Light For You

I wanted to add a dimmer function to a chandelier, which required the lamp to be converted and installation of the dimmer switch. Mikhial was very helpful, the job was done quickly and at a fair price. I would absolutely recommend Light For You for jobs like this.

Top shelf shop keeper who ran this awesome place for 30 years. Bought my hand painted lamp in with my DIY docket from Home Depot. Socket was immediately identified as aluminum cheap quality item and brass was the only way to go.
Love that quality view… You don’t find that in many places today.
Even more so he did it in 15 minutes for $ 25… While I waited. What service !!!

The store owner Mr. Mikhial aka «Mikey» is the best lamp repair man in San Francisco! I brought my late mother’s antic lamp which has been in our family for over 25years to him to be repaired. Mikey quickly knew what year the lamp was made just by looking at it. He explained in great detail why the lamp was no longer working. He repaired and cleaned the lamp on the same day. He is very compassionate and knowledgeable about all lamps. His prices are very reasonable. After I paid for the lamp he walked my lamp to my car and put it on the front seat and buckled it like it was a passenger. He is a «true customer service repair man» that cares about his customer’s family value lamps. Thank you Mikhial for all your support!

Very quick lamp repair, while I waited, for a lower price than expected. Nice guy too!

This guy know his lighting! I brought him a lamp that was my grandma’s for rewiring. I’d inherited the lamp about 20 years ago and then took it to some «fancy» (not that this is not) store in Los Altos for rewiring.
Needless to say the wiring and shade they sold me did not last 20 years. In fact the shade the sold me was double the price and was no more the quality!
This man is honest, more than reasonable and kind. He also let me know that the lamp is about a 100 years old and of fine quality which was a shock because my grandparents were poor immigrants (later they made money but they didn’t spend it on things like this). Pleasant surprise.
I suffer from chronic pain and he was more than happy to come out and get the lamp from my double parked car so I didn’t have to find parking and struggle to get to the shop
10 stars!

I had purchased a chandelier at the Habitat For Humanity store. I purchased it knowing I would change everything about it except the structure. I had no idea what I was in store for. I think this is how a lot of projects begin, pure ignorance of the job!
The chandelier was very modern, silver metal rods with turquoise glass shades. I hate blue in almost any color. Don’t know why, but I have a real aversion to the color. And my place is done in rich jewel colors, so silver wouldn’t work. My plan was simply to spray paint the structure bronze and replace the shades with red glass. Simple, right? Wrong!
Much to my dismay I soon discovered that those horrible turquoise glass shades were a size that was impossible to replace. And I tried, believe me. Scoured the web and nothing. I also got home and realized that I had no where to spray this structure. I live in an apartment with a small balcony, so just where did I think I was going to do this spray painting? Ugh, my once brilliant vision was quickly becoming a lost cause.
In comes Michael from Light For You. He took an interest in this silly girl who was trying to make a purse from a sow’s ear. Together, at his direction, we’ve gone step by step trying to make my vision a reality. He has spent so much time with me figuring out how to rig up this thing to take a standard size glass shade. Then, when he heard I was going to use a rub on product to change the color of the metal, he took the chandelier and sprayed it himself. So, after a brief interruption when Michael left the country, we are finally ready to purchase the glass and put it all together.
I won’t go into all the steps it took us to get here, but Michael has been a star. In his gruff manner (he’s a big teddy bear underneath), he barks at me and I go away and do as he says. I come back, he nods approval and tells me what to do next. And, how much has he charged me — $ 0! Every time I ask he dismisses me with the wave of his hand.
So today I will order the glass. I need six glass shades but will only be ordering one. Why? Because Michael says so. I don’t question, I simply take my marching orders.
Michael has been so wonderful and, in a world where big box stores with no knowledge employees seem to be the only option, it warms my heart to find this small lighting store owned by a man so knowledgeable with a heart of gold.

I brought my table lamp to have the worn out switch replaced. Mike was very friendly and had the lamp fixed in 15 minutes. I thought the price for parts and labor were reasonable, especially considering the speed and high level of customer service.

