|
Shipping and Handling
Refinishing / Restoration prices
First:
Send us a e-mail with pictures showing all four sides, top, bottom as well as the inside. this lets us see
what were up against. Include the mesurements of the trunks the height, length, width. You can tell a lot about a trunk with
some good clear pictures. Please don't send us pictures that are so large we can't tell what were looking at. Trust us, this
happen all the time!
Oh yeah, leave us your phone number so we can contact you.
Second: After we look over your trunk, we will contact
you. Usually within two business days of your email, depending on how busy we are in the shop. Once we contact you, here's
were you can tell us the family history Grandmothers trunk thats been in the attic for 40 years. What you'd like to have refinish / restored on her.This is were add money on restoration for listing to long winded
lovely story. Plus, we can tell you what really needs to be fixed, replaced etc.etc.
Basic Refinish Our flat fee for basic refinishing is $500.00
per trunk. Ok, if you didn't click out yet? Let us break it down. It takes us on average five weeks (sometimes more)
to refinish a trunk. So, we work for $100.00 a week? Just enough to keep my faithful shop mate Tasha &
her belly filled.
Covered Under The Basic Refinish
Your trunk gets the following treatment. The outside gets cleaned up and
any unwanted canvas removed. The inside cleaned out and any foul smells removed for good! Any rust is stripped off
all the metal & repainted black (your choice of shine) We polish up all brass or tin hardware. Make sure all
slats & hardware are tighten back to snuff. Sand all the exposed wood & slats, stain and finish the outside
with Tung oil. This is the basic charge for refinishing a
common, canvas-covered or tin trunk, start to finish.
You ship the trunk to us, using UPS or some other carrier. UPS charges from $25 to $150
to ship trunks from most USA locations to our shop in Maine. Cheaper if you live closer to the Northeast. If your
trunk is too big (girth plus length are more than 130 inches) you should expect to pay toward the high end of that range,
due to UPS' oversize surcharges. If you take your trunk to one of those mailbox stores you might pay a little more,
but they're accountable if there's a problem in shipping (like a forklift runner making a new vent in your trunk). Packing
is easy, just get a couple of big boxes and put one over each end, then tape it all up. No duct tape. Slap our
address on it and let er rip. Here's the street address for shipping your trunk:
Brettuns Village
557 Lincoln Street
Lewiston, ME 04240
phone: (207)782-7863
This is a business address and is for UPS, Airborne, DHL, freight truck, or Fedex shipping only.
This is not an address to which the post office will deliver.
Don't forget that you get to pay for shipping twice, so's we can get your trunk back home to
you.
Additional costs - Some tasks will require anadditional fee - these are outlined below:
Styrofoam Packing Peanuts Fee - This one is very important - when you ship your trunk
to us, whether you pack it yourself or take it somewhere to get it packed, please DO NOT use styrofoam 'peanuts' or 'worms'
or any other sort of small, lightweight packing material. If we receive your trunk and the box is jammed full of this
stuff there is an additional $100 fee to cover the amount of time we spend chasing that miserable rubbish across Central Maine
once we open the box. If you don't mind paying the $100 fee, then go ahead and use them. If you'd rather not pay
this fee, then use newspaper, kraft paper, or something else that stays put in a mild breeze.
Paint Stripping - Don't we just love using that smelly goo to remove the paint your Dad
put on the trunk back in the 60s, when everything just had to be that weird shade of green? This costs an extra $250.
Seem like a lot? Feel free to do the paint stripping yourself and save the money for your own hospital bills.
Check your trunk closely - if it has a layer of varnish on it, that's just as bad as any other paint - it has to come off
before we can do anything else.
Replacing Boards - Sometimes trunks need entire boards removed from the body of the trunk,
or a slat replaced on the outside. The number of nails that need to be removed and replaced, and the amount of hardware
that has to be removed/replaced will dictate the actual cost of board replacement. Range is from $25 on up (we
have built entire new boxes for well composted old trunks, when we were able to save only the metal pieces).
Having Keys Made - Once we have your trunk here we can remove the lock and have our locksmith
make a set of keys to fit. This typically adds about $50 to the fee.
Replacing Parts - We can find or make replacement parts for most any trunk, and the price
varies according to the part itself. Ranges from $1 per piece on up to as much as $90 for a replacement lock to match
an early 1800s trunk. We cannot find all parts - we'll let you know.
Lining With Cedar - Lots of folks want their trunk lined in cedar, then they try to lift
it and throw their back out for a week. Adds a lot of weight. Cedar boards aren't light weight or cheap, so we
usually recommend just lining the bottom, or just the top, or a border around the lip of the trunk body. All the aroma,
very little weight gain. Cost for a cedar border is about $25 (depends on size of trunk), cedar bottom is about $40,
cedar lining for entire trunk is about $150, depending on size of trunk and market price of cedar at the time. We get
ours milled locally, and it smells great, just like a pet shop.
Lining with Wallpaper - We do not offer this service - the paper will begin peeling
in a year or two, and we don't like to make you have to send it back and go to all that trouble. This is not a good
choice for your trunk, in our opinion.
Lining with Fabric - We do not offer this service. Looks great the day you
get it; looks like heck a year later.
Covering with New Leather - If your old saratoga or hide-covered trunk needs new leather
all over the outside, please keep in mind that we have to remove every single piece/part from the trunk in order to do this.
Some trunks have about a million tiny nails along the corners - so we will not replace leather on this type of trunk.
For a typical sized trunk that was originally covered in leather (not fake stuff) we can remove all the parts, put on new
leather in the color/shade of your choice, and then put all the parts back on again. This task adds a minimum of $450
to the total bill.
Steamer or Wardrobe Trunks - If you have a nice old steamer trunk or wardrobe (opens
like a closet), and you want the old composite exterior to look like something else or be painted, and you want the inside
completely redone, drawers and all, we recommend that you find an upholstery shop to work on it for you. We can't do
much to help and will not accept these trunks for refinishing. Sorry.
Step 4: We receive your trunk, look it over, and e-mail you a hard price for the
work. That's what you'll pay, no more. If you want to cut some things out to save money, that's fine by us.
Step 5: After we work on it we send you some digital photos of the trunk, showing
the work we did. You squeal (we hope).
Step 6: You pay us for the work and return shipping, then we squeal, and off it
goes to your farm.
Seems pretty simple, doesn't it? We also try to keep you posted along the way, give you
notes on progress, let you know if we find anything interesting in the trunk, that sort of thing. We send digital photos
if that's OK with you. Very high tech.
How Long Will it Take? This is the number one question we get about refinishing.
Count on nine months, then, if we manage to finish it in 6 weeks you'll be wicked pleased. Average turn-around time
for a typical trunk is about nine months, start to finish. We do our best, but sometimes things get backed up, just
like Grandpa. We'll keep you posted along the way.
Things We Will Not Do - This is important - there are some tasks that Brettuns Village
will NOT perform on your trunk, for a variety of reasons ranging from basic decency to bad taste - we will NOT do the
following:
- We will not spray paint or brush paint your trunk with any type of paint at all,
period. Not one drop.
- We will not perform any type of work on wardrobe
trunks (drawers on one side, hangers on the other, lots of fabric)
- We will not
magically make your old 1930s-era black trunk look like a priceless piece of furniture. It'll be cleaner and brighter,
but it'll still be black.
- We will not line your trunk with fabric or
wallpaper
|
