TV100! Those of you who read That'll be a fiverr and jobs a goodun will know we've been working on establishing our web presence...
TV100!
Those of you who read That'll be a fiverr and jobs a goodun will know we've been working on establishing our web presence and pushing out our branding. It's all well and good creating a site, a FaceBook page etc but not everyone is connected, not everyone is comfortable with digital as the first contact and some people you just meet and want to exchange contact details with.
Back in the old days (like 18 months ago) people used to swap business cards; a cute, almost retro, thing where your details are on a real, physical card and you swap them with other real, physical cards.
With this in mind we visited Vistaprint and played around with their business card designer. We chose ultra-thick card, full colour and both sides printing. Using just their online design and proofing tools we were able to put together cards for us and 48 hours later they were "in-hand".
The site doesn't actually show how tactile the ultra-thick cards are - they certainly convey the correct impression and we would not hesitate to use them again.
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| We like! Retro contact details sharing device - "The Business Card" |
Ceiling Ferrule Rev 2
The question is; how do you get pipes through the ceiling nicely? By nicely we mean not with lots of filler, not with just an over-sized black hole and not with some dodgy boxing in.
Our answer is to use a machined ferrule/bulk-head fitting (call it what you will!). Depending on application/zone we use aluminium, brass or copper. The basic concept is to provide a threaded fitting that will pass through the ceiling and be bolted in the ceiling void. The fitting is either threaded to accept M20/M25 conduit or simply drilled to allow pipes, cables etc to pass through.
It's not simple, quick or cheap but it's a great detail and as we machine these in-house we can adjust the shoulder and thread depth to suite most ceiling thicknesses and types. (The example below is passing through lath and plaster ceiling which has been boarded over and re-skimmed giving almost 40mm of ceiling thickness. An additional complication is the uneven nature of the rear of a lath and plaster ceiling)
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| Not a CAD drawing... |
Plaster/Disaster
We pride ourselves on our network of connections allowing us to provide access to some very specialist trades but every now and then something goes awry (human error) and a "known good" turns into a bad egg and falls off the network permanently. Such is the scenario which left a nasty complication...
In the post Extraction you can clearly see exposed brickwork behind the domino hobs and the hoods. The intent was to use Venetian plaster (Click to learn more!) which is very cool technique but if you think "normal" plastering looks tricky this takes it to a new level.
Unfortunately our "artisan" fell off the radar leaving us with an embarrassing problem - our solution, which you will see later in a full write-up, requires that the plaster work around the exposed brickwork be tidied up (if you look at the example below you can see it's not exactly straight).
Our solution involved battens, glue, filler and patience! The result offers a series of advantages:
- The edges of the plaster are now true
- The battens allow our solution to sit proud of the wall surface eliminating the issue of the uneven substrate/brickwork
- No plasterers required!
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| Before > After (we'll be painting them as well) |
GD?
Grand Designs is required viewing for all Bokoshokoites. Most of us have been avid viewers since the earliest days (and that's a long time ago as Kevin's full head of hair in those earlier episodes can attest to). This week was a "good-un" - Irish architect decides it's time to move out of the office, away from Autocad and get his hands dirty.
The end result, whilst not "settled in" yet, was great with some wonderful detailing internally. There's a couple of stand-out shots where the curve of the glulam framed extension intersects a rectangular link to the old forge building and is juxtaposed with the age, texture and almost organic nature of the forge walls.
This Weeks Obsession
Marimekko Oiva DishWare - hailing from Finland they have a long, established history of design. We're big fans of this highly graphical tableware which would be a great foil for brightly coloured accents. (More about Marimekko available here)
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- Seven Days? You What? I mean, pardon?
- These posts give us a chance to recap on the last week at Bokoshoko and give you a glimpse of what's happening. Many of our projects take time to come to fruition or our customers would prefer we did not share so these posts also show we're not just sitting around!