It was late in the day and I was in need of candelabra bulbs for my vintage table lamp. A quick Unilocal search away and I was in Michael’s lamp shop. While some may describe the shop as being messy and unkept, and would otherwise prefer something more sterile, I found this shop to have character. With lots of antique lamps and parts for sale I have become a frequent shopper there. I often went to large retailers looking for a specific lamp part and seldom found what I was looking for. Michael on the other hand never disappointed, I was always able to get everything form switches to sockets to miscellaneous lamp parts I needed. While I’ve never taken my lamps in to get repaired, because I enjoy working on them myself, I was able to get all the parts I needed there to get them fixed.
Oh and yes, I did find the correct bulbs I was looking for.

Thanks to Unilocal I tried Mischa to repair the base of a floor lamp. Just as advertised. Very fast, reasonable and great work. Just what I needed.

«Mike» is the BEST!
He looked over my antique torchiere lamp, recommended the necessary repair and got it done within the day.

This review is for supplies. The proprietor tried to sell me light bulbs that would not have cast the same glow as the rest of my recessed lights. He didn’t seem to grasp the concept when I mentioned my concern. Unfortunately, he did not have the one I needed.
On the positive side, he was very friendly and recommended another store down the block. If I have a lamp to fix in the future, I will be back.

This place is awesome! I went to Light For You today to get a beloved lamp fixed. I walked out of the store 10 minutes later with a lamp as good as new and paid a very reasonable amount for the parts and labor.
This is definitely the place to go if you want your lamps repaired. The owner is an expert!

I’m an artist who uses a lightbox to ink my sketches. The lightbox had bad wiring. I called Michael with my unusual problem and he said, yes I can fix it. I went over to West Portal, Michael looked at the lightbox took it apart and said no problem. I came back 3 hours later that same day and now it works perfectly! Michael was so nice and professional. I was so pleased that I can get right back to work using my lightbox. Thank you so much Michael! Great service! Nice person too :) !!

I took my lamp here after another place in the city (on Divisadero) did a half assed and overpriced job of repairing the broken 3 way switch. Owner was very helpful, did the repair in only a few hours and his rates were beyond reasonable. Don’t take your lighting fixtures anywhere else to be repaired… this place is the best.

This gentleman is AMAZING! Yes, he is old school and he fixed my lamp in one day! He show me where the cheap 3-​way socket in my ‘Made in China’ lamp had shorted out from using a 1-​way bulb! He also gave me a tour around the shop showing me all the beautiful European chandeliers. Furthermore, I learned that the best light bulbs have brass bottoms, not aluminum. I bought 6 3-​way bulbs and came home and changed all my lights. No more shorting for me!!!
This guy is great. I will take all my lighting here in the future for repair.
You MUST go here!!!

Wow, this place is great! If you need a lamp repaired, look no where else. Old school, old world service, at a great price. This guy knows what he’s doing! I had two vintage lamps with major problems, and they were fixed perfectly and quickly.

One of our building’s 2 outdoor decorative wall lanterns broke while changing its light bulbs. The problem — replacing both lanterns at a cost of $ 200 to $ 300 each would be required for them to match each other and our building, even though only one was broken. The solution — Michael at Light For You. I brought the broken lantern to his West Portal shop on Monday, and after looking at it for 5 minutes, he quoted $ 60 to completely rewire it, repair the broken glass, and replace other worn/​damaged parts (all plainly needed in this older fixture). On Tuesday he called to say it was fixed, we picked it up and reinstalled it and is working like new. Thanks to Michael, our building saved hundreds of dollars and many hours of shopping around for suitable new fixtures that would have otherwise been needed, if not for this very diligent, skilled, and reasonably priced craftsman. Thanks, Michael!

Outstanding customer service. Fixed the knob on my $ 500 Ethan Allen lamp without any problems in 5 minutes. He charged me $ 9 which I think is ridiculously cheap. I also buy a number of specialty three way bulbs here.
If you need to repair your lamp at 94 127 zip code or West Portal area this is the place to go to. Thanks Mike.

