If you’re sitting at an old desk or on an old chair, there’s a chance Phillip Kerrigan has worked on it.
He runs and is the sole employee of Kerrigan Restoration. The Better Waverly business restores its clients’ furniture, including some made in Baltimore over 200 years ago, he said.
Originally from suburban Philadelphia, Kerrigan came to Baltimore in 1999 to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art for painting. After he graduated, he stayed in Baltimore because he says he “really liked the city.”
Kerrigan, 43, started out on the retail side of the furniture business. He later worked for a company that made custom furniture and finishes and got a full-time job at a furniture restoration company, where he learned his craft.
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He worked at that company for 11 years, until it closed in 2018. Afterwards, he worked at another restoration company for less than a year, but that company wasn’t the best fit for him.
“I sort of looked around and there are not many furniture restorers around in general, and really nobody who was doing the type of work that I had been doing for those 11 years,” he said.
So, in September of 2019, he started his own business, which was a “bit terrifying.”
What is something you wish people knew about your business?
Phillip Kerrigan: That it’s slow work. I do everything pretty much by hand, not to say I don’t use some power tools. Everything I do is done with the idea that I’m taking a piece of furniture, whether it be only a few years old or a few centuries old, and I’m trying to repair it and do any finish treatment to it that not only will make it good and strong today, but also good and strong for tomorrow.
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Oftentimes, that just means not just screwing something together, because a screw might not be an appropriate thing. You have to hand-fit joinery and make it nice and tight, using adhesive that takes a little bit longer and a little more energy to use, but, ultimately, are better for the piece, and better for future repairs. And that all takes time.
The main thing that I do that almost nobody does is a technique called French polish, which is a method of applying shellac by hand, where you’re building up microscopically thin layers over a long period of time.
The result is incredibly beautiful and also incredibly repairable, but it takes me a week to apply the same amount of finish that someone with a spray booth can put on in under an hour.
What is your biggest ambition with your business?
The goal is to be able to keep doing it for a good long time. I really love it. It’s just getting people to know about it. I’m the entire business. I know how to do furniture work, but learning all the business side and advertising and marketing stuff is still a bit lost on me.
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The good news is that it seems to be somewhat working. Up until last summer, I was pretty much working seven days a week, and still had a backlog of work. I’m trying to work through that, while also getting a little more time off regularly to recharge.
What does a day at your business look like?
There’s always some administrative stuff: answering phone calls and emails, writing up invoices and estimates, as well as picking up the furniture or delivering furniture. I do my best to try to get that done in a short amount of time, and then spend the rest of the day working on different projects, and figuring out if today is a day where I do a lot of repair work or do a lot of finish work.
I can’t make a lot of dust and then do finish work. It’ll all get in. So, I prioritize which I’m going to do and what makes sense for the different projects I have going on at any given time, with their deadlines in mind.
What is your favorite part of the day?
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It’s oftentimes when I’m finishing something up. When I get everything done, the last stage is giving a nice coat of wax that helps give it a little bit of extra sheen and a little bit of protection going forward. And then I take a photo to document it. That feels nice and like, ‘Ah, I’m done a project.’ And then, I contact the client and arrange time to deliver it.
What do you feel when you are working on older pieces?
Oftentimes, with pieces of any age, they are things that have been in people’s families for a long time. Whether or not it has any sort of financial value — that’s one thing that I don’t get into too much with people — it has a lot of sentimental value. It’s something that somebody really loves or that belonged to a beloved family member, and that does make me want to do a better job, which is always a good thing.
What’s the appeal of doing business in Baltimore?
A lot of times I get work from people because they tell their friends. Because it’s a relatively small city, everybody knows everybody, for the most part, and that is very helpful in getting word of mouth about the business. Oftentimes, I will see things in auction or online, and then I’ll go to someone’s home and say, ‘Oh, you got this table.’
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There’s also a lot of other smaller businesses that are in a similar field, and we all know each other. If somebody wants something that has a gold leaf on it, I know a gilder you should call. And that’s really nice too, knowing a lot of other different craftspeople in the city and being able to help them out, as well.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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