Bespoke Framing Gallery With Home Visits: Chelsea Frames

Chelsea Frames, at 197 Ninth Avenue near West 22nd Street, has been designing custom frames for Chelsea since 1983, and it is the bespoke framing gallery to call when the art cannot easily travel. Its Doorstep Design Service sends a designer with samples to your home or office, while the shop itself keeps late evenings on Tuesday and Thursday until 7:30 pm and Sunday afternoons from 12 to 5 pm.

The nearest subway is 23rd Street on the C and E lines at Eighth Avenue, one long block east. Walk west on 23rd, turn south on Ninth, and the shop sits on the avenue a block down, among the delis and bike shops that line this stretch. The 14th Street station on the A, C, E and L is about a ten-minute walk if you are coming from the south.

The phone number is 212 807 8957, and the email listed on the official site goes to the front desk. Weekday hours on the shop's listing are Monday, Wednesday and Friday 10 am to 6 pm, Tuesday and Thursday 10 am to 7:30 pm, Saturday 10 am to 6 pm and Sunday 12 to 5 pm. Those two late weeknights are the reason commuters from the office towers along the Hudson end up here rather than further downtown.

Owner and CEO Daniel Beauchemin runs the business and is better known in Chelsea for what he gives away than for any advertising. Over 27 years he donated custom framing to the yearly art auctions of Bailey House, the HIV housing charity now part of the Housing Works group, and that record earned him the Rand Harlan Skolnick Social Responsibility Award. The shop also lists support for Coalition for the Homeless and CITYarts.

That history explains the tone of the place. The shop's own story page describes customers from well beyond the neighbourhood, both residential and corporate, and lists the local 10th Precinct and the Ladder 12 and Battalion 7 firehouse among the groups it supports. New York Magazine once called the studio well worth the drive into the city, a line the shop still quotes for its out-of-town customers.

Most people bring a print to the counter, but some pieces should stay put: a large canvas, a fragile pastel, or a whole wall of family photographs that needs to be planned as a group. For those jobs the Doorstep Design Service brings the samples to you. Seeing a moulding against your actual wall colour and window light is the single most useful thing a frame designer can offer, and it removes the guesswork of carrying swatches home.

The same team runs C2 Corporate, the shop's service for offices, lobbies and corporate art collections. If you are fitting out a reception area with a dozen matching frames, ask for that track rather than placing a dozen separate retail orders. Consistent mouldings across a long corridor are easier to achieve when one designer specifies the whole set and the frames are cut together.

Bring the artwork, the rough measurements of the wall, and a photo of the room in daylight. The designer will lay corners against the piece, so a clean, flat surface and a few minutes of patience are all you need. Ask which glazing suits the room, since a south-facing wall in a Chelsea walk-up gets far more sun than an interior hallway, and UV protection matters more there.

The shop describes its materials as museum quality and its range of frames as wide, so expect to see everything from slim black metal to carved and gilded profiles. Prices are not posted online, and quotes depend on size, moulding and glass. A useful habit is to ask for one recommended design and one simpler alternative, then decide at home with both numbers on paper.

Saturday afternoon is the crush, when weekend gallery-goers drift down Ninth after the Chelsea shows. If you want unhurried time with a designer, use the Tuesday or Thursday evening slot after work, or come at 10 am on a weekday when the shop has just opened. Sunday's short window from 12 to 5 pm is fine for collecting a finished order but tight for a complicated design.

Skip the lunch hour if your project is large. Ninth Avenue at noon is busy with office workers, and the counter often has quick pickups to process. If the shop is crowded when you arrive, it is better to book a Doorstep visit for later in the week than to make a rushed decision about a piece you care about.

From the shop, walk two blocks south to the General Theological Seminary, whose garden behind the iron fence is one of the calmest corners of the neighbourhood. Continue down Ninth to Chelsea Market for coffee and a look at the old Nabisco factory halls, then climb the stairs to the High Line at 16th Street and walk north above Tenth Avenue.

If galleries are the point of your day, head west on 22nd Street toward Tenth and Eleventh avenues, where the big contemporary galleries open their doors most afternoons from Tuesday to Saturday. Looking at how professional galleries hang and light work is useful research before you choose a moulding, and you can bring that inspiration straight back to the counter.

Chelsea Frames fits people who want a full-service relationship: a designer who will come over, a corporate team for office walls, and a counter that knows the neighbourhood. A student framing a single poster on a tight budget may prefer a quicker production shop. Everyone else, especially anyone with a big or fragile piece, gets more value from the Doorstep visit than from any discount elsewhere.

Address: 197 Ninth Avenue, New York, NY 10011. Phone: 212 807 8957. Hours on the shop listing: Monday, Wednesday and Friday 10 am to 6 pm, Tuesday and Thursday 10 am to 7:30 pm, Saturday 10 am to 6 pm, Sunday 12 to 5 pm. Nearest subway: 23rd Street (C, E). Services: custom design, Doorstep Design Service and C2 Corporate framing. Ask the Karpo APP for a quiet Chelsea coffee stop while your design is written up.