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The Refinishing Touch

On-site furniture refinishing.

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Hospitality renovations are back on the rise: the struggle with PIPs

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TRT_Hotel imageThe recent recession left its mark on the hospitality industry in a variety of ways, but one of the most influential effects were to brand’s existing and proposed Property Improvement Plans (PIPs).

PIPs provide hotel chain owners and franchisees with a roadmap for renovations and repairs in line with its peers, but in recent years financial hardship has left the majority of franchise owners and franchisees at a standstill – PIP deals have been broken and renovations cancelled due to lack of funds.

With the hospitality industry as a whole seeing an increase in travel and profits, the PIP conversation has made its way back to the boardroom. However, as Benjamin C. Tschann told LAW360, hoteliers are ‘trying to work with owners and not trying to overburden the hotel with capital improvements’. Essentially, more PIP deal negotiations are being made than ever before.

As experienced renovators in this sector, The Refinishing Touch was glad to see this conversation being brought back to the forefront and optimistic that the conversation on cost-consciousness is still prevalent. We know all too well the cost replacing existing furniture assets has to bottom lines, guests, and the environment.

The cost conversations taking place between hotel professionals should include furniture asset management. Refinishing, re-upholstering or remanufacturing existing assets, rather than replacing, drastically reduces downtime and guest disruption, cuts costs and keeps unnecessary waste out of landfills.

New furnishings have been cited as a top-priority for brands to accommodate flat-screen TVs. The Refinishing Touch’s armoire conversion services have eliminated this need for numerous hotels across North America by utilizing assets already in place and repurposing them into like-new, fully functional pieces.

If you’d like to access LAW360’s full article, please click here. To learn more about The Refinishing Touch’s various furniture asset management services, follow us on Twitter and email us at [email protected].

 

Maintaining guest satisfaction: BEST WESTERN PLUS The Inn at King of Prussia calls on The Refinishing Touch

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Guest author: Tien-Yueh Bosma Kubach

Tien-Yueh is the owner of BEST WESTERN PLUS The Inn at King of Prussia, and Governor of District 7 – Region 7 Best Western International.

Before

Guest room before renovations

As the third generation in a family of hotel and restaurant owners, I’ve learned the keys to successful property management – and it all starts with guest satisfaction.

Over the past six years, BEST WESTERN PLUS The Inn at King of Prussia has transformed into a modern, inviting establishment that comfortably accommodates both business professionals and leisure travelers. We pride ourselves in promptly responding to and meeting guest requests – ranging from a large fitness center, free printing in the business center to the addition of ergonomic desk chairs in all of the guestrooms.

Recently, our business lodgers took to surveys, phone calls and in-person conversations to express the growing need for bigger, updated LCD televisions. With this in mind, we immediately looked into the latest technology, but we still had one major problem – what to do with the custom-made, well-built television armoires in each guestroom?

The solution was The Refinishing Touch’s fast, on-site furniture refinishing, re-upholstery and armoire conversion services. In just 30 days, the company’s experienced production crew restored headboards, nightstands, side chairs, benches, desks, micro fridge cabinets and armoires in 100 rooms throughout our establishment. The company was able to preserve our original, high-quality cherry armoires by trimming, resurfacing and re-staining each piece to make a sleeker, more modern television unit.

One of my favorite aspects of the company’s work is its ability to renovate on-site, reducing potential damage of maneuvering furniture through tight corners and corridors, and saving money on expensive moving and storage costs. The production team was very cooperative throughout the process, continually taking our feedback into account, and avoiding any late night or early morning operations. Both guests and employees were left undisturbed, and we were able to remain open for business during renovations – significantly improving short- and long-term ROI.

After

Armoire after renovations

After

Guest room after renovations

By investing in furniture asset management solutions instead of purchasing new, our property was able to save nearly 76 percent in total expenditure, and further our commitment to environmental responsibility by cutting projected greenhouse gas emissions (in tons) from 125.32 to a mere 1.24. Thanks to The Refinishing Touch, we were able to cater to our guests and maintain complete customer satisfaction, while remaining conscious of our budget and the environment.

