In a nutshell: very expensive and so-so service. Save yourself time and money and go to Ben Franklin in Redmond. If you want the details, read on: I went to this store following a 4 stars review... More

In a nutshell: very expensive and so-so service. Save yourself time and money and go to Ben Franklin in Redmond. If you want the details, read on: I went to this store following a 4 stars review of their Woodinville store on Judy's book. My first impression was good, the designer made great suggestions and put together the elements for framing the 3 small paintings i had brought. It did take quite a while and after almost an hour, i was ready to move on. The first bad surprise was the price. Over $1,000 for 3 relatively small pieces (e.g. 35 inches square). The framing elements did not seem that special. Having invested an hour of my time, I convinced myself that "you get what you pay for". So i tried to hide my grimace behind a forced smile and told the employee to hit my credit card. The second bad surprise is when i came back 10 days later to pick up the framed paintings. The first one had a chip in one corner. The second one had a bulge on the front of the frame, visibly from a nail pushing under the surface of the frame. The third one had a smaller problem: the corners of the inner frame (the fillet as it's called) did not meet very well and there was a gap of 2-3 mm. When i expressed my disappointment, the employee tried to downplay the problems. She explained that it is hard to make things perfect and that after a little while you dont see these tiny defects any more, etc... She patched the chipped corner with some kind of black putty and tried to send me home, suggesting that the flaws would not be visible in normal light. I had to insist to get all 3 corrected. The good thing about MQF is they advertise a total satisfaction guarantee. So she did take the 3 pieces back and they eventually fixed them. The next day the store manager called me and apologized. However i had to wait for 2 more weeks before the frames were redone. All in all, i found that the service is not worth the high price, except maybe for larger expensive pieces. I will not use them again.
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