Design mockup. The shop — Mitre & Mat — is invented, and its name, phone number, address, opening hours and every price below are placeholders. The photographs are not: they are five pieces framed by Frame It LLC of Liberty, Missouri, published on that shop's own Facebook page and shown here only as photographs of real framing.

Mitre & Mat · Liberty, Missouri

Framing gets quoted per job. So here are five jobs.

Nobody publishes a price, so everybody guesses high and nobody rings. What follows is a wall of finished work with the moulding and the mat named on each one.

A Missouri Certified Seed burlap sack mounted flat inside a deep black box frame, standing on an easel in a framing shop.
A seed sack, in a box frame $410
A red and white illustrated Kansas City print in a black beaded wooden frame with a wide white mat.
A Kansas City print

Black beaded moulding, wide white mat, glazed. The mat is doing the work here: it is what stops a small sheet of paper looking like a mistake on a big wall.

$165
A signed watercolour of a windmill among bare trees, in a rust red mat inside a wide burl figured brown frame.
A signed watercolour

Wide burl-figured moulding, rust-red mat. The mat takes the warmest colour in the painting rather than the loudest one, which is why the sky still reads as sky.

$285
A printed map of Missouri's forty-six judicial circuits in a plain black frame with a pale grey blue mat, standing on an easel.
A reference map

Plain black moulding, pale grey-blue mat, glazed. Working sheets get framed far more often than anyone expects, and they are the cheapest thing on any wall.

$220
Close crop of an architectural line drawing of a city block, in a cream mat inside a dark walnut toned frame.
An architectural drawing, close in

Dark walnut-toned moulding over a cream mat, shot near enough that the profile of the wood and the bevel cut on the mat both read. That bevel is a second pass on the bench, and the second pass is the cost.

$240

Four things move the number, and only one of them is the frame.

People arrive expecting the moulding to be the expensive part. It usually is not. Here is what a quote is actually made of, in the order it gets added up.

  1. 1

    The size, in united inches

    Height plus width. A 16 by 20 is 36 united inches. Everything else in the quote is multiplied by this number, which is why a two inch difference sometimes costs more than changing the wood.

    the multipliernot a line item
  2. 2

    The glass

    Standard, conservation, or museum. This is the decision that moves a quote the most and the one customers have the least information about, so there is a whole page on it.

    $0 to $180on a 16 × 20
  3. 3

    The mat, and how many

    Cut here, on the bench, from the sheet. A single mat is quick. A double with a quarter inch reveal takes a second pass and a steadier hand, and that is the cost.

    $25 to $70
  4. 4

    The moulding, per foot

    Plain black wood runs about four dollars a foot. Hand-finished gold leaf runs about thirty. Most people land between six and eleven and are happy there.

    $4 to $30 / ft

Bring it in flat, unrolled, and we will price it while you stand there.

No appointment. If it is bigger than your car, ring first and we will come out to it. If it is wet, torn, or has been in a basement, say so on the phone, because that changes what we can do.

(816) 555-0131

Where
123 Main St, Liberty, Missouri
Open
Wed 11–4 · Thu 11–5:30
Fri 11–4 · Sat 10–2
Shut
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday
Turnaround
Two weeks on stocked moulding. Four if it is ordered in.
Quotes are free and take about four minutes at the counter. Call (816) 555-0131