Hello! Time for another well overdue edition of… The Construction Blog!

In the last two posts we covered the areas of insulation and power. Both of which are very important to proper functioning of our studios. But truth be told, bare wires and insulation wool aren’t terribly easy on the eyes. Nor were the dirty white walls we had, which were closer to a light grey. With the increasing number of guests coming into the station, we decided we needed to spruce up our Gwydir Street studios, and make things start to look a little more inviting.

Some of the cabling at Cambridge 105 - Starting to be boxed in!

The door to our office as prodcured and installed by Nick Skelton. Mail basket courtesy of Phil Rowe.

First of all, our ugly front door just HAD to go. We needed something more inviting. Something that said “Welcome to Cambridge 105″. This was procured for, installed and painted for us by Nick Skelton, AKA. DJ Skunk of our Club Global show. That of course wasn’t the only thing he did for us as he explains below:

So far, at Cambridge 105 I’ve built a block wall to cover over an old doorway in Studio 1 and 2,  and fitted most of the battens [in the studio walls] prior to insulation. I’ve rung my rep at Travis Perkins, discussed and arranged for the free supply of materials for the studios and I’ve battened out the whole area and fitted the insulation and mesh. I arranged for a plumber friend to disconnect and blank off the radiator in Studio 1 as well as connect up the water heater in the office. I widened the opening and fitted the new frame front door.

Battening and insulation ready to be secured with netting.

Out in our office space we had a few impending problems. Lots of complicated technology on display, lots of exposed electrics, and ugly grey walls to boot.

The dull walls were a problem with a simple solution that simply needed a rallying cry to be resolved. Step in Neil Whiteside, our weekday breakfast presenter, Tim Willett, drivetime presenter and Dan Eaton of the Newsteam. All of whom spend several hours a week presenting and contributing to Cambridge 105′s output. As such, they’ve all come to understand how important it is to maintain a level of professionalism not just on air, but off air as well. The station doesn’t end at the studio doors after all.

The three of them went on a quick outing for some white paint, and applied brush to wall to make our walls a glossy white work of art.

It had been decided that Cambridge 105′s walls were going to be two-toned. Three walls were to be mostly painted white, whilst the wall to the studios would be our “accent wall”. Green, just like Cambridge 105. First of all we had to get around the problem of the joins in the plasterboard that made up the wall.

Tony Sayer (no relation to Leo), one of the 105 Board Members, came to the rescue with his plastering experience and made the wall nice and smooth with the assistance of Tim, before applying wallpaper on top of that whilst giving Sara Woo-Sam from the 105 Committee a crash-course in wallpapering.

The wall through to the studios was painted a nice green.

Phil Rowe, a long-time volunteer who has fulfilled a number of roles within the local community and having recently become involved in Cambridge 105, was eager to roll up his sleeves and get some green paint on our accent wall. Backed up by Tim and Sara, we had our wall painted, and Phil provided us with a slight insight in what is slowly becoming an almost endless repository of handy-man skills. For an encore, he varnished the skirting and door architraves – don’t ask me what those are – and painted the steelwork of the building’s ‘skeleton’ a nice dark green to compliment the white and green of the walls. The steelwork first got attacked by Tony and his angle-grinder to take off some bolt heads, much to the distress of Tim who had to dodge the shower of sparks raining down on him!

Having nice painted walls is all well and good. But without a carpeted floor, we’d all continue to be walking around on the plain concrete floor. And nobody was going to be impressed, let alone comfortable, with it remaining that way.

Phil Rowe and Nick Skelton trimming carpet to meet the office walls.

Tim Willett and Stewart Paske [That's me! - Stew] set about sorting that out one Tuesday evening after Tim finished drivetime. We’d cancelled the weeks committee meeting in favour of getting some manual work done. Tim and Stewart with help from members of the 105 committee shifted all the furniture from the office before Stewart and Nick Skelton were joined on the floor by Phil Rowe to lay the carpet tiles that’d been supplied to us by Fuller Gray Tiles of Chateris.

To ensure the tiling was straight, we measured the room to find its centre, before placing down our centre tile. We then laid the rest of the tiles to the edges of the room, being sure to keep them straight and compact, and Nick trimmed any tiles that needed cutting back as they met the walls.

The results of the fresh lick of paint alone were enough to make you step back and think that a good amount of progress was being made. But once the carpets were down, the furniture was in place and the cables started to be hidden away, things were really beginning to feel a little less like a building site and a little more like an office!

Photo taken from our office security camera.