Changing spaces

It was only shifting a few blocks down the road, but moving an entire salon’s-worth of furniture, equipment and clients turned out to be a job and a half for the owners of Me salon. Ellie van Baaren finds out the details.

Moving house is stressful. You’ve got to pack everything up and then find a place for everything in a different space. There’s always someone you forget to tell your new address to. And nothing ever fits just right. Imagine, then, moving your business and to a more compact space.

You can’t afford to leave piles in different bedrooms that you’ll get to later. You can’t afford to forget to tell people where you’re going. You definitely can’t afford to avoid having visitors until you’re all set. After all, this is your livelihood.

For the owners and staff of the Me Ponsonby salon, this is what went down over a period of eight weeks.

Their previous landlord refused to renew the lease (until they were about five weeks out from moving) and they had heard the space at 282 Ponsonby Road (formerly Jarvis) was coming up for lease and they set their agent onto it. “It’s been a salon my whole career,” says Iain Smith. “So it’s nice to be keeping it in that vein.” After three months of hard negotiation, the deal was done. Then the hard work began.

“We had six weeks to get it ready, move and open up again,” Smith says. He and co-owner Andy Grant wanted to tie the new space in with their Takapuna salon, which had been done after their Ponsonby flagship. That meant a lot of white and black, similar flooring and slat features. “We took our inspiration from a particular Thai resort we go to,” Smith explains. “We’ve always done angled mirrors and lightboxes to make our windows more of a billboard showing men and women – we have a large male clientele.”

Both owners agree the new site gives them better exposure than their previous site and that it was time to move. “The area further down was getting a bit bohemian,” Grant says. “Clients are really enjoying coming down this end of Ponsonby Road. And the parking around here is much better, which is a big thing.”

But the space is very different to the previous salon and brings with it certain challenges. “We have to work tighter and smarter,” Smith says. “The old place was quite lavish – it was on three levels so it was a bit deceiving. Working here with the team it’s more compact, tighter and it feels busier. In the old place if there were one or two clients then it would feel quite empty, whereas here it never feels empty.”

“And people like to be closer to each other,” Grant adds. “As long as they feel they have a little private space, so that it’s not a production line but you can see everything.” Smith interjects: “I’m into angles.”

Smith took care of design and managed the project, while Grant focused on the two salons. “If I hadn’t been able to project manage it would have been a shambles,” Smith says. “On the job we kept the builders watered and fed and they worked like troopers.”

The pair used Line Construction, a company they had already used for the Takapuna salon. “They were fast and efficient and they didn’t leave until the job was done. Rather than an hourly rate with an estimate of how long it would take, they broke down all the costings and gave us a payment schedule. They provided everything – painters, plasterers, builders – everyone would just arrive and then they would scatter to do their appointed jobs.”

When I ask if it came in on budget they answer together without hesitation: “Yes, it did. Right on budget … There was no choice!” Smith says they just made it work. “You have to make sure you have the budget – it’s going to be a third over what you think it will be, so many things come up.” For Grant and Smith it was the revelation they’d have to do extra leveling on the floor – something no one could have known until they pulled up the original flooring. “So that was another $50,000 right there.”

But then it was moving day. The hard part was bringing in all the old furniture and fitting it into the new space. Quite simply, it didn’t. They had to shave a few inches off the lightboxes and the mirrors. “If you can afford to bring in everything new, do it,” Smith says while Grant nods vigorously in agreement. “Moving the mirrors was so stressful. It was totally fine until they got them into the salon, now we’re having to replace them. We may as well have bought them new.”

“In hindsight we put too much pressure on ourselves to be open,” Grant says. They shut on the Saturday and reopened the following Thursday. “We were working each night until 3am to get it open,” Smith says. “There was so much to do, but the staff were fantastic. They offered to stay late for anything we needed done – and we needed a lot of hands!”

Communication was also a big part of the move. Telling their clients wasn’t the hard part, the salon was full during the Christmas period so they were able to pass the message to most of their clients. “We sent a text out,” Smith says. “And our text confirmations had our new address on them, then through the website and our facebook updates … We’d write up that were up until 3am finishing this or that, so our clients kind of came along with us.”

It was keeping the staff fully informed that was the challenge. “We kind of took them for granted,” Grant says. “Clients were asking them why we were moving and where to … they were interrogating them, they’re quite nosy! We needed to clarify to the staff what was happening and why so they knew what to say to clients.”

Lessons learned? You need to plan and if you can avoid moving an entire salon into a new space then do! “You need to plan,” Smith says. “You need to know how long things are going to take and project manage it.”

But when all has been said and done, they don’t regret the result.

“We love it here,” Smith says. “We didn’t think we’d love it here as much as we do.”

See more photos of the finished salon.