20 days to opening and the (four) rooms, beds, carpets, furniture and paintings are nearly ready ....so this is one deadline we might even make. In the meantime, we would like to invite you and your friends to our latest art exhibition entitled “Unwrapped” .
This second exhibition is intended to celebrate the official opening of the da Vinci Hotel as Eastbourne’s premier ART hotel. The exhibition is open to the public from 11.00am each day from Saturday 31st May 2008.
We very much look forward to seeing you.
PS. My numbering system is quite simple really....the staircase on the number 9 side leads to the odd numbered rooms and the staircase on the number 10 side leads to the even numbered rooms.
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Saturday, 10 May 2008
21 days to go !!
The opening date is set for the 30th of May. The original plan was to get eight rooms ready by then but it seems like we will be opening with four as the rest will not be ready. Eventually after much discussion (arguments) we have decided the themes and the colours for the rooms and the number system.
It may sound a bit odd but Paul has come with this brilliant idea of numbering all the rooms on the number 10 side of building as even numbers i.e. 102, 104, 106, 108 ... and all the rooms on the number 9 side as odd numbers i.e. 101, 103, 105, 107, ...but I cannot work out which are odds and which are evens!!!
Room 106 is the Monet room and is painted in Azure taken from the colour of sky in Monet's paintings. Room 108 is the Kandinsky room and is painted in Moroccan Red from Kandinsky's abstract paintings. On the second floor we have the Rothko room, painted Glowing Amber, and the Klimt room, being painted Deep Emerald.
The following pictures show (1) the back conservatory - which will probably not ready on the opening date, (2) the first landing painted in our signature colour, (3) the wall colour in the Kandinsky room and (4) the wall colour in the Monet room
It may sound a bit odd but Paul has come with this brilliant idea of numbering all the rooms on the number 10 side of building as even numbers i.e. 102, 104, 106, 108 ... and all the rooms on the number 9 side as odd numbers i.e. 101, 103, 105, 107, ...but I cannot work out which are odds and which are evens!!!
Room 106 is the Monet room and is painted in Azure taken from the colour of sky in Monet's paintings. Room 108 is the Kandinsky room and is painted in Moroccan Red from Kandinsky's abstract paintings. On the second floor we have the Rothko room, painted Glowing Amber, and the Klimt room, being painted Deep Emerald.
The following pictures show (1) the back conservatory - which will probably not ready on the opening date, (2) the first landing painted in our signature colour, (3) the wall colour in the Kandinsky room and (4) the wall colour in the Monet room
Thursday, 17 April 2008
What a load of rubbish
Our work on the hotel continues to generate an amount of rubbish including that from the dislodged wall at the back of the hotel. It is a pity that most of the rubbish ends up in the back garden and, in spite of our desperate attempts to recycle, we have found ourselves having to hire a succession of skips at £250 a go.Unfortunately, our attempts at refuse disposal are clearly not quick enough for one of our neighbours who decided to report us to the Environmental Health service...although on what grounds I am still not quite sure. Anyway, in a desperate attempt to remain good neighbours, we decided to hire an even bigger skip and were quoted a fee of £460.
Kingspan Waste Recycling tells me on their website (at www.kingspanwaste.co.uk) that their “company strategy is to provide a 'no hassle' reliable service to all our customers”. Whilst I am happy to overlook the three occasions when they promised to turn up but did not bother, the extra £515 which they are now trying to charge me because my rubbish was too heavy is the last straw.
Monday, 31 March 2008
Eastbourne Art Festival
The exhibition continued over the following three weekends as part of the Eastbourne Art Festival and even we have to admit to being somewhat taken aback by the number of visitors who passed through our door. The visitors book confirms that most were very impressed by what they saw and a few of the many comments are detailed below:
“An exciting project – wishing you every success”, “Great exhibition and fantastic building – good luck with the hotel”, “Just what we need in Eastbourne. Brilliant”, “An art hotel – what a great idea” and “It’s great to have such an event in Eastbourne + the hotel sounds exciting”
Certainly the feedback (written and verbal) convinced us that our vision of an art hotel was entirely appropriate and my only concern now is how you manage to operate an art gallery in a hotel...or is it a hotel in an art gallery. Something to think of in the future because now the main priority is getting some rooms open and some income coming in.
