I don't know anything about electroless plating.  But any decent chrome
plater can do nickel plating.

A good chrome plating job (typically called "show" chrome, but also
used to restore parts that are pitted), is a three-phase job.  After
cleaning the part, it is sequentially plated with copper, nickel, and
chromium.  It is sanded/buffed between each phase.  I just tell my
plater that I want my parts finished with nickel.  It saves them one
step.

I've done copper plating at home, using a battery charger, with
excellent results.  I believe home-plating kits for nickel plating are
available.  I just checked Eastwood's website but found only a tin-zinc
system.  But Googling "electroplating at home" brought up lots of hits.

Ray Fairfield