Fine framing overview · Houston
From raw hardwood and water-gilded gold leaf to welded metal, each frame leaving our Taft Street studio is tailored specifically around the artwork. Most of our hardwood, gilded, and period frames are built in our own studio; metal frames come from trusted specialist fabricators — and every project is fitted in-house to museum-grade preservation standards.
Specialized crafts
Milled directly in-house from raw maple, American walnut, cherry, oak, bird's-eye maple, and padouk — structurally reinforced with internal hardwood spline corners and finished with natural oils, bleaches, translucent washes, ebonizing, or custom painted lacquers.
Traditional Renaissance water gilding performed directly in our Houston studio: custom profiles prepared with rabbit-skin gesso and clay bole, layered with genuine gold leaf from white gold to 22K yellow, and hand-burnished from mirror polish to quiet, patinated antique.
Historically accurate reproductions of Italian cassettas, Spanish polychrome, French Louis swept profiles, Dutch ebonized wave mouldings, English Georgian, and American modernist traditions.
Profiles of aluminum, bronze, brass, and steel, welded by our specialist metal fabricators and ground smooth at the joints to present as a single drawn line — finished in raw mill-scale, polished bronze, or custom electrostatic powder coatings.
Specialized preservation packages with archival glazed openings built into the reverse of the frame — keeping museum exhibition stamps, historic gallery labels, stock numbers, and artist inscriptions permanently visible and dust-sealed.
Archival, 100% reversible methods on every project: acid-free and 100% cotton rag mats, sealed wooden rabbets, cooked wheat-starch Japanese paper hinging, and Optium Museum Acrylic® or 99% UV-filtering glass.
Complementary studio specialties
To complement our primary woodworking and water-gilding services, our studio offers leather frames for singular presentations — supple, archival-grade leathers finished over the frame profile, often paired with a gilded inner lip, as in the Western painting shown here. The result is an understated, elegant, and deeply tactile frame that suits Western art, portraiture, and works with a strong material presence.
Defining the difference
In most frame shops, “custom” means a pre-finished moulding cut to your size — a chop frame. Bespoke means the frame itself is made: raw hardwood milled to a profile designed for your artwork, joined, finished, and fitted as one object — a closed-corner (also called finished-corner) frame. For projects where a chop frame genuinely is the right answer, we carry a selection of high-quality chops — but when a work deserves a frame built around it, our studio builds it from the raw board up.
Read more in the Journal: The finished corner vs. the chop frame.
Questions
We invite you to visit our showroom with your artwork or schedule a consultation at your location. Our team reviews the medium, scale, historical background, and final display setting of each item. We then place real corner samples of metal, gilded, or hardwood profiles directly alongside the piece to determine the best option.
Absolutely. Our studio accommodates oversized pieces and frequently builds secure custom frames and sturdy internal strainers for modern art installations exceeding 6 feet. Additionally, we work closely alongside professional art conservators to safely handle delicate and fragile items.
Custom hardwood and metal frames typically require 4 to 6 weeks. For gilded work that needs multi-stage gesso preparation, clay bole application, and burnished detail — and for complex custom projects — turnaround typically runs 8 to 10 weeks depending on the configuration.
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Consultations are hosted at our Taft Street showroom or on-site at your home or office.
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