Quite a few
years ago we were contracted to polish a large office refit for a major
Australian company. Our cabinet maker client was installing quite a few hundred
square meters of wall panelling, doors and associated joinery, over several floors
of an office building in Melbourne CBD
The
architect nominated a man-made veneer that required a specialised clear lacquer
finish. We were involved in selecting the correct lacquer to avoid a number of
issues that were associated with polishing new age veneers back then when those
products were new onto the Australian market.
The project
went through relatively easily with our cabinet maker supplying over one
hundred wall panels and dozens of doors. We took care to ensure all panels were
prepared correctly and that each panel had exactly the same amount of lacquer
applied. Taking care to check each panel was polished identically to each other
would ensure that any panel could be placed in any position and it would always
match with the panel beside it.
The entire
project was completed, installed, and signed off by the builder and everyone
went on with their next projects.
A few weeks
after completion of the renovation, the company had a change of CEO. The CEO moved
from another state to Melbourne and arrived on day one to have a look at the
newly renovated offices. He immediately raised a concern with the choice of
timber veneer.
He basically
hated the choice of timber. No amount of persuasion would convince him to leave
it as is. He hated the colour of the timber and hated the grain structure as
well. The architect was called back to discuss what could be done.
The final
decision was to pull out the entire fit out, send all the timberwork back to us
and have everything painted. Tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of timber
veneer was to be painted over in an off white colour.
We raised a
concern that just painting over the top of the clear lacquer would still leave
the pours of the timber showing so the specs were upgraded to grain filling
hundreds of square meters of joinery and then painting it all in a satin two
pack paint.
The painting
cost alone was around $25,000 and who knows what costs were involved in
removing all the panelling and reinstallation after the painting was complete.
