French polishing has a reputation problem. It sounds like antique restoration in a workshop, and most of the work we do under that heading is nothing of the kind: it is damaged doors, frames, panels and joinery on commercial sites, repaired in place. Over one recent period french polishing accounted for twenty-eight of our jobs. This is what they actually were.
Office fit-outs
Two jobs on separate office fit-outs in central London for the same fit-out company. The first was a wooden door, a painted entrance door and a metal kitchen unit. The second was white-painted panes and a grey door. Different buildings, same pattern: finished joinery damaged late in a programme, with the client walking the floor shortly after.
A third was a snag list on an office fit-out near Victoria, taken as a list and worked through.
A high-rise commercial building, central London
Repairs to toilet cubicle doors in a high-rise commercial building near London Bridge. Washroom doors in a busy building take more punishment than any other joinery in it, and they are visible to every occupant and visitor. They are also expensive to replace because they are made to fit.
A university campus in Surrey
Repairs on a university campus, carried out for the contractor doing the works. University estates run to a vacation calendar and have almost no tolerance for rooms being out of use in term time, which is exactly the argument for repairing joinery in place.
A landmark office building, Milton Keynes
Damage repairs in a well-known office building in central Milton Keynes. Occupied building, repairs done around the occupiers.
New-build plots and tenant sign-offs
Several of the twenty-eight were snag items standing between somebody and a signature:
- Snags on two plots at a development in Hampshire, worked to the site manager’s list
- Snags for a tenant in Oxfordshire specifically to get the job signed off
- A large scratch repair to sliding doors, plus a cracked tile in a living room, on a house in Buckinghamshire
- Floor repairs at a house in Cambridgeshire
- A list of various snags for a client in Cambridge
That is the real shape of commercial french polishing. It is rarely one heirloom table. It is a list of items on finished joinery, usually with a deadline attached to it.
What the work is
French polishing is building a finish back up in thin coats and matching it to the surface around it in colour and in sheen. On a damaged door that means working the damage out, re-building the finish, and matching to the doors either side in the light the corridor actually has. It is done by eye on site, not from a colour code, which is why it is a trade and not a product.
It applies to doors and frames, staircases and handrails, panelling, reception joinery, kitchen units and cabinetry, and timber floors. The service page is french polishing; related work sits on commercial joinery finishing and staircase finishing.
Why contractors use it instead of replacing joinery
Because bespoke joinery cannot be bought off a shelf. A made-to-measure door, a reception desk or a run of panelling has a lead time measured in weeks, and on a fit-out those weeks come out of your programme. Repairing in place removes the lead time, the re-fit and the risk of damaging the finishes next to it on the way out.
Where it is the wrong answer
Timber that is split through, delaminated veneer across a whole face, water damage that has swollen the substrate, or anything where the damage moves when you press it. Those are replacement jobs. We will tell you that at the photograph stage, before anyone travels.
Sending us a list
Most of these jobs started as a snag list with photographs attached. Send one through and we will mark up what is repairable, what is not, and roughly how long it takes. We cover London, Essex and Kent, and travel further for commercial programmes. See construction surface repairs and who we work with.
Clients and sites withheld. Details are taken from our own job records; no client or property is identified.
