A 105-year-old Baltimore institution wants to preserve history

The old warehouse in Remington teemed with bits and pieces of the past when it changed hands — that, and 18 dumpster loads’ worth of stuff.

Baltimore Finishing Works needed more than a fresh coat of paint when its new owners purchased the 105-year-old business last fall. The deal included its original Huntingdon Avenue headquarters.

Nick Petr, an artist and woodworker, teamed up with the two owners of C&H Restoration and Renovation, Timothy Horjus and Nick Cairns, to take over the well-known finishing company. The previous owner, who inherited the family business from his father, retired and put it up for sale last year.

The workload includes everything from lead paint removal services to museum piece touch-ups.

“We basically can strip and refinish and restore anything, metal or wood,” said Petr, 46, who handles daily operations.

The trio have worked to expand their company’s offerings beyond its hallmark window and door services and have repurposed the facility’s upper level into a showroom and gallery space for local artists.

And they’ve been swimming in business ever since.

“We jumped into this thing the day we took over. And there were already 30 jobs sitting at the door that we inherited,” Petr said. “We just haven’t been able to stop since we got here.”

What were your previous jobs?

Nick Petr: I’m essentially unemployable, so I work for myself. I did do some curating for the DC Public Library, and I taught at MICA and Baltimore School for the Arts for a few years.

What do you think makes you unemployable?

(Laughs) I’ve always felt it’s easier to be creative and kind of just follow my own path. But it doesn’t always mean that, you know, it’s lucrative.

What was the impetus for buying the business?

My business partners and I, through an unexpected chain of events, came together around it. We’ve always been aware of Baltimore Finishing Works through our adult lives because we had used this place many times.

Their [Cairnes and Horjus’] company, C&H Restoration, happens to be one of the biggest customers of Baltimore Finishing Works. If finishing works went under ... that was going to be a major problem for them.

And just the hustle of being a furniture maker on my own, in my own little wood shop, was a lot.

So we all got together and talked about it, and the agreement was that we would buy the place and I would run it, and they would support it, and that support has been amazing.

I think we all bit off a little more than we can chew. We’re doing it, but it’s a monster.

The work never stops coming in, and it’s necessary, because in a city like Baltimore, if you want to restore these older buildings and keep that historic integrity, I mean, you can’t do that without bringing it all back to its original condition, evaluating what’s wrong, what has to be really repaired. I think that’s why this place has been around for 105 years.

What’s something you wish people knew about this business that they don’t?

One thing we’ve been trying to put out there is that we are more than just a paint stripping shop. We’re fabricators, we are finishers and restoration workers. We can take the paint off. But we can also bring it back to new. We can do all types of finishes, all types of repairs, and whatever the problem is, we can probably solve it.

What’s the biggest ambition you have for finishing works?

Well, stay in business. And I’m really interested in alternatives to some of the chemicals and things that we use. There’s a lot of research being done on ways to do what we do differently and safer, and we take safety incredibly seriously. But it would be cool to get into biodegradable and more environmentally friendly ways of doing this. Modernizing our processes is really important.

What does a typical day look like here?

There aren’t typical days. We get anywhere from five to 15 walk-ins, customers with questions or they just bring their stuff. We respond to, I don’t know, maybe 20 emails a day, just the inquiries and people wanting quotes on stuff. There’s the stuff being stripped, the stuff being repaired, the stuff being refinished, painted, intake, outtake. I mean, it’s a lot. I think we’re probably doing about double the amount of work that the previous owners were ― for better or worse.

What’s your favorite part of the day?

The end.

No, actually what I love about it is that everybody who works here is having a really good time, and joking around and getting things done all day. And I feel like we’ve really tapped into people’s strengths as artists and creative individuals.

What are the challenges of doing business in Baltimore?

Lately I haven’t been finding it too difficult to do business in Baltimore. It actually feels like things are going pretty well. I wish that there were more resources for small businesses.

I have more to say about being a homeowner in Baltimore than I do about running a business in Baltimore, but that’s another thing.

What’s the appeal of doing business in Baltimore?

One of the greatest things about it is there are just so many artists and craftspeople in Baltimore, because it’s still — even though it’s getting more expensive — somewhat affordable. And you can still carve out some kind of space to do your work. That’s getting harder, but it’s much harder in other places.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.