Missing Something from your Spa Designer?

Sometimes we don’t know what we are missing until we have the “real” thing…especially in our business life.  As you learn over the years from being an esthetican to a business owner to building a spa, you don’t know if you are missing something if you’ve never had it.  Now that I have seen and experienced the “real: thing, I can assure you that my expectations for a spa designer are over the moon.  Below are just a couple of things to expect from your spa designer and architect.

8.  we provide the operational input by submitting a ‘red-lined’ mark-up plan for electrical, mechanical and plumbing
9.  we will need your operations ff&e list of equipment – if you do not have one, then we can create one for you; the equipment ‘technical requirements’ plus our technical services brief (i.e. acoutstic standards, accessory/amenity requirements (i.e. treatment room sink vanity/counter millwork details + sink/faucet fixture – provide 9″ clearance between bottom of faucet to bottom of sink)
10.  we also provide recommendations and plan review comments on the following > materials/finishes, lighting, audio-visual, communications; plan elevations, millwork, signage, accessories – coordination with interior designer (to support and represent the operator and owner)

Evaluate the Flow and Feel of Your Spa Design

I have just put the spa consultant, Lisa Henry Jacobs, on the plane to Colorado and my brain is all a twitter.  The original plans for the spa according to her advice are STOP, Back up, Reverse.  I knew there was a reason that I hired her and this was it.  Somewhere in my gut, something told me that it was all wrong.  It is great to have all of the treatment rooms, but you need storage, laundry flow, and prep areas.  Plus the clients, must think they are at Disney, where you never know what goes on “behind the scenes”. 

 

We walked and talked for 2 days, up the stairs, down the stairs, into the parking garage…you see if you are going to build a spa in a resort hotel, well it must be the best spa in the world.  It does not have to be the biggest, just the best.  She finally hooked us into her world of spa design and development with some of the best and the brightest with Cary Collier and Chris Tyler, from Collier & Collier.

 

We agreed to re-design of the space and expansion of the second floor to become the new home for the men and women’s locker rooms.  The new space was starting to have a flow and feelings.  Where ever I could I was grabbing space, under stairs, in the “dungeon”…now we were going to see a new vision.

How a Pedicure Throne Met the Spa Consultant

 

 

Life gives you all kinds of puzzles…you just never know when they are going to put the pieces together.  I had been researching pedicure chairs for months and months. I had looked at all of the models, read all of the spec sheets, and then reviewed the sanitation, i.e. the pipe situation.  You see the pipes hold bacteria, mold and all kinds of surprises.  I finally decided on SaniJet    Look at this chair, it has all of the bells and whistles, it has lights, heat, massage, lumbar, and the footprint is small. 

This is our chair on their website and you can learn all about the chairs—we are very proud of these chairs…they are bacteria-free.  We also have a special cleaning technique, which I will go into later that ensures that our clients will never have a fungus or disease from the spa.   I special ordered the fabric in the most beautiful blue suede and I bought four chairs.—What a bargain.

So I spoke many times with Phillip at Sanijet..when I was having an oops about the architect’s plans..Phillip had told me about how he was the recommended vendor for Blu Spas.  He ended up giving me Lisa Henry Jacob’s name and a phone number.  Thank goodness for puzzles.  Lisa was one of the pieces to a puzzle and I got her through a pedicure chair!