Furniture Restoration Shop Turning 50 in LA County: Rahn's

Rahn's Furniture Restoration has been fixing Southern California furniture since 1976, and in 2026 the family business is marking fifty years with a "1976–2026" banner across its website. The shop sits at 13729 Carmenita Road in Santa Fe Springs, in southeast Los Angeles County, and it calls itself Los Angeles' oldest family furniture restoration shop. This is the furniture restoration shop for jobs too big for a corner refinisher: a full dining set, a smoke-damaged armoire, or a sofa that needs both a new frame repair and new fabric.

The homepage tells the founding story: the business started in 1976 in a very small shop and grew through several moves before settling on Carmenita Road. Today Grant Rahn runs the shop floor day to day, while Nathan Rahn, the second generation, handles projects and customers. The contact page invites customers to call or text and speak to Grant or Nathan directly, which is unusual for a workshop of this size.

The list of past restoration clients on the homepage gives a sense of the range: Adamson House, the historic beach house in Malibu run as a California state park, along with the private furniture collections of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Priscilla Presley.

Rahn's describes its building as more than 15,000 square feet, divided into separate areas for each stage of a job. There is a stripping bay where old finishes come off, a woodshop for structural repair and replacement parts, an upholstery room, a spray booth permitted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and climate-controlled storage. The site states that the team uses no subcontractors, so a chair that needs regluing, refinishing and a new seat cover stays under one roof from start to finish.

A large share of the work is restoration after damage. Rahn's handles furniture hurt by fire, smoke, water and vandalism, and the site names insurers it works with, including AutoClub, State Farm, Allstate, Mercury, USAA, Chubb and Safeco. If a burst pipe has swollen the legs of your dining table or a kitchen fire has left soot in the grain of a cabinet, have your claim number ready when you contact the shop, since the estimate for an insured job goes to the adjuster as well as to you.

Climate-controlled storage matters for these jobs, because furniture from a flooded house often has to wait while the home itself is repaired. Ask about storage when the estimate is written so the pieces do not have to come back to a construction site.

Estimates are free and written. The fastest route is the photo upload on the free estimate page, which promises a reply within one business day. Send a full view of each piece, close-ups of damage and the dimensions. Visits to the shop are by appointment; there is free parking in front, and the team will help unload if you call ahead from the road.

Pickup and delivery are offered for approved projects. The contact page describes coverage across Los Angeles County and Orange County, while the caning page describes a narrower radius around Santa Fe Springs, so mention your address when you request an estimate and ask whether your piece qualifies.

Rahn's color-matching service is worth using if only one piece in a set is damaged. Rather than refinishing all eight chairs because one has a white water mark, the team can strip and refinish the damaged chair and match it to the others. For mid-century pieces with a sprayed finish, ask about the lacquer sheen: modern dining tables often look best in semi-gloss, while antiques usually need a hand-rubbed flat finish that keeps their age.

Upholstery jobs benefit from the same one-roof approach. When a sofa comes in for new fabric, the frame is checked in the woodshop first, so loose corner blocks and cracked rails are repaired before the new cover goes on. Exposed wood on the arms or legs can be refinished in the same visit, which avoids the common problem of a newly covered chair sitting on scratched, faded legs. Bring a fabric sample or ask to see options when the estimate is written.

The caning and rushing service covers the chairs that often turn up in estate pieces: bentwood café chairs with broken seats, ladder-backs with worn rush, and press-cane dining chairs whose spline has worked loose. Because the frame and the seat are handled in the same building, a wobbly cane chair can be reglued and reseated together.

The shop sits in an industrial district, so plan the visit as a working errand rather than a stroll. The Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet on Alondra Boulevard is nearby and is a classic place to hunt for secondhand furniture worth restoring. If you come by train, the Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs Metrolink station on Imperial Highway in neighboring Norwalk connects to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles on the Orange County Line, and the shop is a short drive from there.

Address: 13729 Carmenita Road, Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670, in southeast Los Angeles County. Visits are by appointment, with free parking in front of the shop. Free written estimates, with photo uploads answered within one business day.

Services: antique restoration, refinishing and color matching, lacquer finishes, structural repair and replacement parts, caning and rushing, upholstery, leather replacement, fire, water and vandalism restoration, metal cleaning, custom furniture and climate-controlled storage. Pickup and delivery are available for approved projects. Ask the Karpo APP to find a lunch spot in Whittier or a coffee bar in Downey while your estimate is prepared.