Carriage House II

Great job done right

excellent . highly professional .

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Diane did a unbelievable job refinishing and making some changes to an old hand me down dining table. It was given to us years ago and my husband made some half-hearted attempts at refinishing it, but never got behind it. He kept begging me to get rid of it, but I knew there was an awesome piece of furniture under there, and Diane found it! My ideas were a bit wacky and included lowering the height of the table so I could use it with club chairs instead of regular dining chairs and rebuilding one of the leaves, which was done perfectly using wood recovered from the height reduction...brilliant! We also went with an unconventional stain choice and again, it came out beautifully. So now we have a unique piece of furniture that is all our and I swear is a cool as anything at Restoration Hardware, (which is where I kept looking). She is extremely creative and has great skills. Even tried to get her to redo my patio furn, but she was honest enough to say the set wasn't worth the cost. Carriage House 2 has a permanent spot in my contact list.

Excellent she was awesome, looks new again!

Diane and her clock repair man did excellent work. The craftsmanship and level of detail were first class. The clock looks fantastic and works like it originally did in the 1800's.

The projects above actually represent 3 separate "jobs". After she completed the 1st job (Woodard set), I was so impressed that my thoughts ran to other projects I'd put off. And so the table followed, and the chair, and I will shortly get started on a bed restoration she has already seen. Diane Civiletti loves what she does and so will you because she does it all so well and the more she does for me the more I learn about the breadth of her knowledge and important resources and best solutions pool she has developed over the years. Moreover she is one of those special people who "show up"...always there, efficient, on-time. Moreover, because she loves what she does it's is a pleasure to deal with her....always. These problems presented some tricky problems to be dealt with. For instance, I had previously gotten someone out to evaluate restoring that patio set. That proposal essentially boiled down to sandblasting the pieces and then applying metal paint. "Throw out the original seat pads....bring the set to my shop and I'll do my thing" approach. Diane recognized the uniqueness of the set, got it sandblasted with a softened blend of sand to reduce damage to the metal, saw the need for minor spot welding, gave the endurance of 3 coats of paint of the correct color & hue, and pointed out the seat pads could and should (because they are original) be restored, etc. Bottom line is I got exactly what I really wanted for this project but had no real idea of what was needed to get to that ideal. I learned something in each of these projects. And those lessons add up to one central lesson....just find the right person.

Did an excellent job in reassembling the table pedestal in time for the holidays. I also got a piece of good advice on keeping this problem from happening again. I will definitely go back there for other furniture repair and restoration in the future.

We had a flea market find ( a mahogany dresser) stripped. Thought we would do it ourselves; however, after reading all the warnings on the paint stripper, we decided to leave it to the professionals. The dresser looked great, ready for us to stain it. The idea was to turn the piece into a bathroom vanity. Diane communicated with us on a regular basis not only about the stripping, but helped us with the rest of the details so we could transform our dresser into a one-of-a kind piece for our bathroom; we couldn't have done it without her.

I am very pleased with the results. The ancient rickety chair she restored is as solid as a rock now. My dining table leg was cracked through and now it is extremely sturdy. Both pieces ready to serve for many years to come. A small side table was repaired so it may be used again. Diane and I were both on the same page when evaluating the value of repairing old pieces of furniture. I would recommend this business.

Such a great experience knowing that I was dealing with someone in love with their specialty. I felt privileged to find someone extremely knowledgeable about chairs which need refinishing, color match and new caning (rush). I had complete confidence that I would be thrilled with the result when finished. And I was !!!!

Diane Civiletti was extremely professional and knowledgeable in giving us an estimate and options for repair. We chose the less expensive option which still gave us a beautiful and useable chair. The more expensive option was to completely re-cane the chair, but since the existing cane was intact, we chose the repair route. We had an estimate done at another place that was much more expensive (exceeding the value of the chair) without the option that Diane gave us. We were very pleased and will use her again for furniture and the many other services we learned that she offers--re-upholstery, clock repair, etc.

