Blog

It's been a (Mitre 10) Mega Year

With so many high value builds underway in and around Queenstown and Wanaka right now you’d have been living under a rock if you didn’t know there was a building boom underway. These really are great times for the building trades in Central Otago - dare we say it’s been a (Mitre 10) Mega year?! Every silver lining does however have a cloud, and no, we’re not pessimists at heart…

With top end clients come top end finishes, and in a small town in a boom it can be difficult to source staff who not only have the skills, but the necessary site training and experience to work on demanding projects. But I’m sure we’re preaching to the converted here so we’ll move on…

How do you choose a plastering and painting contractor?

We firmly believe that a good paint finish starts with the right bare bones. We don’t want mutton dressed as lamb! A superior finish is a must for a high end fitout, your clients will demand the highest standard from you, so you are justified in demanding the most from your painting and plastering contractors.

What questions should you ask your contractors?

• Are they Site Safe members?
• Are their staff vetted personally by the directors?
• Who takes ultimate responsibility for the job? • Are there toolbox meetings for each job?
• What checks are in place at different stages of the finishing process?
• If there is a better solution than the specifications, will you offer it to me?!

Pose those questions to your current contractors, then give us a call if you don’t get the answers you want, we’d love to show you what we can do.

It's National Gib Stopping Day!

Okay, so we may be taking liberties with making a national day out of our line of work, but why not? There’s a national day for everything these days! At JFS we honestly believe there should be a celebration of the unsung heroes of your interior fit out.

Why? Well, if you are in the process of building or renovating your dream home in Queenstown or Wanaka (or anywhere in our beautiful Central Otago landscape) you will doubtless have spent many a long sleepless night weighing up the pro’s and con’s of brushed aluminium vs industrial steel taps among many, many other things. Of course this is important, and is the real meat on the bones of what you, your friends or clients see at the end of a project.

But what about when you’re lying in bed after it’s all finished. You’ve just woken up and the sun is creeping up above the Remarks. As the light hits your walls, wait, what’s that? You notice some shadows and bumps on the walls.

Damn.

Should have paid more attention to the project manager when he was talking about Level 4 or Level 5 finishes…

What influences your final Gib and paint finish?

There are many factors that influence the standard to which your interior stopping should be carried out to (there’s a handy brochure here if you’re interested) and the fine details are all too easy to overlook. Everything from window placement, lighting, paint and colour choices can affect your decision. If you’re in any doubt, have a chat with us. Unless of course it’s National Gib Stopping Day as we will quite likely be trowelled (aka plastered).

Assuming you reach us on one of the other 364 days of the year, we’d be happy to talk through some of the high value projects that we’ve worked on recently; you might have noticed the new Mitre 10 Mega? Hard to miss! We supplied plasterboard, fixing and stopping solutions for this significant build. Smaller but equally high value are the residential projects in Aspen Grove, Littles Road and Jacks Point, to name but a few.

So what does JFS know about internal finishing?

It makes sense that a professional finish starts with good bones; from the framework to the plasterboard, the stopping and finally the appropriate paint application, it all has a bearing on the final result you see whilst lying in bed. Or relaxing with a pinot. Maybe even at the same time, but we can’t comment on that.

So back to National Gib Stopping Day. How should you celebrate? Get trowelled with us? Serve up an antipasto platter on your broadknives? Throw gib compounds all over each other? Up to you I guess, but whatever you do, make sure you have a good one and come up smooth, clean and blemish free tomorrow…