Furniture Repair in Vancouver
A chair that rocks slightly is not broken yet, but it is on its way. Joints fail progressively — the glue line opens, movement grinds the joint oversize, and what was a twenty-minute re-glue becomes a rebuild. Catching it early is most of the battle.
Re-gluing loose joints
A proper repair means taking the joint apart, not injecting glue into the gap. Old glue has to come off both faces, because fresh adhesive bonds to wood and not to a film of dried hide glue or PVA. Skipping that step is why so many re-glued chairs come loose again within a year.
Then it is clamped square and left alone. Most PVA needs several hours of clamp time and reaches full strength over a day or so, which is why a re-glue is rarely a wait-while-you-watch job. Done properly the joint ends up stronger than the wood beside it.
Repairing stripped screw holes
A screw that spins in its hole has destroyed the material around it, and a longer or fatter screw driven into the same hole just destroys a bit more. The repair is to fill the hole with new material the screw can bite into and start again.
In solid timber that means glued dowel or matchsticks, drilled fresh once cured. In chipboard and MDF — most flat-pack — the fibres are gone for good and the fix is a glued dowel or a threaded insert. This is the single most common failure we see on flat-pack furniture and it is entirely repairable.
Flat-pack vs. solid wood repair
These behave nothing alike. Solid timber can be taken apart, cleaned, re-glued and clamped, and it forgives being worked on repeatedly. Flat-pack panels are chipboard with a thin laminate, and every cam fitting and screw hole is a one-time use of that material.
That does not make flat-pack unrepairable, it makes it different. Corner blocks, glued dowels, threaded inserts and a proper back panel fixed to something solid will make a wobbling wardrobe rigid again. What it will not survive is being dismantled and reassembled several times.
When replacement costs less
Our rule of thumb is the two-hour minimum. If the repair will take less than that, it is almost always worth doing. Beyond it, weigh the labour against what the piece actually costs to replace, and be honest that a flat-pack chest is not a cabinet.
The exception is anything with value beyond its function — inherited, antique, solid hardwood, or simply the right size for a space where nothing else fits. People are often surprised how repairable those are, and how far past the economic argument it makes sense to go.
What this costs
$290 minimum callout · $145/hr · $540 half day
Charged by time, not by task. Most lists of small jobs land between the two-hour minimum and a full day.
Materials are always separate from labour and passed on at cost. Quotes are free and written, and the full rate card is published rather than given out on request.
Common questions
Can a wobbly IKEA frame be made solid again?
Usually, yes. The wobble is normally the back panel and the cam fittings rather than the frame itself — a proper back fixed all round, corner blocks, and glued dowels through the stripped holes make a dramatic difference. What it will not survive is being taken apart and rebuilt several more times.
Do you repair broken drawer runners?
Timber-on-timber runners in older furniture can be rebuilt with new hardwood strips and waxed. Modern ball-bearing runners are cheap enough that replacement is usually the sensible call — bring us the make if you know it, or the drawer measurements if you do not.
Is furniture repair worth it?
If it takes under two hours, almost always. Past that, weigh the labour against replacement honestly. The exception is anything solid, inherited, or exactly the right size for a space nothing else fits — those are worth going well past the pure economics for, and they tend to be very repairable.