U-Frame-It

Their work is good enough but their customer service under the new management is the pits! Staff are really unfriendly, and make no effort to help the customer or to provide anything resembling friendly service.

I’ve been here twice. The quality of the products are great, but I can’t say the same for the service. The woman working today (⁵⁄₂₃) made me feel like an inconvenience. I wanted to put my stuff together because, you know… U Frame It, but she was «the only one working today.» There was one other customer in the store. The whole point of visiting a U Frame It instead of a fill-​service shop, for me, is to do as much of it myself as I can.
Additionally, I changed my matte from one she’d have to order to one they had in stock and she didn’t adjust the price because «they are kinda the same.» My first visit was great. The guy working was super helpful. I’m bummed that today was so different. I won’t be back.

I stopped in here today to check out their frame selection and to get a quote for custom framing. I’m in the process of framing 20+ photos for an exhibit. The dude behind the counter was super unwelcoming and unfriendly. I guess it’s not ok to browse the selection in a custom frame store. He also assumed that I was looking for the cheapest frames and acted really annoyed to have to answer a few questions. I don’t like writing negative reviews but I was so turned off by the customer service at this place, even if they do good work I will not be giving them my business.

I had a great experience with U-​Frame-​It. I took my photo to be mated and framed in on December 21^st. Realizing that the timing was poor on my part, I expected for them to tell me that it would be a long time before it was ready. I was incorrect. They told me it would be about 14 days but called to let me know if was ready in about 10 days. It is always good to beat the expectation.
I had agreed to assemble the frame myself to save a few dollars. So when I was able to take the time to go to the shop I called to inquire about how long the process would take. The gentleman on the phone told me I have your picture right here and it won’t take you long because it is already put together. What a great surprise. No additional charge or hassle. The best part was that he used the caller ID to identify me and find my frame while we were on the phone.
Great experience with a great place. I have a lot of other items to fame and I will certainly return to U-​Frame-​It to get them done.

Don’t you just love places that not only take pride in the quality of the work they do but also have interesting and engaging employees? That’s exactly what we found here. Somehow in the 30ish minutes that i was there, they managed to not only help me find the perfect mat for my map and an existing frame but they also were extremely nice and chatted with me about history and travel. It doesn’t take too much extra effort to make a return customer but it takes a special type of person to make you not want to go anywhere else. The quality of their work and their personalities will keep me from going elsewhere for sure! I know framing isn’t too glamorous of Sunday activity but thanks to their staff, it was a very nice addition to the week.

First off, no type of quality framing (i.e. glass and wood) is cheap. After I realized this a few years back, it doesn’t shock me whenever I go to get screenprints framed.
The «u-​frame-​it» benefit of doing some of the busy work yourself in store seems to knock off about $ 30 from the total. I actually liked learning how to do some of the process myself, but it does take about 20 – 30 minutes. You don’t have to go this route, but it might add a few more days to the completion of the job if they have a backlog.
I had 2 prints framed within the last month and was helped both times by Sophie (?). She assisted with picking frames out, answered any questions, and built the eventual pieces really quickly. I’m not sure how long a project would take if the store was busy, but was completely impressed both of the times I was in!

So I went in to have another project framed at their new location. They had this sign stating it was under new management which would seem like that was supposed to be an improvement, but after I was in there for 10 minutes it seemed more like a warning to take your business elsewhere. While I do not know the circumstance for the employee change, I do know that the level of customer service, creativity, confidence, and overall satisfaction left with the former manager and her staff. I have another 11 projects to do and won’t do them there. Does anyone know if Chloe went to work for another shop or still in the area? I’m going to call around to the shops and hope I can find her. Any business lucky enough to have her gets all of my business.

Unfortunately I had a similar experience as the last reviewer. I was told our framing job would take about 2 weeks. After that amount of time had elapsed, we hadn’t received a call so we called them. They said it wasn’t done yet. We called a week later, and were told that it was still not done but we were next on the list and they were going to work on it that day if they could. Presumably this meant if they could ‘t work on it that day, it would be within a couple of days after that. Five days later, my boyfriend went into the store to ask face to face about it, and it was still not done. There was no reason why, only an «I’m sorry», and an offer of a discount. I then made a phone call myself and when I asked what the reason was why it wasn’t done, I was told in a very snarky manner, «Uhhh, because we’re busy». When I explained that we’d been told it was going to be a couple of weeks and we were now over 3.5 weeks, I was told «Well it’s a really big job and we have a lot of other customers besides you.» There wasn’t even an apology this time, only a very whiny «I’m tryyyiing». When I asked when it would be done, I was told that they would *try* to have it done by the weekend, which would make it a full month after we originally brought it in there. I’m sorry but the owners of this place either need to hire more people, hire different people than those who are there now, or get in there themselves and help the staff get the jobs done. Worst service and attitude I’ve heard from any store in a long, long time. Sad it had to be at a place in my own neighborhood that I would’ve liked to support.

