UNIT 4 – PART 3

THE ROOF

It’s no secret, we need a new roof, it’s worn out, there is little to no insulation and the roof lights are coming to the end of their life.  Thankfully it still keeps the water off of our heads, unless its a storm and it dribbles in down the side of one of the chimneys but beggars can’t be choosers.  Unfortunately the cost of a new roof is currently astronomical due to the current high costs of building materials so I decided for now we would have the roof lights replaced, in doing so we would get more light and a sealed transparent panel can be fitted to act as an insulated layer.  Along with the roof lights we fitted as much insulation into the ceilings of the offices as possible, so each individual office is insulated to the max, once the suspended ceilings are fitted you’ll never know.

Ceilings packed with insulation

CEILINGS AND SECOND FIX

Now all the walls are in, boarded and plastered/taped and jointed, we could decorate.  Because we work closely with many interior designers we understand the importance of colours, so we felt it important to pick good colours for our office to create a comfortable space where we can focus on carrying out our work, the huge amount of natural light and air conditioning would go a long way to help with this, but we still spent a good amount of time to decide on our colour scheme.  Colours were chosen, a few shades of grey…. (not fifty) and we cleaned out Dulux and got to work.  This really brought the project on and gave you the feeling of ‘almost there’.  With nicely decorated walls new suspended ceilings could be installed.  Because of the shape of the building we had to get a bit creative with how they were installed, we preempted this and had fitted a number of bulkheads and boxing’s throughout the building, so when the ceiling installers came to site it was a relatively straight forward job for them.

With ceilings in, walls painted and pretty much everything in, The Electrician Carl and IT Expert Simon could attend site and second fix the power and data.  As i mentioned previously I wanted to future proof the building as much as possible, so the guys spent a good few days connecting everything up and testing.

With the unit powered up we could have the Air conditioning installed, I opted for air conditioning because essentially in the summer our office could be a green house.  So with the cooling capability of the air con Paula and I could still work in comfort when the eventual heatwave started.  Using our neighbours Chillaire for the install was a smooth and hassle free process.  Chillaire installed 2 separate condenser units, one to heat and cool the two offices downstairs and one to heat and cool our office upstairs.

FURNITURE

Spending such a long time in our old pokey office we would frequently discuss how we would want our new office to be, Paula and I both agreed that spacious comfortable desks with plenty of storage and easy access to files would be a definite requirement, so I produced a layout on my CAD software then Josh drew it out on the floor, we quickly discovered that it wouldn’t work….. So, it was back to the drawing board where we came up with a better layout which gave plenty of working space, loads of storage and ample open space to move around.

Paula chose a grey wood grain for all the cupboards and units with a Marmoleum inlayed top with solid Oak lippings.  Marmoleum is typically used for flooring but it offers a superb writing surface because it isn’t as hard as wood or laminate.

The final week before Christmas was spent laying hundreds of carpet tiles. Communal areas, corridors and downstairs offices were to be grey where upstairs office and meeting room was to be a mix of blues and grey’s.

MOVING IN

After Christmas we moved all our stuff up from the old into the new, we still had to wait for our new phone system but Simon managed to get phones and internet up to our new office temporarily.

Our new phone system was installed this week and I couldn’t be happier, we now have a state of the art office with 100 mbps upload and download internet speeds, a professional phone system with endless possibilities, a comfortable working space which is fresh and clean to help promote a focused work environment.

We will be at a position to let out the downstairs offices to whoever needs a comfortable working space with air conditioning, fast internet speeds, dedicated phone line, kitchen facilities and a parking space.

We will also be revealing our new meeting room which will also be available for hire.

Exciting times ahead.

Have a great weekend!

Adam