It’s very rare that you leave a repair shop and think to yourself, «Man I wish I had more broken things at home to bring them.» But this is exactly what I was saying to myself as I left the store this evening.
Lamps are very simple things. If your lamp is broken it’s either the wiring or the socket. Both can be bought cheaply at a hardware store and there’s a ton of resources online to show you how to replace them. So why take your lamp to Light For You? Here are a few reasons:
1) Convenience/​Time: Michael will be able to break down your lamp and pinpoint exactly what is wrong with your lamp in a couple minutes.
2) Service/​Quality: Michael was so friendly and helpful. Once I walked in he immediately took me back into his workroom and got to work. I’d actually tried fixing the lamp myself and had bought new sockets from Home Depot, but it still didn’t work. It turned out that Home Depots sockets are of horrible quality, makes sense when they buy them in the millions. When comparing his sockets to Home Depot’s you could clearly see the difference in quality. Once Michael put in his sockets, the lamp turned on.
3) Safety: You won’t electrocute yourself like I did when I forgot to unplug the lamp while testing it when I was trying to DIY.
4) Price: Michael only charged me for the price of the sockets, which are the same price as the poor quality sockets at Home Depot. He didn’t even charge me for labor, which I would of happily paid. Even if he had charged labor, if you combine #1, #2 and #3 above it’s still a great value.
5) Support your local small businesses!

I had this Tizio lamp that had been broken for awhile. Not sure where to take it for repair until I decided to call DWR to ask about repair services and they gave me the phone number to call Light For You.
With slight apprehension I called the number and Mike (aka Michael) answered the phone. He asked me if I knew what was wrong with it and I told him that it just didn’t work when I tried to turn it on; not sure if it was the light bulb, the transformer, or something else was the problem.
I proceeded to ask Mike for an estimate. He said that if it was a problem with the transformer then it would be couple of hundred since the whole base need to be replaced; else the cost would be under $ 100. I thought that was quite fair since I considered the Tizio to be a very good lamp and it would not hurt to have it checked out.
Mike is really nice on the phone and was very patient in giving directions to his shop. Since it was a long way to San Francisco, I thought of checking Unilocal for reviews. The positive reviews gave me the needed confidence to plan a stop at Light For You on my trip to San Francisco.
When it comes to repairs, I judge them on the following 3 criteria:
1. Quality of work:
When Mike turned the switch on the lamp, it worked! WTH, I was scratching my head wondering why it didn’t work at home… feeling a little foolish… and wondered if I should make a quick exit (since it seemed to work) or hang around and have a thorough check done on it.
Mike said to leave it on for awhile to see if it would continue to work and also do a thorough check. Upon close visual inspection (he knows where to look for problems), we found that there was a crack in one of the connector’s insulation cap which was the culprit. To make sure it would work at home, I should really fix it. I then left the lamp with Mike to work on and went to the Greenhouse Café across the street (which is a really neat joint and has good coffee).
2. Price:
Very fair and the final cost was under $ 50 (even less than the estimate) which made me happy. And as another reviewer mentioned, Mike also offered me quarters to feed the parking meter.
3. Customer service:
Mike is very knowledgeable on Tizio lamps and he patiently explained the mechanics of the lamp to me. Showed me how to take it apart and put it back together and most importantly, how to handle/​carry it — by that time, I realized that I had mishandled the lamp and was responsible for breaking it (carried it incorrectly and put stress on the connector, duh). Note to self, always carry it by its base gingerly and with both hands. Mike was also kind enough to help carry the lamp to my car.
Conclusion:
Light For You is as good as it gets. Mike is professional and friendly, and has definitely gained my trust for future business and referrals. Oh, it was really neat that he has no idea that he is getting good reviews on Unilocal.He told me that he works with his hand and has no idea about computers, it was fun to see his reaction when I used my phone to show and read him the Unilocal reviews.