Best of New York 2014 • Home & Help

• Make-a-Frame

  180 Atlantic Ave., nr. Clinton St., Cobble Hill; 718-875-6150

  The Atlantic Avenue mainstay has been in business since 1978, but has been under new ownership since 2010. They still provide the basics: closed-cornered cut-and-join frames made on-site from sustainably harvested African wood, running about $350 for a standard size. But the shop switched to archivist-approved materials—like matting made entirely of cotton and removable rice-paper hinges—that allow for more-ambitious projects. Since a customer brought in a piece of a vintage Pink Floyd pig balloon to be framed ($300), the store has steadily made a name for itself as a go-to for turning much more than just pictures into wall art. The team recently tackled a piece of North Korean barbed wire (in a rustic wood shadow box that provided depth; $200) and a salvaged section of the Hindenburg (in a welded-steel square; $550). Customers feel comfortable leaving prized, emotionally valuable objects at the store. The patient and meticulous staff (many are art-school grads), are known for their hour-long consultations with equally detail-obsessed customers, be it on the merits of a specific type of wood grain or floating versus dry mounting.

From the 2014 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine