Canopy Progress

We now have the canopy frame in place and our new sign.  Hopefully it won’t be too long before we get the covering, but at least it’s a nice sunny day today so we don’t need to protect our customers from the elements.

Have you checked out our January bestsellers list yet?  This will probably be what’s being loaded  onto our truck and into our customer’s vehicles at the moment!

As promised in the previous blog, here’s a lovely photo of Abby trying on her snowboarding gear in the hire shop.

Would any Chauncey’s customers like to send in their holiday snaps too?

It might be fun to see what everyone else gets up to……

The news on our seal rescue pup, Snape,  is that he is continuing to put on weight and now tips the scales at 23 kg, which is a huge improvement on his weight when we found him.  Little Snape has been moved to the outside convalescent pool and is enjoying being in the big pool with friends and more room to swim.

Thinking of swimming I do have to say that since the weather has been cold James and I have not made it to the Lido for swimming as often as we did in the summer.   I rather favour sitting in the sauna or the steam room and then having something delicious in the cafe afterwards!  I will get back in the pool soon!

Mary xx

Chauncey’s Trade Newsletter Archive

Damn! I know I put that newsletter somewhere!

The observant ones of you may have noticed that James has been very clever (as usual!) and created an archive of our Trade Newsletters.  All you need to do is click on the tab above (next to the home tab) to take you to this wonderful resource.

Back issues cover the following fascinating subjects:

What type of glue to use for fixing wooden floor types

Underfloor Heating – Facts & Figures

Hardwax Oils vs. Waterbased Lacquers – Which is best?

Seven Ways to Keep Wooden Floors Looking Good

Text Alerts for Chauncey’s Deliveries

as well as photos of current projects and much more…

We’ll continue to add each month’s pearls of wisdom to the archive once we’ve sent them.

Meanwhile I’m afraid to report our canopy hasn’t progressed further yet – it’s due to be continued next week once the potential hitch over condensation in the double-walled construction is ironed out (not literally!).

Abby is back from her luxury snowboarding break – and with no broken bones – which is a big plus for us and our regular customers.  I’ve asked Abby for a suitable photo for the blog, so hopefully next post…

Mary xx

Keeping Our Customers Dry and Happy

Chauncey's Chapel Street Yard

Finally work has started on our new canopy which will spread between the old chapel warehouse and our ’shed’.  This is the entrance that most of our customers use and in bad weather there is no shelter from the elements!  We received planning permission at the end of 2009 for a canopy to provide shelter, but the recent snow delayed the start of the project.  The arched canopy will also allow us to load and unload vehicles without delay, even in rain, so that your flooring will stay as dry as possible.  Our warehouses are all fitted with de-humidifiers to make sure that our flooring is always stored below the recommended Relative Humidity level of 65%.  Knowledge of the correct conditions for our flooring is essential  – folllow this link and then click on the ‘facts and figures’ folder

Canopy Sign

We will also have a new, Victorian-style, curved sign over the  entrance to the loading bay so that customers know they are at the right place to find the Experts in Oak.

Sadly George didn’t apply for the job (see my last blog), but I’d  like to welcome our new warehouse supervisor, Paul, to our hardworking team.  He is tasked with making sure that our three warehouses operate to their maximum effieciency and, with over 25 years of experience of working in and supervising warehouses, I’m sure he’ll make a great job of it.

Mary xx

P.S. I’d also like to welcome Briac as a temporary member of our office team.  Briac is a French student currently studying in Wiltshire and is on placement with us for 6 weeks.  He has already sent out a customer questionnaire, which you may have had,  and is helping me with marketing work.  So if you hear a sexy French accent when you phone us – sadly it’s not me -  it will be Briac!

New Warehouse Supervisor

We have been so busy lately that we have decided we need to create a new Chauncey’s Warehouse Supervisor position in order to maintain our high level of service.  We are proud of our reputation for providing the best customer service; our increase in sales means in an increase in warehouse work to fulfil the orders and we are determined to still deliver every order on site and on time.

Of course, I am hoping that the new person might look something like Gorgeous George – but as long as they can work hard and provide the right level of service for our customers we would be willing to accept a lesser mortal!!  We have such excellent staff that finding a new recruit is a pretty hard task,  but interviews are ongoing and we hope to find just the right person very soon.

Meanwhile, we have adopted our little Grey Seal Pup (‘Snape’) and he is thriving.  Apparently he is rather naughty and tries to bite the legs of the helpers when they feed the other seal he currently shares a pen with.  Hopefully he will soon move into an outdoor area and eventually be released back into the sea.

Mary xx

Let it Snow

Snow at the Chauncey's Chapel

Happy New Year!

The snow here is lovely but it does make getting to work that bit harder!  James and Ian were in by 8am having walked and cycled respectively (they’re both made of stern stuff!). Two of our warehouse staff made it in and  Sherry was also in not long after 9.  I walked part of the way (down the long slippery hill to the centre of Bristol and then caught a taxi – so a bit of a cheat!  Let’s hope we can all get home.

Our Polish warehouse guy, Pryzemyslaw, is back in Poland on holiday and experiencing temperatures as low as -27, so that makes it seem warmer here!

Our underfloor heating is working a treat so we are lovely and cosy here.  The Chauncey’s TECTONIC^TM flooring is also behaving admirably – conducting the heat nicely (I am just walking round in socks having abandoned my wet walking boots!) and nary a sign of contraction in any of the boards.

The other end of the huge banqueting Hall

The current elm floor in the Elizabethan Banqueting Hall

The other big news for us is that later this month we will be supplying over 450m2 of our aged antique Regency Flooring to a  prestigious stately home in North London.  TheTrustees of the stately home wanted to install underfloor heating in their stunning Elizabethan Banqueting Hall and replace the current elm flooring (which was rather poorly laid in the 1970s).  The obvious choice over UFH was to intstall Chauncey’s TECTONIC^TM Regency Antique flooring.  They chose the Antique Gold colour as a close match to the original colour.

