Category: Business

Furniture Medic by JFC Restorations owner Joe Rakocy says he can fix basically anything, but when it comes to wood, he is a specialist.

At his Furniture Medic franchise based in Wesley Chapel, Rakocy and his team have tackled a number of big projects but repairing and restoring is the No. 1 goal.

“We basically work on anything that’s wood,” Rakocy says. “We repair, restore, we build, we install, and we do a lot of furniture repairs, antique work and a lot of cabinet work.”

Furniture Medic is part of a 30-year-old national franchise based out of Memphis, TN, with locations in 42 states including nine in Florida, and is part of the Service Master Group, which specializes in franchising home service businesses like Merry Maids, Two Men & a Truck and others.

Furniture Medic’s specialty is, essentially, reviving your furniture. Not only does Rakocy’s franchise, which he has owned since 2014, focus on home services, it also does commercial work.

He says they have spruced up the desks at the Mayor’s office in Orlando, refinished the furniture in the State Attorney’s office and even gone in and fixed up the chairs in Rakocy’s cardiologist’s office.

Bob Wilson, a Land O’Lakes resident, says he has used Furniture Medic by JFC Restorations a number of times to fix up older Ethan Allen mahogany furniture he has in his home. Joe and his team fixed up some dog scratches, a table top damaged by an overflowing candle and about 15-17 pieces in all. One piece they took back to Roakocy’s shop because it needed to be sanded and color-matched.

“They did a beautiful job on every piece in the house,” Wilson says. 

Residential cabinet work, however, is an area of emphasis these days for Rakocy’s Furniture Medic. While technicians Frank and Chuck will still take the nick out of a piece of furniture or make an older, worn piece look new, cabinets have emerged as a high-priority area of expertise, due to growing demand.

A Different Approach?

While Furniture Medic can come in and install a whole new set of kitchen cabinets for you, they specialize in what can be a much more affordable option – refreshing your look. In fact, Rakocy says sometimes people will call for a second opinion of getting a whole new kitchen, only to find they can save a lot of money with Furniture Medic by taking a different approach. 

Joe’s team can come in and tackle any gouges or other imperfections in your cabinets, give them a new face, repaint them and have them looking like new again.

“We can basically come in and clean and repair and fill nicks and gouges and stuff like that,” Rakocy says. “We can bring your cabinets back to looking pretty close to new for a small fraction of what it would cost you to put in new cabinets.”

It can be as simple a job as fixing some drawers and/or drawer gliders to revitalizing doors that are falling apart.

If the cabinet boxes are still good, it can just be a matter or replacing the doors. But, if more work is needed, Rakocy says his crew can custom-build new boxes as well. 

“Nowadays it’s actually probably quicker for us to custom-build it than to order them,” he says, referring to supply chain issues that can make ordering the right cabinets a 10-week to 6-month wait for the customer.

But, Rakocy says that if the cabinet boxes are still in good shape, which is many times the case, Furniture Medic can do wonders with the doors. From refacing the doors or completely changing the wood to giving you an entirely new color — with high-quality, water-based paint and a hard surface topcoat for durability — “we can completely refresh your kitchen.”

Furniture Medic even offers a yearly program where Rakocy’s team will come out and clean and refresh your cabinets.

“You’d be extremely impressed with what we can do,” he says.

Furniture Medic can do the same with your kitchen or furniture set as well.

Another fix the team at Furniture Medic can provide in your kitchen is replacing the box under your sink, a problem area for some. If the shelves, walls or floor have been damaged by a leak, Rakocy says Furniture Medic’s disaster restoration can be a lifesaver.

In the case of the sink, the box can be pulled out and replaced without touching the rest of the kitchen, making it an easier repair that doesn’t involve gutting the entire kitchen. 

Almost all repairs are done onsite, so Furniture Medic doesn’t require a large office – unless you count Rakocy’s 1,000-sq.-ft. shop on his property in Wesley Chapel where he works on other projects like preparing to build a small office addition at his daughter’s home — and those savings are passed on to his customers.

Still More Expertise

While Furniture Medic doesn’t repair upholstery or re-upholster furniture made of fabric, it does repair everything else involving your furniture, like leather repairs (mending holes and rips, as well as restoration) and structural repairs like motor mechanisms. Rakocy even has built and installed a barn door in a home at the request of a customer.

Rakocy says recliner work is very popular these days, and he sometimes jokes that the business should be called “Recliner Medic” due to all the repairs his team does on the popular chairs.

Furniture that has been chewed or scratched by a pet also is a common repair. The Furniture Medic can fix bed posts or chair legs and do a color match to make them look like new (although deep scratches and gouges that go across the grain may not be repairable.)

Even chairs and tables that have stains, watermarks or are just showing their age can be buffed and beautified by Furniture Medic, and antiques and heirlooms can get spruced up with just a little TLC.

“It’s pretty amazing what we can do,” he says.

And, if you call the company and send them a photo, Rakocy and his techs can tell you whether they can fix your problem or not, roughly how much it would cost and whether or not it’s even worth the effort, like with cheaper wood or even faux wood.

Furniture Medic by JFC Restorations is open Monday-Friday, from 7 a.m.-6 p.m. For more information, visit the Furniture Medic franchise website at FurnitureMedic.com, or call locally at (813) 982-4192.