Hal Collums Construction performed the installation of custom casework at a new cafe called Merchant located in The Maritime building in the Central Business District of New Orleans.

The custom millwork and casework was fabricated by Central City Millworks.

All work has been completed, and Merchant is now open for business as a cafe, coffee shop, and wine bar.

According to the Central City Millworks website:

When Ammar Eloueini of AEDS (Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio) and Edifice Builders came to Central City Millworks for help implementing a design concept for the Merchant cafe that focused on “dirty” top pine flooring and casework cladding, we knew that we were the perfect company for the job.

See the full story at Central City Millworks online.

In 2008, Hal Collums Construction began a project to expand an existing Julia Street gallery.  The gallery project had an accelerated construction schedule due to its grand opening coordinating with the Prospect 1 city wide art exhibit in 2008. So from the start, there was no room in the schedule for any kind of delays. The project was also very labor intensive due to the amount of artistic materials used. The renovation included custom cabinetry (built in our New Orleans millworks shop), specialty art lighting, white stone counter tops, reclaimed heart pine beams for the entry, and one of a kind white resin flooring. Every portion of this New Orleans renovation had a color scheme of white to better accent the art being displayed.

The rear of the gallery has custom work spaces, art storage racks, as well as overhead storage for larger pieces of art. Even the doors are not a typical wood or metal. The two doors in the gallery were made of a custom resin material called 3-Form. We ended up using the left over 3-Form material from the doors to create a custom inset lighting in the opening connecting the two galleries.

Entrance to the gallery expansion

Since the project was being finished right before before the grand opening, the gallery owner had no choice but to start hanging some of the art during the remodel. The owners collection included a Dale Chihuly, which is a very large, hanging art sculpture made up of hundreds of pieces of hand blown glass. This a very heavy sculpture, and a special 1” threaded rod was used in the ceiling to install it.  The artist himself had to send one of his assistants down from up north to assemble the sculpture. Working around this Chihuly sculpture during the finish of the renovation brought on a sense of real intensity that was just plain visible.

All in all this was a fabulous project. The finish was strong, and the deadline was met. Not one single install on this gallery was run of the mill. Every single piece took a decent amount of research to execute, especially the resin flooring. Several professional flooring consultants were hand selected to ensure the proper research, and procedure was in the hands of our project manager Thomas Nevitt III. With this information, Mr. Nevitt took all steps necessary to complete the project on time.  Eight weeks of long, labor intensive days and countless hours of research helped Hal Collums Construction complete a great New Orleans renovation. We are so proud of the end result that we are posting large images below:

The view in from the front door

Looking towards the front door

Additional space/office

Combination of brick and sheetrock

Storage for prints

Custom cabinets from Central City Millworks

More presentation space

Here is what the hostess stand looks like prior to painting

As part of Hal Collums Construction’s job at the National WWII Museum, we partnered up with Central City Millworks for a number of jobs. A great example are the hostess stands for John Besh’s restaurant, The American Sector.

The hostess stands are free standing cabinets that have been placed at the entrances of the restaurant for greeting and reservations. These stands have been a great success. In fact, we have received a new request for one more stand. This new cabinet will be mostly the same as the previous hostess stands but this one will be altered so casters can be added to make it mobile. This stand will be placed outside of the Stage Door Canteen.

An interesting obstacle for us to overcome on this project is the weather. It is cold in New Orleans now! We finish each stand by spraying it with conversion varnish. Well, it is impossible to spray conversion varnish when the temperature drops below 50 degrees! We have faced this obstacle previously at Hal Collums Construction and Central City Millworks, so we are not worried. This small project was fast paced from start to finish and even with a weather delay, the cabinet will be ready for delivery on the client’s requested date.

Here is the completed hostess stand in place at the National World War II Museum

(To open a new window for a closer view of an image, click it)

Great view of the bar's ceiling

Victory! HCC Completes the Museum Millwork Job

Euphoria and celebratory high-fives erupted in HCC’s office last summer upon learning we had been awarded the WW II Museum millwork contract. As the initial euphoria subsided, it was further tempered by the reality of our immense challenge.

Hal Collums Construction LLC teamed up with Central City Millworks LLC to bid on the fabrication and installation of custom architectural millwork for the spectacular WW2 Museum expansion opening November 7th, 2009. Earlier that year HCC had worked with Satterfield and Pontikes (one of the leading construction companies in the Gulf Coast region) to fabricate and install the millwork for the Saint Bernard Middle School.

As the initial euphoria subsided, it was further tempered by the reality of our immense challenge

When the WW2 Expansion was announced and the plans by Voorsinger and Mathes Architects became available, we were pleased to learn that S&P was preparing a bid. The HCC estimating group worked with S&P for several months through three plan addendums to develop and refine a competitive bid for the WW2 Expansion. Finally all the hard work paid off with a phone call from S&P telling us they had selected us as their millwork provider for the WW2.

We successfully achieved our WW2 challenge, delivering millwork that one of the architects described as “fabulous”.

Estimating the WW2  job, we realized it would be complicated and technically challenging. Now that we had the job and with our design department mobilizing and our production department planning, we started focusing on the obstacles. There were tremendous design challenges to be solved to accomplish the architect’s vision.

The architect’s plans shows the millwright the architect’s intentions aesthetically, however it is our responsibility to design a cabinet to meet the aesthetic goals while overcoming the structural and material challenges. Before we could put this job into design production we had to completely ramp-up our shop drawing department and our CAD design department. Not only would we have to hire additional CAD designers but we also needed to increase our level of expertise with our CNC router. All these challenges seemed daunting but we knew failure was not an option. We understood this was a legacy job and we had to be victorious for ourselves, our company, and our city.

Millwork at National WW2 Museum bar

Last week we successfully achieved our WW2 challenge, delivering millwork that one of the architects described as “fabulous”. We worked as a team with Satterfield & Pontikes and many other great local and regional subcontractors to deliver a new landmark to New Orleans.

This is truly a new jewel in the crown of our local tourism industry. Hal Collums Construction is proud to have played such an important role in this victory for New Orleans and the New Orleans Tourism Industry.