My Office (Renovation-Update) Painting Complete

On February 25th the painters came back to the office and completed the entire paint job within three to four hours. They did an amazing job. The preparation taken the day before to even the walls made the final outcome a success. I was debating on waiting until the end of the renovation process to show photos of the office, but I figured it would be more interesting to see everything occurring step by step.

There are a few things left to do in the renovation process:

1. Purchase New Carpet

Although I know the rough measurements for the office, you can never be too careful. Before I purchase any carpet I want to make sure that I have the exact measurements for this. Are you curious how I was able to locate a great carpet store located in the area with wholesale prices? I went to Google and searched for “wholesale carpet los angeles” and was provided with some great options.

As a domainer I have to reiterate the importance of local searches. The fact that this company I am about to mention was listed within the top results in Google definitely shows the power of positioning yourself online. There are a number of businesses not taking advantage of local listings and they are missing out on the explosion of visitors searching for their products.

The company I found is called Carpet Manufacturers Warehouse. They were the first result returned in the local business results section on Google. Since that was the case I immediately clicked the link and discovered another interesting fact about this company. Guess what extension they are using for there business! They are using the .biz extension!

The domain name they are using is CheapCarpet.biz, this was a great discovery for me. I have always been a little hesitant about the .biz extension but this is living proof that you can brand yourself effectively with the extension. Easy to remember and straight to the point. I don’t think I will forget there domain name anytime soon, if you want to find a business selling cheap carpet, where do you go? Exactly!

I read the reviews listed on Google and called the company. They quoted me an incredible price! I will purchase the carpet next week!

2. Hire A Person To Lay The Carpet

I have received a number of inquiries from my craigslist post. Here is what I listed the other day on craigslist, in the labor gigs section:

Carpet For Office + Installation (Downtown, Los Angeles)

We are in the process of renovating our office. Now that the new coat of paint has been applied to the walls, we now need carpet. We are looking for someone who can come to our office and give us a competitive quote on both the carpet and installation. We’ve already gone through this process with Home Depot and since this is a commercial installation they charged us the commercial rate which was not worth it.

The office is around 120 sft (10 x 12)

Feel free to send your contact information and rate. Thanks.

The one post received fourteen potential candidates for the job. I have singled it down to one candidate without even contacting any of them. The person sounded sincere over there email and provided a very reasonable rate. He has been laying carpet for several years and has references. To sum it up he is overqualified for the job and could care less about selling us carpet. Since we have already found a great place to purchase the carpet, this works out perfectly!

3.  Find A Company For Blinds

There are several ways to do this step.  Since we have two windows and I want to get this done right the first time.  I will most likely contact a company which specializes in blinds.  I want this company to come out to the office take the measurements of the window and design a custom set of blinds. I also want them to install the blinds for the windows as well.

I feel if I go with a company to do this, it will be backed by a product and service warranty. Since blinds are objects which are constantly undergoing some sort of movement they have more of a potential chance to be damaged.  I don’t want to have to worry about this happening in the future.

4.  Contact Building To Replace Current Lights

Our lights have pretty much worked overtime.  They are the standard fluorescent lights you find in most offices.  I’m not sure how long these lights are supposed to last, but if I remember correctly we have been in this office for a few years now and have never needed the bulbs replaced.  This should be a simple process.

I am going to call the building manager and notify him of this next week.  He will send the handyman who works for the building to our office to get the job completed.  Shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.  I will probably have them do this before the new carpet is laid down! I don’t want the handyman messing the new carpet up, I have seen the shoes he wears!

5.  Order New Ceiling Tiles

Some of our ceiling tiles are extremely dingy looking.  The painters did there best trying to spray paint the ceiling tiles a bit with primer.  This can only do so much.  In a few of the picture below you can notice the difference between some of the ceiling tile colors.  Since I am a very visually oriented person, I will eventually have to replace all the tiles so they look the same.  This isn’t an urgent matter, so I don’t plan to do this anytime soon.  I will see how long I can go before it starts to bug me.

Enjoy the pictures below, they should provide you with a great overall feel of the newly painted office.  For those of you who would like to see more pictures, feel free to visit the following link.