Our June employee of the month is Sal Loya.  Sal joined Interior Door Replacement Company in 1998, shortly after the company was founded.  He is the crew leader of the paint department, and he takes extreme pride in his work.  Sal devotes his personal attention to each and every painted door installed by IDRC, making sure paint is applied perfectly in our state-of-the-art painting facility.

Sal’s contribution has been invaluable because the quality of our paint job is one of the key factors in the success of our company.  It’s one of the key reasons why we have so many repeat and referral customers.  It’s also the reason why our management team has decided to name Sal as our June employee of the month.

Barn doors have been drawing increasing interest from our customers. To address customer inquiries, we have even installed a barn door in our showroom so our customers can touch and feel one for themselves. We use stylish, exposed sliding door hardware which makes our barn doors suitable for most homes in the Bay Area.

Shown below is a barn door that we recently installed in a customer home in Belmont.  The door divides the master bedroom from the bathroom.  The bedroom was rather small, so the customer elected to install a mirror on the side of the door facing the bedroom in order to enhance the feeling of spaciousness.

Other places where we have seen customers place barn doors include closets, hallways, and kitchen pantries.  In areas where a swinging door would be awkward, a barn door can add an attractive and elegant quirkiness to the home decor.  A barn door with somewhat rustic style provides an interesting contrast in a contemporary home.  Unlike pocket doors, barn doors do not require significant demolition to install.  However, they do require a fair amount of wall space for the door when it is rolled back.

Our employee of the month for May is Chris Ong.  Chris is a relatively new employee who joined IDRC in September of 2012.  Prior to coming to IDRC, Chris worked various construction jobs in Idaho.  After joining our company, Chris quickly adapted to his roles and responsibilities, and immediately began providing customers with the highest quality workmanship.

During his short time at IDRC, Chris has received numerous outstanding reviews and comments from customers.  One customer wrote in her email to the office staff, “The doors were installed today and I LOVE them!!!!  Chris was amazing and so professional.  His attention to detail and willingness to keep working until it was perfect made me smile.  You always hope that people coming into your home will treat it as their own, and he did….”

Congratulations Chris!

Interior Door Replacement Company has established a monthly recognition program to recognize our outstanding employees who go “above and beyond” in their work responsibilities.  Our April “Employee of the Month” award goes to Jonathan Bowen.

Jonathan joined IDRC in October of last year.  During his time at our company Jon has adapted quickly to his roles and responsibilities, and consistently received outstanding comments from customers who regularly call the office to thank us for his work.  He even visits customers on his own personal time when he gets the unexpected call for help–he does anything and everything necessary to satisfy our customers.

Jon and his wife Karen have one son Evan.  He is a loyal Giants and 49ers fan and avid wine connoisseur.

Congratulations Jon!

Molded doors have been the a popular door choice for IDRC customers, but many other customers desire a special quality premium door.  We offer a wide choice of styles and door designs from various manufacturers including AAW, Trustile, and Simpson.  When a customer selects one of these premium doors, it is always a joy to see how well these doors look in the customer’s home after we finish the installation job.  In almost every case we are surprised–sometimes even shocked–at a how well the premium doors improve the overall atmosphere and comfort of a customer’s home.  That was the case for a customer we serviced yesterday in Mountain View, who ordered White Laminate glass doors that we painted black at our specialized door painting facility.

Now, the previous molded doors were in good condition, and therefore this door replacement project was elective.  But after the new doors were installed it was very clear that our customer had made an excellent decision.  We replaced about a dozen doors throughout the home, including a set of double-doors.   The new glass doors fit perfectly into the existing home decor, and completed the transformation of the home’s living space in an especially appealing manner.

Our homeowner-customer did not view our work until after the glass doors were installed.  Nevertheless she was overjoyed at the result, and her enthusiastic reaction added to our overall sense of satisfaction.

Today we had a project in a quiet and tranquil neighborhood in Los Altos.  The day started out overcast, and the morning fog seemed to add to the solemn mood of installation crew after the disappointing outcome of the Super Bowl.

The home we worked on was a older home built in the 1970′s.  Although not a large or extravagant house, its location placed the value of this home and surrounding neighboring homes well into the multi-million dollar range.  The homeowner had lived there a number of years, and had done some upgrades, but still had the original interior doors that were installed when the home was built.  Now he felt it was time to replace the interior doors and closet doors.

Isaiah our installer removing the old brown doors.  Below he installs the new door from IDRC.

Those original doors were of the hollow brown-colored kind as shown in the photographs.  Their dark color seemed to dim the lighting of the rooms and hallways in the home.  Moreover, they were a telltale indication of the home’s age and vintage.