A coffee/tea table that has been in my family for years was severely damaged when salt water entered our vacation home on the Jersey shore. The table had more sentimental value to me rather than actual value, but I was hoping that the table could be restored to as close to its original condition as possible. As mentioned in a previous review, Diane and her company are very professional and gave us an honest estimate of the extensive work that needed to be done on this table. We just picked up the table yesterday and it looks like a brand new table - in fact it looks like a very expensive piece of furniture now. I am VERY VERY pleased and will recommend Diane and the company to anybody who asks. I now have a fine piece of furniture that I can be proud to hand down to future generations. While my service date is today - we brought the table to Diane in November/December 2012. Due to the lengthy restoration requirement for this table, I was able to take delivery of the table yesterday. Diane kept me updated regularly regarding the progress of the table refinishing/restoration. You can see that a great deal of time and effort went into the restoration of this table. Beautiful work!

Great. Trust the advise and the outcome will be better for it,

Repair/recaining of 2 chair seats went well. Diane was very professional and knowledgeable and described to us in detail what needed to be done in order to match the seats to the other existing two. The recaining was done, dyed to match the old cane and set into place for my husband to reassemble onto the chair frame. Beautiful work! Like new! If you have anything that needs restoration of family furniture heirlooms, it is worth the money. She and her group do quality work. We have an antique "tea table" that has been in our family for over 75 years. It was damaged by salt water during Hurricane Sandy. Diane and her restoration crew detailed the layered process required to restore this sentimental value piece of furniture and we are looking forward to its completion.

Absolutely beautiful. I am so pleased and have another item needing reupolstery scheduled as well.

Diane was professional, courteous, and reliable to work with. She did an excellent job of refinishing my oak table and did everything from estimate to refinishing in a timely manner. She obviously knows her business of refinishing well and treated my table like a member of the family. I would definitely use her services again to have other pieces refinished.

Initially, I obtained the review I found on Angie's List for Carriage House II, was impressed by the comments I found there, called and spoke directly to Diane. Diane described her method of operation, explaining that she would propose several options from which I could choose, giving me an opportunity to budget for the project. She agreed to come to my home within a few days to look at the project and discuss the options. She spent several HOURS with us, getting to know us as well as explaining in great detail her recommendations for the project. Because I was impressed with her from the very first phone contact and the amount of time she was willing to devote to my project, I felt confident that I would be getting an excellent job. She made me feel that this project was as important to her as it was to me. As you can see, it was not an inexpensive endeavor, consequently, I wanted to be sure the right person was doing the job the right way. Within days after her home visit, she provided me with a detailed contract, including the options she had outlined and giving me the option to choose any or all portions (each section was priced separately). The contract included the estimated time necessary to complete the work as well as the payment schedule. A date for the work was agreed upon and work commenced as promised. I always knew when Diane would arrive at my home and exactly what to expect, and I was NOT disappointed with her work ethic. It was refreshing to find someone so unusually dependable who demonstrated a desire to do a great job. I would highly recommend Diane for her expertise, reliability, attention to detail, all aspects of the preparation of the job, and the clean up, all done in a most professional way. The experience was very pleasant from start to finish.

Very neat, professional work. Diane Civiletti personally picks up piece to be repaired and delivers it when finished. Turn around time is very good.

Diane at Carriage House II is by far the best in-home service provider we have found. I first started using her for furniture restoration - found her in the yellow pages of all places! It was a lucky find because her quality and attention to detail are unlike any other I have seen in this line of work, and I am happy to pay a little more for that quality guarantee. After the great job on the furniture, we then used Diane to correct a terrible mess made by prior contractors on our wood trim (moldings, windows, baseboards, doors) in nearly every room in our house. Then we also needed all of the walls repainted in those rooms, and Diane connected us with great painters that had the skills not to disturb the integrity of the woodwork. Diane's use of clear estimates, schedules and pricing breakout per job and willingness to do a lot of correspondence through email is very helpful and also very rare. Most other contractors we have dealt with don't use email or even worse, still handwrite their proposals. I would highly recommend Diane for any of these specific services and more.