“An exciting project – wishing you every success”, “Great exhibition and fantastic building – good luck with the hotel”, “Just what we need in Eastbourne. Brilliant”, “An art hotel – what a great idea” and “It’s great to have such an event in Eastbourne + the hotel sounds exciting”
Certainly the feedback (written and verbal) convinced us that our vision of an art hotel was entirely appropriate and my only concern now is how you manage to operate an art gallery in a hotel...or is it a hotel in an art gallery. Something to think of in the future because now the main priority is getting some rooms open and some income coming in.
Friday, 14 March 2008
What a difference a day makes
March 14th 2008 represents something of a milestone in terms of the project as this is the date when the hotel hosts its first art exhibition. The exhibition of work by various local artists is intended to be spread across our four public rooms but with one week to go I am beginning to think that Frank was correct when he said we would not be ready in time.
Our bedrooms have been put on hold as we focus all of our attention , all of our staff and all of our money in preparing the rooms for the big day. Four rooms to strip, prepare, wallpaper and repaint as well as picture rails in the middle rooms, two public toilets, a kitchen and the bar.... and no sign that the scaffolding is going to come down in time. The artists take the news better than I did.
With twenty four hours to go, the carpets are all down but we are still putting paint on the walls and desperately trying to remove it from the floor. On the morning of the exhibition we discover that the sofas are the wrong colour and the dining chairs do not assemble. The kitchen is in a state and the two public toilets are still being painted....and just when you think that nothing else could possibly go wrong .... nothing else goes wrong!!!
The exhibition opened promptly at 4.00pm for the viewing by artists, guests, friends, relatives and neighbours – we hope you enjoy these pictures.
Our bedrooms have been put on hold as we focus all of our attention , all of our staff and all of our money in preparing the rooms for the big day. Four rooms to strip, prepare, wallpaper and repaint as well as picture rails in the middle rooms, two public toilets, a kitchen and the bar.... and no sign that the scaffolding is going to come down in time. The artists take the news better than I did.
With twenty four hours to go, the carpets are all down but we are still putting paint on the walls and desperately trying to remove it from the floor. On the morning of the exhibition we discover that the sofas are the wrong colour and the dining chairs do not assemble. The kitchen is in a state and the two public toilets are still being painted....and just when you think that nothing else could possibly go wrong .... nothing else goes wrong!!!
The exhibition opened promptly at 4.00pm for the viewing by artists, guests, friends, relatives and neighbours – we hope you enjoy these pictures.
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Things can only get better
They say that time speeds up when you are enjoying yourself but let me tell you that it goes pretty fast when you are not. A few weeks ago the public areas in the hotel looked quite presentable but now the place looks like a building site and I wonder whether I should start insisting that we all wear hard hats.
Frank assures me that the additional work will all be worthwhile in the long run but I am not sure we have enough of a long run if we are to open on time.
The work continues and, to date, we have:
• stripped the wallpaper and most of the walls
• stripped the wallpaper and replastered the hallway
• refurbished the bar area and installed new lighting
• gutted the kitchen and replaced the floor and walls
• gutted the back room and strengthened the rear wall
• rewired the whole of the ground floor ….thank you Trevor
• got the central heating working (but only in the basement)
• sorted out the hot water supply (but not to the top floor)
• installed four toilets to serve the public areas
• removed four toilets
• installed a state of the art fire alarm system
• cabled in the new CCTV system
• removed the old fire system and the unsightly trunking
• replastered the walls on each of the landings
• condemned two bathrooms (but not due to open in phase 1)
• nearly finished restoring the sash windows
• replaced the TV aerial and wired the rooms at the front of the hotel
The hotel continues to throw up lots of surprises such as the glass roof above the false ceiling in the back room which had to go as it was in danger of falling on top of our guests.
Then the newly installed toilets had to be removed when we discovered the condition of the floorboards underneath. Leaking water seems to be a regular occurrence and just as you sort one leak out then up pops another.
