cut corners and really took his time to get my cabinets to the color that I wanted. I never ever felt rushed. He took a LOT of pride in his work. It really showed. He was also very neat and cleaned up after himself. If there was anything that I felt like needed to be touched up…he did it right away. My kitchen looks beautiful.
He is one of the best kept secrets in Houston. A lot of designers use him. I feel so lucky getting his name off angle's list.

We had a chair that was probably over 100 years old that needed repair, refinishing and canning.It took quite a while for the work to be done, but the result was outstanding.
We have used LJ Refinishing on some other items and have always been pleased

.Not well. He painted three, chests of drawers of sizes small to large from the 1940s. He did that. Paint OK. I asked him to repair the metal handles, (there were missing pieces, the wooden guides on the bottoms of three drawers and the wooden separators inside the drawers. He said, oh yes, I can do that. He did none of it. I gave him also, my dining room table + 8 chairs to refinish in hig gloss, bar finish black. Here is the best part, HE DID NOTHING TO THEM, NOTHING AND SAID HE DID. I asked about the finish and h e said that was the best he could do. I ssaid this is not high gloss, this is kind of satin. No, this is what is used on pianos. Well, blah blah blah I am a woman alone and he is a fairly large man and as he also still had a headboard he was working on, I didn't want to antagonize him and so I STUPIDLY paid him, in total, over $5,000.00!.
He kept assuring me he did all I asked. Well, I said, what about the little gold trim I asked for. Oh, he forgot. He took them back and badly added the gold, see photos.
How do I know that he did nothing? Well, after he left, I caught a glimpse of the chair backs int eh light and the SAME drips were there from when I had sent them with him. He did nothing and charged me 2500 dollars.
He would not return c alls and when his wife answered, she was extremely unpleasant and rude to me when I finally had to go to his shop. When I got there , the door was locked,There was no bell,. I could hear the TV and there was a car in front but no one came to the door and no one answered the phone. I banged on the door because I thought perhaps they were in the back and could not hear me. She answered and was very rude and yelled at me not to bang. What was I to do. she was siting there, right there int he front office, caning a chair.
Finally George arrrived - I had asked for her to call him, and I asked where he did the actual painting of my furniture. There was not paint room or spray area so then I knew for sure he had not done anything to my table and chairs. Where are my headboards? Here. Not finished? Well, I ahve been busy. Yes and not on my stuff which you have had for 2 months and longer! He is or was a one man shop with his wife doing the caning.
I SO DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS MAN. He is one of those people who has the demeanor of just wanting to please and be nice and it is all an act. I h ope he hasn't killed the dog I gave him from neglect.
Look, I can go on but DO not use this guy. Probably he is a good caning buy but SO not anything else.

When the cabinets were delivered, I noticed that they had no knobs or other devices for being opened and closed. Mr. Alvarado said he did not know what I wanted so installed nothing. I was shocked because I had believed he was going to install hardware that allowed you to open the cabinet doors by pushing on them. In any case, Mr. Alvarado had never called to ask me that basic question. I told him the cabinets would not do me much good if I could not open or close the doors. He assured me he would come back and install knobs. A few weeks later we set up an appointment for 9:00 a.m. so he could install the knobs I had purchased. Mr. Alvarado did not show up. I called him and he pushed the appointment to after 4:30. I waited all day for him. He did not return my phone calls and I did not hear from him again that day. Two days later, I went to his office because he was not returning my phone calls. He promised to show up at 1:30 p.m. that day. I waited all day again. At 5:30 he called and told me he could not come that day. I have lost all hope that Mr. Alvarado will actually fix my cabinets. I paid over $1,200 for 2 cabinets with doors that close with great difficulty, and once you manage to close the doors, you cannot reopen them without damaging the paint. The shelves in one cabinet are rough as if they were never sanded. Dealing with George Alvarado has been a very upsetting experience. I now must hire someone else to fix my non-functioning cabinets.

They did a super job. Everything was done on time and on cost. The quality was very good. They looked like they did when we first bought them.

I contacted LJ, took my chair in (I know they also pick up but I could easily get the chain in my mini-van) and it was ready a week later, as promised. It's a very small, and far from upscale, shop where owner is the receptionest, cashier, delivery person and head of quality control for the refinishing work. In addition to my chair, I could see other pieces he was working on that were far bigger jobs. You could tell he took the time to do the work right. There were also several pieces of furniture he was custom building that really looked great. His price was fair and I was really pleased with the work.