Burbank Unpainted Furniture

We needed two very specific benches for our dining room. We stumbled upon Burbank Unpainted Furniture online and saw exactly what I had imagined on their site. I googled the company and found their negative Unilocal reviews and was a little put off.
I hunted around for the benches and found nothing like the ones here. So I figured let’s give these guys a shot. I called and none other than Carlos who is name checked in another review answered. He was the nicest guy you could want to answer the phone. He helped answer a few questions and promptly returned a follow up call I had. Once I decided to order he went out of his way to expedite the shipment to his store.
The benches arrived on time, and were by the door waiting for me when I arrived. He even gave me some staining ideas to help me match my dining table. First class guy. Would definitely buy from here again.

Ever since I took a woodworking class I have been wanting to stop by this place. The shop is small but the furniture looks well built. It is a bit pricey but after my class I now know wood is not cheap and making furniture takes a lot of wood. Most of the furniture was made of pine and they sell stains in ALL different colors so you can make it your own.

They made a dresser for our new baby’s room and were happy to use the super-​eco-​friendly stain we provided. They had their guys work right up until Christmas to help us get our baby’s room together before the due date.
It’s 4 and a half years later and the dresser is still in perfect shape, despite the constant abuse.

I needed a small side table for my bedroom and noticed this store on my daily walks during my work breaks. I went in and was able to look at the high quality items and was helped by the very friendly and helpful Carlos. I bought the perfect little table for a very decent price and haven’t regretted since.
However, I was sad to walk by it today and find the store was closed! I hope to find the new location again soon as I’d love to buy more pieces from this store!

We ordered a bookshelf from this place last year. It seemed very cheap for what it was, a solid oak bookshelf at a «promotional» price that was half of the regular price. Well when it arrived, we saw right away that it was not solid oak, but oak veneer. We told the delivery men that we had ordered solid oak, and they told us that the front strips were solid oak and the rest was plywood with veneer, and that solid oak would have been much more. I thought we had distinctly ordered solid oak, but thought it may have been our misunderstanding.
Then I was there a few days ago and ordered two more shelves, and they again had «promotional» oak shelves at a huge discount, marked half price, so I ordered another one. I called my boyfriend and he reminded me of what had happened before, so I told the salesgirl and she insisted that no, we would be getting solid oak. But later the manager came back from lunch and asked me if it was my first time there, and I told him that no, last year we had ordered a shelf that we thought was oak but wasn’t, and that we weren’t happy with it. So then he remembered us, and explained to me that only the front strips of the shelf I had just ordered were oak and the rest was plywood. I told him that the girl had insisted to me that it really was solid oak, and he said «you should know that when something promotional at that price that it’s not going to be solid oak,» as if it was up to me to have realized that what was on the tag and what was displayed in the store was not what I would be getting (the display model is clearly solid oak). I asked him, «Does she know? Make sure she knows, because she told me otherwise,» and he sort of nodded vaguely and she looked away, so I realized that she’d been told to say that, knowing it wasn’t true, so that later it could be blamed on a miscommunication.
After talking it over with my boyfriend we decided to go with solid pine, as the solid oak is too expensive and we don’t like the veneer. If my boyfriend had been there, he probably would have yelled at the guy and cancelled the order. I’m giving the place 3 stars because they are one of the few places that carry unfinished furniture, and he did tell the truth the second time. But one needs to be very wary of deceptive business practices here.

Worst customer service. The man in the store «Carlos» was helping another customer when I arrived and barely acknowledged me. (I’d hope for this business that he’s not the owner and that hopefully the owner spends some time evaluating his/​her staff based on what looks like several bad Unilocal reviews). Odd not to say oh sorry miss but I’ll be with you soon. I had been in the store back a few months ago and had priced a custom item. I had decided to come to purchase the item today but I had modified the dimensions slighlty. When I had received the original quote I was told the price would remain the same within 6 inches. Carlos started off saying oh I’m going to check but I’m not sure we will be able to honor this price, he already was sporting a bit of an attitude. I asked him to please check. He faxed over the sketch to his builder and then said because I changed the depth from 12 to 13 inches he’d need to charge me $ 50 more. I asked him to please double check with the owner to see if there was anything he could do. Carlos then proceeded to tell me that he didn’t want to do business with me and to please leave. Really? I continued to ask him to please give me the owner’s info and he refused. He then asked me to leave and said he was closing the store for the day. At 12:30? I find it a big bummer for this owner that they allow Carlos to treat customers as he did today. I cannot imagine business is that booming that the owner would want to lose business this easily? Oh well. I ended up calling another shop, unfortunately for me a little further away (Westside LA) but at least I know I’ll be treated well. I’ve done business with the other company know they do great work. Tell City! Carlos shame on you for being so disrespectful! Owner, maybe spend some time watching your cameras that you have to see how Carlos treats customers. I’m guessing Carlos didn’t want to share your info because he knows you wouldn’t be happy… I hope so at least.

