LIZ EARLE

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NOSTALGIA

A recent trip to The Isle Of Wight brought back some memories of a shop fit we did way back in 2008 in Leeds for the skin care company Liz Earle.  This one was a large undertaking for us, 2 floors of shelving, counters, seating areas, displays, treatment stands, notice boards and balustrade.  Every piece was to be sprayed to the Liz Earle colours.

PRODUCT SHELVING

Each floor had shelving units which lined the walls to display the products available, there was nothing straight forward about these displays as each shelf was on soft close drawer runners and was illuminated with cool white LED’s to light up the products.  The idea of the pull out shelves was to allow the staff to stack the products and reach them for the customer more easily. (Between you and me, it was a great idea on paper but in practice it didn’t work so well as their products didn’t exactly have a low centre of gravity, so when the staff member would shut the drawer and they’d knock each other over like dominoes.) We fitted cedar shingle panels above the units which had LED’s to wash the wall with light, they really finished them off to make it look brilliant.

The image above show’s the run on the 1st floor, which we had to handball up the stairs on the first day of fitting. Not much fun but it was worth it in the end as it looks brilliant!

COUNTERS

Each floor had a cash and wrap counter with a crazy configuration of drawers, cupboards, pull out bins, leaflet holders and till drawer points. the front panel was a sandblasted glass panel with the Liz Earl Logo etched into it, we then back lit it with LED’s.  The tops were a natural stone which had actual fossils and impressions of ammonites in the pattern, they came all the way from Italy.  Unfortunately the ground floor top was damaged and had to be replaced.  It was very soft and brittle but extremely effective.

TREATMENT TABLES

Treatment tables and points were positioned on both floors around the shop so the staff could demonstrate products on the customers. The units had curved cupboards with sinks above, they even had planters with aloe vera in the top.  They used the same materials as the cash and wrap counters for the tops, we also manufactured the chairs and had them upholstered.  To be honest they weren’t very comfortable because of how they were designed, looked good though……

 INTERESTING DECOR

One quirky little item in the store was a display table which wrapped around a column that was covered with pebbles which a tiler had to stick on individually and then grout around, for those of you who have tiled a bathroom or kitchen with small tiles, you’ll know how much of a pain this would have been!

BALUSTRADE

The last item to go in was a curved balustrade, because of the shape of the stairs we employed a company to come in and laser measure them.  The survey team arrived on site with a laser on a tripode which scanned the whole area and built up a 3D image on CAD software, using this they could plot where the handrail needed to be and create cutting templates for a machine to cut the timber components needed to form the balustrade.  We were then given a box of wooden components and a plan of how everything went together.  Everything fit perfectly!

REMEMBERING THE PROJECT

This was a big one for us! A whole team effort, reflecting on it I realise that we learnt a lot working LED lighting, Corian works and collaboration with other companies.  The LED’s were all stuck into grooves which we routered out to take the LED and a bespoke perspex strip, these days the products have moved on and you can get channels with clip in diffusers, having these then would have saved a lot of time!  We had to collaborate with a few other companies on this one so we could meet deadlines.  If time allowed we could have done everything ourselves, this is the beauty of being diverse, but unfortunately time didn’t allow so we had to recruit the help of a CNC company, Spray painters, Corian Fabricators, upholsterers, wood turners and another manufacturer to help put it all together.  There was so much to fit it seemed like we were on site for a very long time.  I remember travelling up to Leeds every day in November to fit more and more furniture, we really slogged it out, towards the end of the job Danny set his own little spray booth up to touch up the little bits that needed it.

I didn’t do anything in the way of organisation or project planning or management on this job, that was all John and Danny, they really smashed it, delivering it on time to high quality.  Between you and me it was mentioned that our product made the difference in the end and really brought quality to the store, it was because of this we went on to do the Guildford store and treatment rooms in both Leeds and Guildford.

Unfortunately this store closed last year, a real shame as it was a top quality store.

have a good weekend!

Adam

 

Tags: Commercial Furniture, JFW Process, Liz Earl, Point of Sale, Uncategorized
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