Welcome to 3 Restorers
We are your local specialist furniture restorers offering an antique and mid century furniture restoration & repair service to Hitchin and surrounding areas.
Whether you’re looking to revive an inherited chair with sentimental value, conserve a cherished antique chest of drawers, refurbish that (almost) perfect, mid century coffee table you’ve just won on eBay, or simply repair your broken sideboard because you’re environmentally responsible – you’ve come to the right place.
Services at a glance
+ Antique furniture restoration
+ Mid Century furniture restoration
+ Refinishing
+ Hand Stripping
+ Shellac “French Polished” finishes
+ Danish Oil finishes
+ Dents, breaks & structural repairs
+ Wood staining
+ Scratch repairs
+ Laminated wood & Plywood repairs
+ Carving repairs
+ Paint damage
+ Water stains, ink stains & other stain damage
Furniture Size
We are currently only accepting small and medium sized pieces. If you are unsure, please email us with dimensions and a photo or two, and we will do our best to accommodate your furniture if we can.
Website Guide
Our history & customer reviews are here
Finishing & repair options are here
Restoration photos are here, and on our Instagram here
For our TV appearances click here
Useful links are here
Contact us here
Upholstery is here
And our Blog is here
Or stay put and keep scrolling to read FAQs and see more photos of what we do – thanks!
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do you provide free quotes?
A: Yes, we do provide free online quotes & estimates – please email us with a description and photographs of the furniture you would like repaired. We can then usually quote based on the information you provide.
The more information we have the better i.e; Any loose/missing parts? What’s broken/scratched/stained, What size is the item? Where is the item? ( hello@3restorers.com ).
Q: What periods of furniture can you restore?
A: Through a combination of formal training, experience working for specialist furniture dealers and in restoration workshops, we can restore furniture from pretty much any period or style including; Mid Century Modern, Victorian, Georgian, Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, Deco, Bauhaus, Folk Art, Japonism, Chinoiserie, ‘Brown Furniture’, Windsor construction and more.
Q: Can you restore Designer, Mid Century Modern pieces?
A: Absolutely, we have years of experience restoring Scandinavian, Dutch and North American Mid Century furniture for several leading London dealers. We regularly work on furniture from this period from significant designers such as; Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, Niels Møller, Finn Juhl, Grete Jalk, Alvar Aalto, Louis Van Teefelen, Cees Braakman, Norman Cherner and Charles & Ray Eames to name a few. We’re also often asked to help restore examples of vintage and contemporary, British furniture from manufacturers such as: Ercol, Gplan, Nathan, McIntosh and Harris Lebus.
We have an in-depth knowledge of the construction and finishing techniques used on these vintage icons and how to go about appropriately restoring and re-finishing them. The construction methods and oil based finishes used on these pieces of furniture often require quite different techniques to those called for in traditional antique restoration.
Q: Haven’t I seen you on TV?
A: You may well have seen us restoring furniture on the BBC’s hugely successful series ‘Money For Nothing’ and restoring Patti Boulaye’s bow-fronted, Mahogany chest of drawers on their spin-off series ‘Celebrity Money For Nothing’. For more about our MFN appearances click here.
Q: Which sector do you restore furniture for?
A: We restore furniture for everyone from private clients to mid century & antique furniture dealers to large businesses and organisations. A sample of previous clients include:
• Royal Botanic Gardens Kew – www.kew.org
• The SPAB (The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings) – www.spab.org.uk
• Century private member’s club, Shaftesbury Ave – www.centuryclub.co.uk
• Two Columbia Road – www.twocolumbiaroad.co.uk
Q: Which areas can you repair furniture for?
A: We’re based in Hitchin, North Hertfordshire (UK). The service area we cover includes Hitchin, Letchworth, Stevenage, Welwyn and surrounding areas however, if a client wishes to transport their furniture to and from our office themselves, then we will of course accept commissions from elsewhere.
Q: Do you work on Ercol furniture?
A: Yes, we have restored and refinished many Ercol pieces including; the classic No.392 Stacking Chairs, No.365 Quaker Backs, No.376 Dining Chairs, Stick-Back Armchairs, No.354 “Pebble Tables”, No.398 Coffee Tables, Studio Couches and Day Beds among other examples. With vintage Ercol furniture, as with refinishing any wooden furniture really, we always strongly advise that if the piece is currently dark in colour – do not try to refinish it blonde.
Q: Can you tell me what kind of wood my furniture is made of?
A: In many cases we will be able to help you identify which variety of wood your furniture is made of. It is not always possible as there are thousands of species of tree but with experience and context we can usually arrive at an educated conclusion. We’re always happy to look at photos and try to help.
If you have an ‘old’ or Antique piece of English furniture then here a few of the classic timbers to consider (most common first): Oak, Mahogany, Pine, Walnut, Elm, Cherry, Ash or Yew.
If you have a Danish, Dutch or Finnish, Mid Century piece, likely candidates include (most common first): Teak, Rosewood, Beech, Oak or Birch. For English and North American Mid century furniture, also see: Maple, Walnut and Tola.
The wood used in the frames of both of the two chairs pictured below is (solid) Teak. This is quite typical of Danish furniture from this period (1960s).
Furniture Repair in Hitchin 