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Parthenon Restoration & Decorating
022 615 5816

Booked in. Turned around. Invoiced.

Commercial painters and decorators in Christchurch. Tenancies, common areas, offices and turnarounds, worked around the people still using the building, for property managers and owners.

Book a Site VisitAll eight services
  • Owner operated
  • Christchurch
  • Part of the Parthenon family

The questions you were going to ask anyway.

Straight answers, in the order people usually ask them. If any of them is a no, you have saved a phone call.

  • Will you turn up on the day you said?

    Yes, and if something moves you hear it the day before rather than at nine that morning. The damage is never the delay, it is that you have already committed to it.

  • How fast can a vacant unit be turned around?

    We can start the morning after the keys come back, and you get a date rather than a range once we have been through it. What stretches a turnaround is almost never the painting, it is damage needing surface repair.

  • Can you work while the building is occupied?

    Yes. Common areas and corridors get done in sections so there is always a way through, and nothing blocks an exit overnight.

  • Who do I actually ring?

    Bevan Cochrane, who owns it and is on the tools. The same number every time and the same person on the other end. No office in between and no account manager.

  • Can you take more than one property at a time?

    Ask with the addresses and the dates and you get a straight answer about each rather than a yes. What can be committed to depends on what is already booked.

    Taking work that cannot be delivered is worse for you than a no.

  • Does the quote hold?

    Yes, unless we find something that was not visible on the walk through, and then you hear what it is and what it costs before any work is done on it.

  • How does access work?

    Whatever suits the site: keys, a lockbox, a code, or somebody meeting us. We sign for keys and hand them back. If a building has a sign-in or induction, tell us once and we follow it.

  • Do you work to somebody else's programme?

    Routinely. A good share of the business arrives through builders at Parthenon Construction, which means fitting in around other trades on somebody else's dates is the normal condition rather than the exception. It comes down to knowing what has to be finished before painting can start, and saying so early enough to matter.

More questions

What commercial means here.

Not a fifteen storey tower and not a stadium. Rental properties, small offices, common areas, and the buildings that make up most of the commercial work in this city.

The bulk of it is tenancy turnarounds. A unit comes back, we assess it, make the walls good and repaint it so it lets as something in good order rather than something with a history.

Occupied work is the opposite job: no urgency and no freedom. Corridors, stairwells and shared spaces in buildings full of people who did not ask for the disruption. We work it in sections with a route always open, and the loud or smelly parts are timed.

See the whole list

  • Tenancy turnarounds

    The unit decides the length, never the calendar

  • Why an empty one is urgent

    Every day it sits is a day of rent

  • Common areas

    In sections, with a route always open

  • The loud and the smelly parts

    Timed rather than sprung on anybody

You are not buying paint.

You are buying the removal of four specific risks, and every one of them is something you would otherwise have to manage yourself.

The date holds

Not the week after

A date you can pass to an owner or a tenant without hedging. When something has to move you hear it in advance, with a replacement date.

One number to ring

The same one, always

The owner of the business, on the tools, on the same mobile every time.

The same people

You know who arrives

The people in the building this month are the ones who were in it last month. That matters for access, and residents who are not inconvenienced do not ring you about it.

Priced on the walk

Not off a description

We do not price a building off an email. Somebody walks it first.

A make-good is a schedule.

The painting is the short part. Everything around it is what decides whether the unit is back on the market on the Monday or the Monday after.

It starts before the tenant leaves, if you let it. A look through at the final inspection says whether this is a normal repaint or whether there is real damage behind the furniture. Finding out after the keys are back turns a booked date into a moved one.

Then the make-good, which is filling and repair rather than painting: picture hooks, screw holes, the shelf that came off the wall. It is the slow part, because filler has to dry before we can sand it.

Then the paint. Ceilings, walls, then trim, so we are never walking back over finished work. It is left clean and the keys come back the same day, because a unit with its keys in a van is not on the market.

In an occupied building the same sequence runs section by section, with a notice on the door saying what is happening and when it stops. That one sheet of paper prevents most of the calls you would otherwise take.

How a job runs

  • Before the tenant goes

    A look through at the final inspection

  • The slow part

    Filling and repair, and the drying

  • The order

    Ceilings, walls, then trim

  • Keys back

    Same day, not the next morning

  • The notice

    On the door of the section, in advance

The person who already took the risk.

Daniel Fridd runs Parthenon Construction and puts Bevan into his own jobs, so his name is on the result.

“He's one of the best painters I've seen. Perfection. Takes proper care.”

Daniel Fridd

Parthenon Construction
Who you get

Sent in, not advertised.

A good share of the business arrives because a builder asked for it, most of it repair work in houses people still live in. Nobody markets their way into that.

What it selects for is the whole list: turning up when the programme says so, working around other trades without being managed, and leaving a building somebody else answers for in a state they can answer for. The occupant did not choose the contractor either, which is the closest thing to a stress test this trade has.

And it is repeat. The same people asking again is the one supplier reference that cannot be arranged, because they have had every opportunity not to. We name no clients in print because we have permission to publish none, so ask on the visit and you get a name and a number.

About the business

  • How it arrives

    A builder asked, not an advert

  • What it selects for

    Programme, other trades, occupied buildings

  • The stress test

    People who did not choose the contractor

  • If you want to check it

    A name and a number, on the visit

Start with one property.

One make-good, one common area, one office. Send the address and the deadline and you get a scope, a price and a date back. If the date does not work, better to hear it on the first call than in the third week.

Or ring 022 615 5816. There is no obligation either way and nobody will chase you.