As if that isn’t enough for this update, one of our neighbours decided to report us to the Environmental Health department for putting our rubbish in the back garden and my solicitor wrote to remind me that I had not yet paid the stamp duty and could I forward £26000 at my earliest possible convenience.
Surely, things can only get better?
Frank assures me that the additional work will all be worthwhile in the long run but I am not sure we have enough of a long run if we are to open on time.
The work continues and, to date, we have:
• stripped the wallpaper and most of the walls
• stripped the wallpaper and replastered the hallway
• refurbished the bar area and installed new lighting
• gutted the kitchen and replaced the floor and walls
• gutted the back room and strengthened the rear wall
• rewired the whole of the ground floor ….thank you Trevor
• got the central heating working (but only in the basement)
• sorted out the hot water supply (but not to the top floor)
• installed four toilets to serve the public areas
• removed four toilets
• installed a state of the art fire alarm system
• cabled in the new CCTV system
• removed the old fire system and the unsightly trunking
• replastered the walls on each of the landings
• condemned two bathrooms (but not due to open in phase 1)
• nearly finished restoring the sash windows
• replaced the TV aerial and wired the rooms at the front of the hotel
The hotel continues to throw up lots of surprises such as the glass roof above the false ceiling in the back room which had to go as it was in danger of falling on top of our guests.
Then the newly installed toilets had to be removed when we discovered the condition of the floorboards underneath. Leaking water seems to be a regular occurrence and just as you sort one leak out then up pops another.
As if that isn’t enough for this update, one of our neighbours decided to report us to the Environmental Health department for putting our rubbish in the back garden and my solicitor wrote to remind me that I had not yet paid the stamp duty and could I forward £26000 at my earliest possible convenience.
Surely, things can only get better?
Saturday, 26 January 2008
What happened to the New Year
I cannot believe that it is nearly the end of January and the clock is ticking away the minutes until our opening in March. The repainting at the front of the hotel is now proceeding rather slowly and I am wondering why the scaffolders are not demanding the scaffolding as we have had it for so long.
The situation at the rear of the hotel goes from bad to worse as we now discover that the room at the back used to a conservatory ....in fact the old glass is still still visible under the leaking roof. More expense as we now have to remove the old and broken glass and then replace the leaking roof.
Then we have the sagging floor, rotten windows, damp rooms, leaking showers, missing floorboards, faulty guttering and a heating system which defies everybodies efforts to get it up and running. The kitchen isn't arriving till late February and our contractors have now all gone on holiday.
In the meantime, our TV aerial has given up the ghost and the quote for replacing the aerial and running cables to all rooms came to £3000 + VAT. To add insult to injury, we also received a letter from TV licensing informing us that we were liable to prosecution and a fine of up to £1000 for not having a TV license.
Surprisingly, we are all still determined to meet the opening deadline and we have even drafted in a few extra friends to help us - thank you Trevor and Gary. If you fancy a decorating weekend then you are more than welcome to join us too.
No more pictures as they all look exactly the same as the last ones!!!
The situation at the rear of the hotel goes from bad to worse as we now discover that the room at the back used to a conservatory ....in fact the old glass is still still visible under the leaking roof. More expense as we now have to remove the old and broken glass and then replace the leaking roof.
Then we have the sagging floor, rotten windows, damp rooms, leaking showers, missing floorboards, faulty guttering and a heating system which defies everybodies efforts to get it up and running. The kitchen isn't arriving till late February and our contractors have now all gone on holiday.
In the meantime, our TV aerial has given up the ghost and the quote for replacing the aerial and running cables to all rooms came to £3000 + VAT. To add insult to injury, we also received a letter from TV licensing informing us that we were liable to prosecution and a fine of up to £1000 for not having a TV license.
Surprisingly, we are all still determined to meet the opening deadline and we have even drafted in a few extra friends to help us - thank you Trevor and Gary. If you fancy a decorating weekend then you are more than welcome to join us too.
No more pictures as they all look exactly the same as the last ones!!!
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