Refurb Diary - Entry One

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"I originally took over the Olde Kings arms in the Old town, Hemel Hempstead in December 2002.

It was in a severe condition to say the least, but it had potential. There was a small bar at the front of the building and a mainly disused bar at the back.

There was dust, darkness and dinginess wherever you looked.

There was a huge bottle store at the side that could probably accommodate at least four cars, and the boarded-up first floor, where there was nothing but broken floor boards and more darkness and rumours of ghostly goings-on..

There was a cottage that was attached to the back of the pub, which was obviously built in more recent times, but had still seen better days.

But I could see it had loads of potential.

Having cleaned up the lovely 16th century building, we managed to increase business enough to consider the next move, which was to expand the trading area.

You didn't need to be an architect to see how this could happen. The only question really was why it hadn't been done before?

The brewery, Charles Wells, stumped up the majority of the investment, and we were then able to convert the bottle store into a decent toilet block and extend well into the back of the pub to maximise the trading area. This worked well. The pub became one of the more popular pubs in Hemel Hempstead.

It had always been the case that we would consider converting the upstairs into letting rooms, but I thought that the idea had floated into the ether, and I hadn't pursued it, having business interests elsewhere.

I was therefore delighted when Charles Wells asked me if I wanted to do a sort of joint venture, and restore the upstairs of the former coaching inn to its former glory. I might have hesitated for about two seconds before agreeing.

The work was originally mooted to start in the November 2006 but because of frustrating delays the day of commencement was moved to April 2007…then September 2007 and then finally, October off we went!

We are currently slap bang in the middle of the programme, and it seems that some days go by with very little happening, and then there is a dramatic surge of walls and ceilings seemingly appearing over-night.

At the moment, because there is so much happening, it is incredibly difficult to try not to miss anything that might affect the outcome of the finished rooms.

Our target market is the travelling executive, so the rooms will be very comfortable, with air conditioning, huge powerful showers, flat screen multi-channel TV's and stunning breakfasts to get our customers the best possible start to their day.

We will even have non-steaming mirrors in all of the en-suites. Will this project ever finish, with us all in one piece?

Well the hand-over date from the builders is around the 20th December, so you'll have to wait until then for the final pictures of the finished rooms.

I'll update you all soon."

Gordon

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