We’ll have photos of the work as it progresses, so will keep you updated on progress.

In the meantime, hope you all enjoy the snow!

Mary xx

Chauncey’s Seal Rescue

You can't park here

Just for a change, today’s post is nothing to do with wooden flooring!!  James and I have just returned from a very relaxing weekend in Hope Cove (near Salcombe) with our teenage children.  Late on Friday evening we strolled back from the Hope and Anchor only to find a very young seal flapping around near the road just near our cottage (next to the old lifeboat station).  We tried to herd it back towards the sea but it was having none of it!

It looked so cute – until you got too close and then it showed it’s anxiety by making a kind of hissing bark and lunging at you!! (I’m afraid I squealed each time it did it).  To cut a long story short we contacted the seal sanctuary via the local hotel (the SunBay hotel) and after careful checking that mother seal wasn’t somewhere close by, the baby was covered with a blanket, loaded into the back of an estate car and driven away.  Apparently it promptly fell asleep! Hopefully we’ll be able to follow up on it’s progress at Gweek seal sanctuary and let you know.  I can see from the sanctuary website that our seal was a boy and they have called him Severus Snape - not sure why, but we have decided to adopt him as the Chauncey’s seal – perhaps we could get him renamed as Chauncey??!!

Mary xx

Blue Steel

Ian demonstrating his 'blue steel' look - as in the film 'Zoolander'

Thought you might like to see our Ian doing his best knitting pattern modelling on one of our floors.  This was taken during a break when we were shooting photos of Chauncey’s Tectonic flooring and shoes from Duoboots (see previous post on Dec 7th).

Isn’t he lovely?

Form a queue, girls!

Mary xx

Tectonic Flooring Trade Mark

Great excitement in the office as we received our registration certificate from the Patent Office today which means that we are the proud owners of the TECTONIC^TM name with regards to any wooden flooring.

I think this is the first piece of ‘Intellectual Property’ that we own!!

It means that no-one else can use TECTONIC^TM with reference to wooden flooring without our permission and being licensed to do so.

So if you buy TECTONIC^TM flooring you will know it has to be the high quality that Chauncey’s expect from all their flooring.

Mary xx

P.S.  I found the invention picture on google and thought it was a rather nice Heath-Robinson type design (and the man looks a bit like Captain Haddock from Tin Tin)  – but can you figure out what happens and why??

Chauncey’s Floors and Duo Shoes

Hey!  It’s snowing on our Blog …. and  you can direct the snow with your mouse!

Last week was very busy as we had a photo shoot using samples of our both our new lines and our most popular flooring lines alongside some lovely feet, shoes and boots – including some beautiful ones from Duo of Bath (duoboots.com) – beautiful shoes and boots that is – they don’t sell feet!!

Abby modelling Duo Madeira Blue boots on Chauncey's Tectonic flooring

Our photographer (Graham Wyles from Studiogo.net) was so professional and easy to work with but I was astonished at how complicated it was with the various lighting effects and the variatons of props that we had brought.

Sadly, we chose the coldest day so far this year to work in the cold warehouse – our foot model, Abby, had to keep a fan heater trained on her legs to stop goose bumps!

Our trusty warehouse worker, Cliff, was on hand to move boards and I was artistic director!  We photographed everything from Tectonic flooring to our new Grand Restoration range and of course our fantastic Regency flooring.

I particularly loved the boots in this picture – really long and buttons all the way up the sides – tres chic!  Abby said they were soooooo comfortable!  I am already the proud owner of two pairs of Duo Boots – they are one of the few places to do different calf fittings – so whether you have the calves of a sparrow or the more generous sort (like mine!) you can get a pair of boots to fit!

The rest of the photographs will be appearing on our website soon – if you go to our home page now you’ll see the first – a slightly festive one of panetone and baked oak!

Mary xx

Our Office Floor – after some TLC

Ian and Sherry in our main Bristol office

Readers of our blog may remember that we recently had a new environmentally friendly skylight put in our main office to reduce the need for artificial lighting.

As we have underfloor heating throughout, our office is floored using Chauncey’s Tectonic boards (what else?).  Sadly though, our Tectonic boards have suffered two and a half years of us rolling our office chairs around on it plus the recent building work and were in dire need of some TLC!!

Friday was chaos as we had to move all the desks, files and computer equipment into the other office.  (Actually, I say ‘we’ but James and I very sensibly took the day off!)

Justin & Chris (from JB Flooring) gave  the floor a right good sanding on Saturday (thanks lads!) and then applied one coat of Treatex plus the hardener using a roller.

James and I then came in early on Sunday morning (!!) and rollered on a  second coat of Treatex Matt – again with the hardener!  A marital dispute was nearly in the offing as I had left the windows open for airing and then applied Treatex to that end of the office (oops!).  James manfully tiptoed across it in his size 12 working boots and I quickly tried to stretch and re-roller those bits!  Fortunately, Treatex is very forgiving and the office floor now looks 100% better – no worn patches under the chairs!

Of course, we are now promising ourselves that we will be role-models by carrying out the necessary on-going maintenance and not let the floor get into a state again!  All it needs is a weekly wash with the Treatex Wash & Care and an occasional re-apply of Treatex Hardwax oil when we have been especially frantic on our castors – not difficult or time-consuming really.

If you want to know more about maintenance of wooden floors look at this page on our website.

If you want to know more about Hardwax Oils vs. Water based Lacquers we have a new page so look here for some important information as to which you should choose.

Mary xx