I would recommend The Refinishing Touch’s services to my colleagues, and to other property managers who want to stay ahead of the competition and create a more modern ambience without breaking the bank. For a quick before and after video on the work completed at the King of Prussia property, click here.

And if you’re ever in the Philadelphia area, be sure to visit BEST WESTERN PLUS The Inn at King of Prussia to see the renovation work firsthand – we’re only 20 miles west of the bustling city and located directly across from the King of Prussia Mall, the second largest mall in the US. Please visit our website to book your stay today. We look forward to serving you!

Operational Update: Best Western Fort Walton Beach Hotel

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Here at The Refinishing Touch, our production crews are always looking for new and innovative ways to reuse quality existing furniture assets for the benefit of our clients. And with our project scope ranging from furniture refinishing, bringing pieces back to like-new condition and removing any signs of wear and tear, to re-upholstering assets, updating and modernizing headboards, chairs and other types of seating, our goal is to continually make our services better and more efficient.

One of our most recent renovation projects brought us to the Best Western Fort Walton Beach Hotel, in the sunshine state of Florida. The beautiful beachfront property features over 100 guestrooms, with a mini-refrigerator tucked away in a corner of each room. With summer tourism season fast approaching, the property called on The Refinishing Touch to remanufacture existing armoires, and transform the pieces into new side tables and top-of-the-line refrigerator cabinets – a project that would create zero landfill waste.

We started off with a bulky three-drawer television armoire, which we then cut into two separate pieces – one piece consisting of a three-drawer base, and the other a wooden frame to be fit for a fridge. From there, The Refinishing Touch refinished the wooden furniture assets, and added a stone solid surface to the base’s top, creating a sleek new dresser for the guestrooms. Then, the top portion of the former television armoire was restored into a new refrigerator cabinet, beautifully framing existing mini-fridges for each room.

Best Western Walton Beach Before Best Western Walton Beach after

The project prevented any wood from making its way into landfills, and demonstrated the environmentally-friendly and cost-saving potential furniture re-purposing offers. The Best Western Fort Walton Beach Hotel was able to simultaneously save on budget costs, time, carbon emissions and landfill waste by investing in our award-winning furniture asset management solutions – providing benefits to hotel management and guests alike.

For more information on how to re-purpose existing furniture at your own establishment, please email us today for a free quote. To book a stay and see our work firsthand, visit Best Western Fort Walton Beach Hotel’s website here.

The Refinishing Touch hosts event with Best Western

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As you will know following our announcement last month, The Refinishing Touch is now a Best Western preferred vendor. As part of this exciting new partnership, we are undertaking a project to convert any existing Best Western armoires to accommodate flat screen televisions by the end of the year. The Refinishing Touch starts armoire conversion project with Best Western

To kick off the project, we met with members of the Best Western team to discuss how every person involved—from The Refinishing Touch crew members to Best Western franchisors—will get the best experience possible from this partnership. We began the event with a presentation about all of our state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly products and services that are used to convert armoires, and as a wrap up, showed our Discovery Channel video segment which provides a useful overview of how The Refinishing Touch process works.

The event this week with Best Western was a great way to meet everyone involved at the hotel organization as well as gear up excitement about the new armoire conversion project. The Refinishing Touch is very much looking forward to working with everyone in the Best Western family to help hotels across the country update their accommodations and continue to provide a memorable hotel experience for guests and travelers.

Visual Before & After: Hardware

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Here at
The Refinishing Touch, we pride ourselves on making sure that each job we finish meets or exceeds our customers’ expectations. While our projects end up producing hundreds of pieces of refinished furniture, during which we complete 10 to 15 rooms a day and are put back into service the same evening, we are also dedicated to making sure our attention to detail is of the highest standards. And in recent projects, we have seen all of our clients really embracing the details as well. As hotel guests, university students and government decision makers can be some of the harshest critics, our clients want to make sure that no detail is missed, down to the furniture hardware on their nightstands, dressers, or armoires. In this edition of our visual blog post before & after, we show you how
refinishing, color changes and new hardware can make outdated furniture look new and modern again without compromising your budget or our country’s landfills. To learn more about our services or to get a quote, please visit us at
www.therefinishingtouch.com.

Before & After: