Furniture Restoration Shop in Van Nuys: Antique Services Inc

Antique Services has been restoring furniture in the San Fernando Valley since 1975, and its workshop sits at 15746 Arminta Street in Van Nuys, a light-industrial block a short drive from Van Nuys Airport. Since 1990 it has been run by Roger Julian Sweetingham, an English restorer who learned his trade on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century furniture before moving to Los Angeles. For a furniture restoration shop that treats a Georgian chest of drawers and a grandparent's everyday dining table with the same care, this is a quiet Valley institution.

Roger's own account on the site is a short history of English furniture restoration. At sixteen he started as an apprentice with Edward Nowell Antiques, a prominent fine antique dealer in the west of England, where he learned the techniques used on English furniture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1976 he was accepted on the British Antique Dealers Association's restoration and conservation course, an intense one-year residential program held at a seventeenth-century mansion near Chichester in Sussex.

He then worked on fine English seventeenth-century furniture at John Keil Ltd in Knightsbridge, one of London's most prestigious antique furniture dealers. Several years of self-employment in Bath followed, specializing in restoring eighteenth-century clock cases, and then a job as a specialist finisher with Caledonian, an antique English furniture business in Chicago's northern suburbs.

Antique Services itself was started in 1975 by Vernon and Joan Glasspool, an English couple. Roger moved to Los Angeles in 1984 and joined them, taking on estimating and customer relations while learning every side of the business over the next six years. In 1990 he took over the company and has run it since.

The homepage describes the business plainly: high-quality restoration, repairs and refinishing of antique and modern furniture. In practice that covers veneer patches, loose and broken joints, split tops, missing moldings and carvings, worn finishes and color restoration. Roger's years spent on clock cases in Bath also make the shop a natural fit for a bracket or longcase clock whose wooden case needs repair, with the movement handled separately by a clock specialist. The site's Helpful Links page points customers to trusted local trades for the parts of a job outside the workshop's own bench: Valley Upholstery for fine upholstery, The Clock Specialist for clock repair and restoration, a decorative cabinet and kitchen finisher, and a custom wallpaper installer.

The homepage notes that much of the business comes from loyal repeat customers, some known for over twenty years, and from word-of-mouth referrals. It also says that a large share of projects are pieces with sentimental value: furniture that belonged to grandparents and everyday family furniture tied to childhood memories. If you have a battered but beloved piece rather than a museum antique, you are the customer the shop is describing.

The welcome note invites customers to make an appointment to see the workshop and the repair, refinishing and restoration projects in progress. There are no posted walk-in hours, so call first. When you do, describe the piece's age and origin if you know it, the type of damage, and whether you want a full refinish or a conservative repair that keeps the old finish. No prices are published, and estimates are given per piece.

Parking on the block is tight, according to customer reviews, so bring a helper if you are unloading a large case piece. Empty drawers before the trip, tape keys inside a drawer, and remove any marble or glass tops to transport separately.

English-trained restorers often recommend doing less rather than more. A dull but intact shellac finish can usually be cleaned and revived. A few dents can be steamed or filled, and a missing piece of veneer can be patched with old wood of matching grain. Full stripping is the last resort for antiques, because it removes the color that took a century to develop. Ask during your visit which approach the shop suggests and why. For modern furniture the reasoning is different, and a full refinish is often the most practical choice.

A few clues suggest an antique deserves this kind of workshop. Hand-cut dovetails with slightly uneven spacing, saw marks on drawer bottoms, square-headed nails and wooden pegs in the joints all point to pre-industrial construction. So does a finish that feels thin and warm rather than plasticky. On pieces like these, a conservative repair keeps value that a full strip and spray would destroy. Bring photos of the drawer joints and the underside, along with the top, when you call, and the shop can judge the approach before you haul the piece across the Valley.

The workshop sits in a working district of small manufacturers and auto shops. A short drive away is the Anheuser-Busch brewery on Roscoe Boulevard, which opened in 1954 and whose grounds once held the Busch Gardens theme park. Van Nuys Airport, one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country, is close by too, and the stream of private jets and vintage planes overhead is part of the neighborhood's soundtrack.

Address: 15746 Arminta Street, Van Nuys, CA 91406, in the San Fernando Valley. Workshop visits by appointment, with estimates given per piece.

Specialties: restoration, repair and refinishing of antique and modern furniture, with a background in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English pieces and clock cases. Founded in 1975 by Vernon and Joan Glasspool and owned since 1990 by Roger Julian Sweetingham. Ask the Karpo APP for a lunch spot in Van Nuys or a coffee bar near the airport to fill the time around your appointment.