Sadly, long gone…

Here is my 2 cents: Unlike some of the other reviews I had a positive experience here.
The owner Carlos took good care of me. I brought in a dresser that was formerly painted black over the original natural wood color. I stripped the black paint myself (lots of hard work!) and brought it to have it sanded and then have some natural wood color stain put on it and then some clear coat varnish.
The work was done on time as promised and it was of good quality. The price was much better than what other places had quoted me. They also offered to deliver free since I live within 2 miles of store.
I could have paid the same amount at IKEA for a new dresser but of much inferior quality and it would probably would have fallen apart after only a few years. The piece I have is actual Maple wood, which will last a lifetime. In the long run I save lots of $$ this way.

My wife and I bought a rocking chair which they finished and we were very happy. Nice quality, nice finish
Next, we purchased a large dresser. We upgraded the pulls so it had to be ordered. When it arrived, the pulls were wrong and it had to be re-​ordered. When it arrived, they rushed it through the finish process to get it to us and man does it show. The wood is still rough in places and there are areas that obviously did not get hit with varnish! Within a month of it sitting near our master bath, the wood is showing signs of puckering up from moisture.
It gets worst… I pulled the piece apart to varnish myself and to my dismay realized that the drawers were not dove tailed like the example we were shown. When I asked about it the owner told me that the piece we were shown as an example was made by a different manufacturer yet failed to see what the problem was.
You’ve been warned. They may show you one piece, and then order a cheaper one from a different manufacturer. Because we had them finish it, they will not take it back. Their sales practices are deceptive, their work is shoddy. Save yourself the disappointment and GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.

My husband and I have been going to Burbank Unpainted Furniture since buying a house in 2007. Over the past three years, we’ve acquired a couple of pieces from them including an end table, dining table and console Each time we went shopping everyone who worked there was super nice and listened to our needs without being overly pushy. They were able to answer our questions about finishes so that we could get our desired result. I’m pretty sure the will finish an item for you but I’ve always taken the item home unpainted as a DIY project for myself and my husband.
Make sure you check out the Shop Burbank website, they often have a coupon there!

Spectacular Service!
I wanted a rocking chair. I went into this shop and found one that was perfect, reasonably priced and even already finished.
I enquired about delivery, the gal that worked there (Nadya?) said it was $ 20.00. As I contemplated this, she asked how far I lived. I told her just a few miles. She volunteered to deliver it for free on her way home! I don’ t think she owned the shop, so had no vested interest in doing so. She called first and was half way up the stairs before I couldn’t even help her.
Owner, give that girl a raise!

My wife and I were looking to add chairs to our existing dining room table/​bench set. Our set is over 5 years old and the company we bought them from is out of business. So, there was no way to order from the original company. We decided to purchase unfinished furniture and see if there was some way to match the treatment of our existing set.
After calling around and doing quite a bit of research, I found that Burbank Unpainted Furniture carried a line of chairs which seemed to match the Mission style bench we have. The finish of our bench is not simple — it’s clear that there were several layers of stain/​paint applied so it was not something I wanted to try on my own.
The team at Burbank Unpainted Furniture was fantastic. They had the chairs I was looking for (and a large selection of other chairs and furniture so that was easy. I brought a piece from home so they could use it to match the paint style.
Two weeks later I picked up the chairs and they are fantastic! They look like the original set and match perfectly. It’s clear that they put in a lot of effort to match our original style, and it paid off. My wife was thrilled.
I highly recommend Burbank Unpainted Furniture and we may go back again in the future.

OVERPRICED!!! I was looking for a very specific cabinet that they carried. The cabinet was about $ 375 with a 20% «discount» That was with the cabinet NOT even built. After doing more research on the cabinet I found it at Elliot’s Unfinished Furniture in Ventura for $ 275 already assembled!
If you can make it out to Ventura you’ll probably save yourself a lot of money and find much more selection.