This is the LAST of the true YOU-​frame it stores. I framed a print here +/​-​20 years ago (when they were on NW 20^th) and they were great then and just as helpful now.
Even though they just moved last week and were a little disorganized — Chloe was SO VERY helpful. I was on a short timeline and probably should not have taken on this project but she helped me get it done. THANK YOU CHLOE!
Go early on a weekday if you want to frame items yourself. They do A LOT of the work for those «framing things themselves» — so showing up after 5 or on weekends (with everybody else) is not particularly wise — so expect to wait.

as someone who is familiar with the DIY aspect that u frame it offers, I understand how the staff work and although customers may not be flooding the store at all times, they always have a lot of work to be done and therefore are never ‘slow’. I would suggest if you’ve got multiple projects to do, allow yourself an hour per project. the staff are beyond helpful but unreasonable requests (demanding frames in an hour or less, requesting your project get done before those who have been waiting, etc.) are unwelcomed. they have done all my projects and if I need something done in a pinch I call first and make sure they can do it before walking in and demanding special attention.

Chloe was a great help for my first experience there. She was so pleasant and made the framing process easy. My art looked great!

I’m an idiot.
I had a few 30’x20″ prints to frame. So, like the idiot that I am, I ordered (on Ebay) 30“x24″ frames. When I discovered the mistake, I tried Craigslisting them. No bites. I then called three framing shops to see if they could knock four inches off of the height. The first couldn’t do it. The next could do it, but they’d have to knock an inch or two off the length as well. Cost would be $ 55 each. The third (U frame it) was sure that they could do it, but thought it was possible I might have to lose a quarter or half inch on the length. Cost was $ 25 each.
I went to U Frame It on a weekend afternoon and it was surprisingly quiet. Lucas looked carefully over the frames and decided it would be possible to resize just the height (to turn my 30×24 frames into 30×20 frames). He guided me through what I needed to do, and then he did the remaining tricky parts for me.
After a pretty sizable amount of work, I left with my new 30“x20″ frames in hand. They look great on my wall!
Pricing was fair, Lucas went out of his way to be helpful, and I got exactly what I wanted. I am sure I’ll be back in the future.

I cannot say enough good about U Frame It in Ballard, but I will try. I feel uniquely qualified to comment on the place because I’m there about twice a month — I own a vintage gift shop and always seem to need to frame something or use the shop tools available at U Frame It.
Although the physical resources of the shop are great, what makes the place great is its staff. I seem to end up working most often with Karol (the manager) and Chloe, both of whom are careful, helpful, and knowledgeable about the work they do. Karol, in particular, has TONS of experience and is an artist herself, so she knows what needs to be done and, importantly for me, when to leave antiques and vintage items alone! She also has been extremely helpful in her suggestions regarding colors and styles to use in framing. And on top of all that, she’s bright, funny, and we always seem to end up in interesting conversation while we work.
Chloe, too, is greatly invested in what she’s doing and has helped me with difficult jobs many times. She’s precise and really wants every piece to turn out well. Although she has not worked in the shop nearly as long, she clearly knows what she’s doing, which is so cool, because framing is not nearly as easy as it looks. Honestly, you cannot imagine all the things that can go wrong, but whenever I get upset and think that something is irreparable or that I’ve totally screwed up the job, Chloe thinks of a good way to fix it. And she stays calm, which I so appreciate.
I’ll stop now because I’m embarrassing these people, but I’ll end by saying that you should not hesitate for a minute to visit this marvelous little shop, and when you leave with your wonderfully framed piece of artwork — which looks 20 million times better than it did when you walked in the door — you will find yourself looking forward greatly to the next time you need the help of Karol, Chloe, Lucas, Cameron, and the other well trained workers at U Frame It in Ballard.
Later, guys.

Great for DIY artists. Huge mat color selection.

