Furniture Painters in and around Dorking

Our workshop is in Surrey Heath, which makes Dorking one of our longer regular journeys — around thirty-five to forty minutes, depending on the route. We cover RH4 and RH5, taking in Dorking town, Westcott, Holmwood, Brockham, Betchworth, Leigh, Newdigate, and the villages out towards Capel and Abinger Hammer.

The same route we use for Dorking also serves Redhill and Reigate. If you're in RH1 or RH2, mention it when you call — we collect from those areas on the same runs and it's worth knowing you're on the same patch.

Because Dorking is further from our workshop than Guildford or Woking, we plan collections in combined runs — picking up two or three pieces from the area on the same day rather than making a dedicated trip for a single piece. This keeps things practical for both sides.

In terms of journey time, we've been coming to Dorking the long way for the last three years — A roads rather than the M25, which most people with any sense avoided during the junction 10 works. The habit has stuck because it hasn't been slower. The A25 and the routes through Leatherhead are predictable in a way the M25 hasn't been, and we see no reason to change back. Collection and delivery into Dorking is straightforward as a result.

If you're wondering whether the distance affects the price, the answer is that we have a flat rate for collections in Surrey and North Hampshire outside the M25. We quote on the piece, not the postcode.

A significant part of the Dorking work is dining furniture — chairs and tables, usually collected together, often from homes that have had the same set for two or three decades and want it refreshed rather than replaced. Eggshell is the most common finish for these pieces: it's hardwearing, it wipes down, and on a dining chair that gets daily use it holds up better than a wax finish over time.

We use Dulux Diamond and Heritage eggshell for most dining furniture — it comes in a wide enough colour range to match almost any brief, and the durability is consistent. For a set of six chairs and a table, we allow for the full preparation on each chair individually: sanding back, priming where necessary, two coats, and enough drying time between coats that nothing gets touched before it's ready.

Chairs take longer per piece than tables because of the spindles, the joints, and the underside of the seat rail — none of which can be skipped without the finish wearing unevenly within a year. The quote reflects that, and so does the timescale.

Welsh dressers come up more in Dorking than in most of the Surrey towns we work in, and when they do, the Annie Sloan finish is frequently the right answer. Chalk paint sits on the surface of old wood rather than sinking in, which means it doesn't obscure the grain or the patina entirely. For a dresser that has been in a family for sixty years, that matters. The point is usually to refresh the colour, not to make the piece look as though it was bought last year.

Annie Sloan Old White is the most common request. Pure White and Duck Egg Blue come up regularly too. We apply the chalk paint in two coats, then finish with Annie Sloan clear or dark wax depending on whether the customer wants a lighter or more antique result. The wax also protects the surface — an unwaxed chalk finish marks easily and a dresser gets handled every day.

The dresser comes back looking settled rather than painted. That's the point of the finish, and it's why it suits Dorking furniture particularly well.

The villages around Dorking — Brockham, Abinger Hammer, Capel, the hamlets in the folds of the Hills — contain older housing than most of Surrey, and older housing contains older furniture. Solid oak and elm pieces that predate pine as a fashionable material. Pieces with irregular dimensions because they were made to fit a specific room in a specific house.

We're used to furniture that doesn't conform to standard sizes and that has been repaired, refinished, or modified over the years. The assessment visit is more important for these pieces than for anything recent — we need to see the existing surface, understand what's been done to it before, and be honest about what paint will and won't do for it. We'll tell you at the visit if we think a different approach would serve the piece better.

Single pieces — a set of chairs, a table, a chest of drawers — are back within two weeks of collection. A Welsh dresser with a separate top and base, or a large wardrobe, may take three. We'll give you the timescale at the same time as the quote, when we've seen the piece.

Because we plan Dorking collections in combined runs, we'll agree a collection date that fits both your schedule and ours. It's usually within ten to fourteen days of your first contact.