Furniture Restoration Shop Since 1978: Cow Hollow Woodworks

Cow Hollow Woodworks sits on a quiet corner at 3100 Steiner Street, one block from Fillmore Street, and it has been restoring San Francisco furniture since 1978. Chairs in every stage of repair hang from the walls, some stripped down to their bones, and the shop is best known for French polishing, the hand-padded shellac finish that brings out the depth of walnut and mahogany. For a neighborhood furniture restoration shop with nearly fifty years of local history, this is the one Cow Hollow and Pacific Heights collectors have relied on for generations.

The shop's story was told in a June 2024 profile in The New Fillmore. Ron Hazelton opened Cow Hollow Woodworks in 1978 and designed its handcrafted sign, which is still displayed on the western face of the building. Hazelton later became a well-known home improvement television host, and the shop itself gained some fame when it appeared in a television commercial for Visa.

Enrico Dell'Osso came to the shop by an unusual route. Once an aspiring art historian, he earned degrees in English and commercial art and worked briefly as a graphic designer before moving into construction. Hazelton hired him as an estimator, and Dell'Osso learned the specifics of restoration on the job. When Hazelton decided to sell in 1993, Dell'Osso bought the business, and he has been its hands-on owner ever since.

Dell'Osso told The New Fillmore that every single job is custom, and the shop is organized around that idea. Some of the small team focus on preparation: stripping, sanding and filling holes before restoration starts. Woodworkers then carry out repairs, including regluing chairs and restoring intricate marquetry. Others concentrate on refinishing, using historical techniques to stain and seal each piece.

French polishing is the skill customers seek out most. It involves building a finish from many thin coats of shellac applied with a cotton pad, a slow technique that leaves a deep, warm glow sprayed finishes cannot match. It suits the Victorian and Edwardian furniture that fills so many San Francisco flats, and it can be repaired locally if the surface is later scratched.

The shop's work is visible in public too. Most of its business comes from private collections, but the team recently restored the entry doors of the historic Gas Light Building in the Marina, bringing its oak doors back to their nineteenth-century appearance. Matching the exterior finish to the interior color was the tricky part, according to Dell'Osso.

Dell'Osso's view is that antique furniture should be used, not just admired. When a piece arrives as little more than a skeleton, he is already thinking about how to make it work better: tightening joints so a chair takes daily sitting, making drawers run smoothly, choosing a finish that will hold up at a family dinner table. That attitude makes the shop a good fit for inherited pieces you plan to live with, not only for museum-grade antiques.

The customer base has been steady for decades. Some clients from the 1990s have passed their interest in antiques on to their children, who now bring in their own projects. The shop also makes house calls, which helps when a piece is too large or too fragile to move. On one recent house call, Dell'Osso told The New Fillmore, he was surprised to find a younger customer with a striking antiques collection in a home that recalled the grand Pacific Heights of an earlier era, a sign that the appetite for handmade wood furniture in the city is far from gone.

Cow Hollow Woodworks does not publish hours online, and the team is sometimes out on house calls or deliveries. Describe what you have, how old you think it is and what has gone wrong, and ask whether a house call or a drop-off makes more sense. No prices are published, and every job is quoted individually after the piece has been seen.

Parking in Cow Hollow is tight, so if you are bringing a chair or a small table, a weekday morning gives you the best chance of a curbside spot. Larger case pieces are worth discussing first, since the shop can advise on moving them safely. Before the trip, empty the drawers, wrap loose carvings or veneer chips in paper and label them, and keep any old hardware together in a bag, because original pulls and escutcheons are much easier to clean and refit than to replace.

The shop is a short walk from two of the neighborhood's landmarks. Balboa Cafe on Fillmore Street at Greenwich has been serving drinks and burgers since 1913, and it is a classic stop for lunch after a drop-off. A few blocks east, the McElroy Octagon House on Gough Street at Union, built in 1861, is one of the city's two surviving octagonal houses and is owned by the National Society of Colonial Dames, which shows early American furniture inside on its limited open days. Union Street's boutiques and cafés run between the two.

Address: 3100 Steiner Street, San Francisco, CA 94123, in Cow Hollow, one block from Fillmore Street. Call ahead before visiting, since the team also makes house calls and deliveries. Quotes are given per piece.

Specialties: French polishing, regluing, marquetry restoration, stripping and refinishing with period stains, and matching original woods, with painters, gilders and a cane specialist brought in as needed. Founded in 1978 by Ron Hazelton and owned since 1993 by Enrico Dell'Osso. Ask the Karpo APP for a brunch spot on Fillmore Street or a café on Union Street while your quote is prepared.