I waited till I got our pictures back before writing this review. My husband and I went into U Frame It Ballard after checking out another frame shop. We have previously always purchased off the shelf pre-​made frames, but we had had a formal portrait session for our new baby, and wanted larger high quality frames and mats for our living room and study. In particular, we wanted a silver leaf frame. Apparently, the current style for silver leaf is to yellow it so it doesn’t look like silver leaf any more, and we were having a difficult time. I spotted a beautiful silver frame hanging in the window of U Frame it… but went in and found it was a discontinued style! The sample frame in the window was not the right dimensions — it was too wide and when I inquired, the owner didn’t just sell me the frame, she told me it wouldn’t look right. I appreciated her honesty. And when I was about to start ordering catalog samples to try to find a true silver frame, she thought for a while, and then told me she could try to cut the frame down to fit my picture… and give me a discount because it was a sample! I just unwrapped it and it looks beautiful. I would highly recommend U Frame it in Ballard.

I’m still p*ssed about a frame and some mats I had done there a while back. At the time, it seemed they couldn’t do anything in square to save their lives. I had a few of the mats done over, then had them make a frame that cost me over $ 100. I put a 90 degree triangle on it later and it was about ¼″ out of square over a 30″ height. No big deal? — it is to me. I tend to see that stuff by eye, but I didn’t notice it until I had it home for a while. I figured I need to live with it at that point. Maybe they’ve adjusted their saws and cutters or gotten new employees by now, but I would urge anyone to double check the work with a carpenter’s square or 90 degree angle to make sure you’re getting what you pay for. Framing is expensive these days!

Firstly, I’m totally new to being some things that it’s normal for adults to do… like seek out artwork and frame it. Also, I realized very quickly that framing artwork is as expensive if not more so than actually purchasing good artwork. This being my first attempt I went as inexpensively as possible. I bought some frames from Ikea and called around to find out where the prices for matting started and low & behold, U-​Frame-​It had more reasonable prices than anywhere else I called. I went in and had three things matted. I hadn’t bought any frames, just had mats cut… knew nothing about the language of the process and pretty much presented myself as the idiot I am. The owner was very nice and helpful. She cut the mats while I waited and did a beautiful job. I should say her robot did a beautiful job. She placed my pieces in the mats with some foam backing, wrapped them in paper and sent me on my way… even offering to help me with the frames if I ran into trouble. How awesome is she! I didn’t buy a proper frame from her and she was far more courteous and patient than I could have asked for.
Thanks for not making me feel like the cheap uneducated troglodyte I am.

I wanted to get a piece of art framed, and being a little foreign to any framing that doesn’t happen at IKEA, I checked all around for a price. Not only does U-​Frame-​It have a 20% off coupon on their website, they were already miles cheaper from the other quotes I got. Just around the corner at Annie’s they quoted me $ 100 more expensive for a frame that was almost identical. The people here are also very helpful, friendly, and do great speedy work. Don’t be fooled by the name, you don’t have to do any work yourself, you will be totally taken care of.

I walked into U-​Frame-​It feeling totally stressed out by my morning commute, and slightly apprehensive about the whole process. I needed a rush job and hadn’t done framing before. The owner, Karol, totally went above and beyond to put me at ease, was patient with my questions, and made sure I got the best price possible. I will definitely take all of my work here in the future!

UPDATE:
A new girl Sarah works there now and she is GREAT, wonderful customer service!!! I hope it rubs off on the others.
ORIGINAL POSTt:
I have found mounting and framing fascinating and I have always
wanted to see the construction process. So we checked out «U-​Frame it» in Ballard.
From a HUGE selection you pick the style of frames, the mat color, they do all the measuring and cutting, and you put it together with their instruction & supplies.
Price seemed comparable to other framing I had done in the past. They will frame it for you but there is a 10 day to 2 week turn around or they knock off $ 20.00 if you do it yourself.
We went on a Saturday so I suggest finding a less busy time to construct your project.
This staff doesn’t multi task customers very well. All the customers who walked in to the store looked around with «Who works here face?»
The staff just needs to say «HI, be right with you.» But they don’t acknowledge you until YOU say something, which makes them seem a bit bitchy. But once they DO get around to you they are helpful, so be patient.
If the staff could have been friendlier I would have gave it 5 stars.
Go to their website to get a 20% off coupon and do try out U-​Frame It in Ballard.