My name is Taso Vasiliadis.
I was introduced to the art of restoration at the age of thirteen under the watchful eye of my late father who immigrated from Greece in the 1950's as a Master Painter and the legacy he left me to carry was a weight I was willing to bear. With my vast experience and knowledge of the decorative arts and historical restoration, I found my niche nearly two decades ago, stripping and refinishing most substrates, predominately wood surfaces, doors, porticos, pediments, pilasters, corbels and furniture. We also produce molds for restoration and reproduction of any size and complexity of decorative corbels, pediments and lintels.
The satisfaction that comes from stripping away decades of paint, varnishes, marring and restoring damaged and rotted surfaces to preserve a piece of history and revealing the natural beauty of the virgin wood beneath that was mostly hand crafted by master craftsmen is nostalgic. If you have an original door from the late 1790s to the mid 1900s consider yourself lucky. Older doors are made from real wood and the interlocking parts not only impart strength but also allow for movement and with the seasonal changes in temperature and humidity, swelling and shrinking make the traditional crafted door a cunning survivor and thus make them irreplaceable. When taking those factors into account, the cost of stripping and refinishing far outweighs the cost of replacing it with something inferior and can run into the thousands.
