One year after we paid $3,000 to have our table stripped and stained it feel apart. They didn't put the brackets back on. Then this crook wouldn't honor his work. He had told us if wev had any problems to bring it back. We got screwed. What a terrible experience. I hope you enjoyed your vacation we paid for Cruz. read more

Watson's Strip Shop - This is how my table need up after $3,000 I paid. 1 1/2 years later table collapsed. They didn't all put clamps back on. : - Antiques Near Me - Bakersfield, California

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Short Version: If you are looking for someone honest, do NOT come here. The owner Cruz is not worth doing business with. Take your precious antiques some where else. Long Version: I had an antique family heirloom passed down and unfortunately during transit the heirloom was fractured and needed repair. The furniture that I took to Watson Strip Shop was a chair that was fully functional before it was damaged during delivery. That is, you could sit on it and it would do its chair thing; you know, like support you, not rock, etc. ;it was a functional chair, no problems. Anyway, what I brought to this shop were two pieces, the leg that broke off and the rest of the chair. Seemed like an easy fix, right? Just glue or dowel the leg back on to the rest of the chair. Well, he gave me a estimate on the fix and I accepted it. The estimate seemed a bit high, but then again I've never had to have an antique piece of furniture repaired. Maybe it has to do with being careful and spending a little extra time repairing such an old piece. Or maybe it has to do with them matching the same species of wood, who knows, but what I do know is that it seemed a bit much, but because I trusted they knew what they were doing I wanted it fixed. After my business there, I learned from one of the employees that they love to use a type of filler/putty, like Bondo, when making repairs. Seemed strange to me that they would use Bondo or something similar to repair antique furniture, why not use wood? To me it seems that repairs with Bondo-like material would devalue something so old, just my opinion. Maybe they weren't familiar with actually carving or crafting wood; or maybe it was just cheaper and faster for them to use that material rather than staying true to the original material of the antique piece. Like I said, who knows and like I mentioned go somewhere else for honesty, I know I will. So I arrived to pick up my chair a couple weeks later. I paid my bill and continued on to inspect my chair. I don't know if Cruz is stupid, lazy, or a crook, but I got my chair and sat on it and to my surprise I noticed my chair was rocking. You guessed it, the leg that was reattached was shorter than the other three. It was completely off, there's no way this chair could be called functional without sticking a layer or two of cardboard underneath the shorter leg. There was a very strange and silent moment, to say the least, when I asked "so, what happened?" If Cruz was truly interested in his customer's business and wanted to do the right thing, the first response should've been, "We'll take care of that, our mistake." Especially, since we all know that any chair anyone ever sits on should be level, that's a no brainer. Instead, this is how it went. I asked what had happened and he responded that all they did was glue the leg back onto the chair. He mentioned that the fracture was a clean break and since the two pieces fit back together-or so it appeared-they just glued it, clamped it, cleaned it up, and restained it. After hearing this I thought to myself, "Um, okay that was nice, but what about actually making sure the chair would be level?" I think after a bit of time arguing with him about why his reasoning didn't make sense, "well, we just glued it back on" vs my reasoning of "IT'S A CHAIR! CHAIRS DON'T ROCK UNLESS 1) IT'S A ROCKING CHAIR OR 2) SOME WEIRD ARTWORK OR SOMETHING !", I believe he began to get defensive over his "craftsmanship" saying that they did what they said they would "repair chair by glueing leg back on." I was tired of arguing, he obviously didn't understand that there were just certain things that even without expressively describing them should be known: door frames should be squared and parallel, because a door would need to fit into it; when you buy shoes, typically there are two of them; when someone sits on a 4 legged chair, it should not rock!!! IT'S COMMON SENSE. Here's the crookedness. I was tired of arguing and through Cruz's perspective since I didn't mention that I would've like the chair to be level and useable when it is returned it was my fault. I finally asked, "okay, what do I need to do to get this fixed?" Shamefully, Cruz said he would need to give me a new estimate to get that fixed. The estimate he mentioned would be close or slightly more to what I had already paid because there was a little bit more work involved this second time around since they would need to "carefully" separate or refracture the connection of the leg to the chair. Was he serious? He created the issue and now he was going to charge me again to fix what he didn't do correctly the first time. This guy was out of his mind and he was not going to rob me of anymore money. At $55 an hour you can imagine how quickly this estimate could easily add up to a few hundred dollars on top of what I already paid. I hope someone reading this realizes how crooked this guy is and takes their business to another furniture shop. read more

Watson's Strip Shop - Take your business somewhere else. - Antiques Near Me - Bakersfield, California