Within an hour of our crew starting their work, the effect of the new doors was very evident.  The new doors seemed to brighten up the rooms and the hallways of the home.  Their impact was immediate and dramatic.

Replacing interior doors and closet doors is a great way to not only make a home more comfortable and livable, but also increase the value of the home.  A rather modest investment in new doors added potentially tens-of-thousands of dollars to the market resale value of this home.  That was quite evident for this homeowner, as it has been for the thousands of other home owners that we have served in the Bay Area.

Josh, the owner of IDRC, grew up in Wisconsin and is a lifelong Packer fan.  In fact, he wore a cheesehead to the company Christmas party, to the chagrin of his employees who are mostly 49er fans (with a few Raider fans sprinkled in).  So last week, when it became clear that the Packers and the 49ers were going to meet in the divisional round NFC playoffs, a few of his employees challenged Josh to a bet.  If the Green Bay Packers won, then each employee would have to take turns wearing a cheesehead for a day at work (except when visiting customer homes…).  On the other hand, if the 49ers won, then Josh would have to wear a 49ers helmet at work for a day.

Well, this blog is to document that Josh does cover his bets, and here are the pictures to prove it.  As you can see Josh going about his daily activities at IDRC, he is indeed wearing a 49er helmet.  Congratulations 49ers!

Josh with Kristine at the front desk

Josh checking his email

Josh loading doors onto trucks

Here is Josh carefully sanding doors

Kristine at her new desk

Well, our remodeling project has  resulted in a new and very presentable showroom at our Mountain View location. New paint and new carpeting are now all in place, although much work still remains to be done before we’re ready for our official grand opening.   That includes some of the door displays that we’re still working on, but our complete line of Signature Collection molded door displays are completed and ready for customer viewing and inspection.  The new showroom is definitely functional and far more comfortable than the previous space that we previously had.

We now have about 1400 sq ft of showroom space, allowing us to display more doors and lockset hardware.  We will be adding more displays in the next few days, including a barn door and additional Premium Collection doors.  We have also added a lounge area where customers can browse the websites of our door suppliers and reflect on the various choices and options that they have for door replacement.

If you are in the area and considering the possibility of replacing your interior, exterior, and/or closet doors, please stop by and visit us.  We think you will be pleased with our new showroom and the insight it will provide you on our products and services.

Last week we shut down the showroom at our Mountain View location in order to knock down some walls and expand it.  We hired DSP Construction to come in and do the work.  They’ve been doing great work for us.  It took them only about five days to do the work, and so far it looks better than we originally had imagined.  Once we have new paint on the walls and new carpeting, we should be all set.

When done, the new showroom will provide about 1300 sq ft of display space, allowing us to display more of our complete product line of doors and locksets.  We plan to install a barn door as part of the showroom too.  It’s been exciting watching the transformation so far, and we’re looking forward to having the showroom completed and ready for customers by January 2.

Until the new showrooom opens, we do have an interim showroom toward the back of the building for customers to visit.

Today we had an opportunity to install 11 pre-hung doors at a home in Redwood City.  As is often the case, the customer is a repeat customer, having used IDRC to replace several interior closet doors back in 2009.  The owner commented that since we did such a good job, he decided to bring us back to replace the remaining interior doors.

This was a very nice home in the upscale residential area of Redwood City.  Most of

these homes were built in the 1970′s, and this home was no exception.  This older home was beautifully decorated throughout with crown molding, which had an elegance that contrasted with the rather plain original door frames and casings.  So the owner decided to commission IDRC to replace not only the doors, but also the door frames and casings.

We arrived at the appointed time at 8:30am and immediately got started removing the old door frames and casings.  This is a very messy and destructive process, and we had to regularly sweep away the debris and dust in order to continue working.  Before long, most of the door openings had been stripped of their casings, revealing the supporting beams and drywall underneath.  We now had a hallway full of door openings with no door framing.  The place was somewhat of a mess.

Jon the crew chief then quickly went to work measuring each door opening and custom-cutting new door framing and molding for each door opening.  This is the most time-consuming and tedious step, but one that is especially important.  Most contractors will take a shortcut and avoid this step by purchasing doors with pre-built door framing from the hardware store.  While this approach saves time, nevertheless it can lead to workmanship issues if the door openings don’t match the dimensions of the pre-built manufactured door framing.

We installed the door framing, and then the moldings cut by Jon.  This process went remarkably smoothly and efficiently.  Before long, we had a row of beautiful doors with new moldings around each door frame, matching the elegant crown molding that was decorating the interior of the home.  After some cleanup, we had completed the transformation of the home within a period of less than six hours.  Here are some pictures that show what the home now looks like: