Bespoke Canvas Stretching · Made-to-Measure
Bespoke Canvas Stretching:
Made-to-Measure Frames
Built for Your Art.
Brought a rolled canvas back from holiday or bought one online? We build custom wooden stretcher frames cut to the exact millimetre of your artwork — with heavy-duty internal bracing so your canvas stays square, taut and true for decades.
Instant Online Quote
Price your canvas stretching service in seconds.
The Service
Brought a rolled canvas home? We mount it safely.
Travellers, holiday-makers and collectors often come home with loose or rolled canvases — paintings bought abroad, prints ordered online from overseas galleries, or unstretched artist pieces with nothing to mount them on. Our bespoke canvas stretching service builds museum-grade housing around these unique works: a custom wooden stretcher frame milled to the exact dimensions of your canvas, hand-stretched and finished in our Timperley workshop.
You can bring the canvas in person or post it to us. Anything sent via post travels at the owner's risk — Love To Frame cannot accept liability for damage caused in transit. Once it is safely with us, your canvas is in expert hands.
The Craft
Millimeter precision & structural bracing.
We never use weak, pre-fixed stretcher bars. Every piece of timber is custom-milled to the exact artwork length, and medium-to-large works receive internal wooden bracing supports to permanently prevent warping or bowing under canvas tension.
Millimetre-precise measurement
Every canvas is measured to the millimetre. No off-the-shelf stretcher bars — your timber profile is sized exactly to your artwork.
Custom-milled wooden stretchers
We mill bespoke kiln-dried pine stretcher bars in three profiles (20mm Fine Edge, 25mm Slim Edge or 38mm Deep Edge) and fit heavy-duty internal bracing on medium and large works.
Hand-stretched gallery wrap
Your canvas is pulled taut and archivally stapled by hand — corners folded cleanly, tension even across the face, ready as a continuous gallery wrap.
Finished and ready to hang
Backing tape fitted, hanging hardware installed on request. Collected from the studio or carefully packaged for return.
Important — Please Read
Bring it in, or post at your own risk.
Canvases must be brought to the workshop in person or sent to us by post. We strongly recommend dropping off in person whenever possible — it's the safest way to protect your artwork.
If you choose to post your canvas, it is sent entirely at your own risk. Love To Frame cannot accept liability for damage caused in transit, including creases, tears, scuffs or loss. We always recommend using a tracked, insured courier and a sturdy postal tube with end caps.
Drop-Off / Postal Address
Love To Frame Workshop, Timperley, Greater Manchester
Get in touch first and we'll confirm the full postal address, advise on packaging and book your canvas into the workshop schedule.
Finishes & Edges
Bespoke gallery wraps & finishes.
Choose how the edges read: a continuous gallery wrap that carries the image around every side, or clean white or coloured borders for a more contained presentation. Every canvas leaves the studio archivally fastened and perfectly tensioned — ready to hang safely for decades.
- Custom-milled wooden stretcher bars cut to the exact millimetre
- Heavy-duty internal bracing supports on medium and large works
- Continuous gallery wrap, or white / coloured edge borders
- Archival stapling & fastening for decades of even tension
- 20mm Fine Edge, 25mm Slim Edge or 38mm Deep Edge profiles
- Backing tape & hanging hardware on request
Before we commit
What arrives, and what we check first.
Most of the canvases we stretch arrive in a tube. Paintings bought on holiday and carried home in hand luggage, prints ordered from overseas galleries that turn up rolled with no bars, artist works sold off the roll — and alongside them, canvases that have gone slack on their existing frames or picked up creases in a house move. Every one is unrolled on a clean bench and looked at properly before we agree to stretch it.
That first look matters. On original paintings we check the paint film for cracking or lifting that tension would make worse. On everything we measure the stretching margin — the spare canvas beyond the image that has to fold around the bars and take the staples — and we note old staple holes and fold lines, because they tell us how the piece was stretched before and where it can safely be gripped again.
And sometimes the honest answer is not yet. A brittle canvas or flaking paint needs a conservator before it needs a stretcher, and we’d rather tell you that at the bench than hand back a damaged painting. The same thinking runs through our guide to conservation picture framing, which explains the materials that protect artwork long-term.
In the workshop
Bars built to your canvas, never the other way round.
There are no off-the-shelf stretcher bars in this workshop. Every frame starts as lengths of kiln-dried solid pine, cut to the exact millimetre of your canvas — not the nearest standard size with the artwork trimmed or over-wrapped to suit. The canvas dictates the frame, which is why awkward, non-standard and panoramic sizes are never a problem.
You choose from three profiles: 20mm Fine Edge, which sits close to the wall and suits work that will go on to be framed; 25mm Slim Edge, the classic gallery-wrap depth; and 38mm Deep Edge for a bold, sculptural presence on an open wall. Above certain spans the frame gets heavy-duty internal cross-bracing, so the bars can’t bow inwards under years of canvas tension.
The stretching itself is done by hand, working from the centre of each bar out to the corners so tension builds evenly across the face rather than pulling to one side. The corner joints are keyed — fitted with small wedges that let the canvas be re-tensioned years from now without a restretch. If you’re curious how that process works step by step, our guide to stretching a canvas walks through it.
Timings & delivery
Five to seven working days, door to door.
Canvas stretching runs on a 5–7 working day turnaround from the day your canvas is booked into the workshop. If you’re working to a hanging date, an exhibition or a birthday, tell us when you get in touch and we’ll schedule the bench time around it.
Posting a rolled canvas to us? Roll it paint-side out around the widest tube you can find, lay acid-free tissue over the surface as you roll, and ship it inside a rigid postal tube with end caps — always by tracked, insured courier. Get in touch first and we’ll confirm the postal address and book your canvas in before it travels.
Once stretched, your canvas can be collected from the Timperley workshop — we’re happy to talk you through the build in person — or carefully packaged and returned by insured courier anywhere in the UK. For pricing, the canvas stretching calculator sizes and prices your exact job in seconds, with every bar profile costed as you choose it.
Frequently Asked
Canvas stretching, answered.
The questions we hear most about re-tensioning, shipping, bar depths and turnaround. Anything else, just ask.
Yes — it's one of the most common jobs we take in. If the existing bars are sound, we can often take up the slack through the corner keys or restretch the canvas onto its own frame. If the bars have warped, twisted or were never up to the job, we build a new kiln-dried pine frame to the same size and stretch the canvas onto that instead.
Ready When You Are
Send it in, we'll stretch it.
Tell us about your rolled canvas and we'll prepare a made-to-measure quote — or get an instant estimate with the calculator.