Furniture with good bones, bought properly.

What we're looking for

• Painted, gilt and Continental pieces — French and Italian provincial commodes, consoles, side tables and chairs; Swedish and Venetian painted furniture; anything a Naples decorator would put in a living room.
• English and American case pieces of a scale that fits a condo — chests, small secretaries, writing tables, tea tables, chests-on-stands, linen presses that aren't nine feet tall.
• Seating with good frames — bergères, fauteuils, settees, wing chairs, sets of dining chairs — which can be recovered.
• Mirrors — gilt, painted, Venetian, trumeau, and plain looking glasses with a good bevel. Always.
• Mid-century design by known makers, in original condition.
• Asian pieces — Chinese and Japanese cabinets, chests, altar tables, low tables, screens.
• The unusual — campaign furniture, faux-bamboo, garden furniture with age, anything with real presence.

What we're honest about

The "brown furniture" market — big mahogany dining suites, breakfronts, armoires, Victorian oak, most bedroom sets — has been soft for years, and no dealer can change that. We'll tell you plainly when a piece is worth more as furniture in your own house than as a sale, and we'll tell you when a 1970s reproduction with a good label is a good reproduction and nothing more. What actually makes old furniture valuable, in detail.

How an offer works

Send photographs — the front, the side, the inside of a drawer, the back or underside, any labels — or have us out to the house. We'll tell you what the piece is and what we'd pay, in writing. If it would do better on consignment or at auction, we'll say so, even though it means we don't buy it today. If you accept, you're paid on the spot and we handle the pickup.

House calls and whole houses

Furniture is what makes a house call necessary. We come to Naples, Marco Island, Bonita Springs, Estero, Fort Myers and Cape Coral by appointment, and we handle the building's elevator rules and gate registration when there are any. For an entire house of furniture and everything else, see our estate services — the walk-through, the written evaluation, and a plan for every piece.

Before we come

• Don't refinish anything. Original surface is most of the value of an early piece; a fresh coat of polyurethane can cut it in half.
• Don't "fix" it. Loose joints and old repairs are normal; new glue, new screws and new hardware are not improvements.
• Leave the drawers in. Labels, chalk marks and construction details inside are what we look at first.
• Tell us the history if you know it — where it was bought, who owned it, any paperwork. Provenance is worth money.