Yes, we finally have some pictures of the new reception and ground floor area. For people who were a little late getting to their seats this was a project that was as extensive and costly as it was unexpected. In the final week of January we asked the builders to remove the ceiling, tidy things up, put up some new plasterboard and install some spotlights. Will we never learn?
You can see the whole ghastly saga unfold in previous blog postings tagged ‘renovation’ but for the sake of completeness I’ll provide a brief summary…
Once the ceiling was down it became clear that none of the support timbers was up to the job. Worse, most of the internal walls had disintegrated and needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and this involved digging foundations and pouring concrete. A lot of structural steel had to be used because of the low ceilings on the ground floor – the final count was somewhere around 17 steel girders and two support pillars. Main contractors John Laidlaw and sons working with consulting engineers Patrick Parsons managed to complete what was a fairly complex job in a relatively short time and we’d like to take the opportunity to thank them for what we’re sure you’ll agree is a superb job.
So here we go…
