Photos
All Pets Vet Care -
Your friendly veterinary practice for Milford Haven
Sybil Way, The Docks,
Milford Haven, SA73 3AA
01646-663 883
We are situated in a Grade II listed building, which used to be the office of the Milford Docks Company and which we transformed into a bright, welcoming space, that we, our staff and the residents
of Milford Haven can be proud of.
We are always happy to show you around - time and work permitting, but you can also take a virtual tour.
Week 1 of Building Work - not a hint of veterinary practice:
Week 2 of Building Work - All Pets Vet Care's foundations:
Week 3 and 4 of Building Work - x-ray room and room borders:
Week 5 and 6 of Building Work: Dog Walk-In Kennels and new walls
Week 7 of Building Work - the vet practice taking shape:
When we took the building over, it was still full of tables, chairs, boxes of old paper and other "stuff"!
Some items went via Freecycle, a few went to the tip and we had masses of skips constantly taking away rubbish!
Somebody had blocked the airbricks decades ago and the floor in the prep room-to-be had a huge hole where the dental table will go.
Mike, our wonderful and absolutely amazing builder (Where does he gets his energy from? He never stops!) and his crew then started removing the floorboards and excavating the floor where there was concrete. Most of the old partition walls were removed, leaving just the stone walls.
After consultation with the Listed Buildings Officer, we were allowed to remove one stone wall, which means that clients will be able to see the original safe door, behind which will be the pharmacy.
With finally all the partition walls removed, the floor dug out and sand laid, the radon barrier went down - ready to receive the first layer of concrete the following week.
We put our banner up - it is 8 foot long, but looked suddenly tiny above the doorway!
The concrete had to dry out for the rest of week 3, then the insulation went down.
The obsolete heating system was replaced with underfloor heating, which should create a comfortable atmosphere for clients, staff and patients alike.
(There is also underfloor heating in the walk-in kennel.)
The x-ray room required block, rather than stud work and was also build during week 4.
And then the plates for the partition walls were placed and suddenly the outline for all the rooms could be seen!
The beginning of week 5 saw the screed going down, which then again had to dry.
With the start of week 6 the frames for the new partition walls were formed - leaving spaces for the large windows, which will let light into the operating theatre, but which will also allow patients to be watch as they recover after an anaesthetic in the kennels.
And the walk-in kennel is even large enough for a St.Bernard to lay down comfortably, but can otherwise be used as an isolation kennel, allowing separation of a dog with infectious disease from healthy animals.
The plasterboards have been fixed to the walls this week, with double layers for sound insulation in the kennel areas.
And the plummers and the electricians have been working extremely hard this week, doing a stirling job - laying pipes and cables, cutting holes in the plasterboard for the switches and the lights and even coming in on Saturday!
(Mike, as so often, has again worked on Saturday and Sunday and all the time, Dave, my most wonderful man, has also worked his socks off in the building.)
Thank you all, guys!
The Documents of the old Docks Office
While checking the attic, Dave came across these "treasures" - old cheque books, newspapers,
delivery notes and the like.
Clicking on the thumbnails will open a larger version of the picture.
Find out where you can obtain English and American False Teeth and what happened to Peter O'Hara,
when he tried to purchase a sleever of beer!
www.allpetsvetcare.co.uk
Week 8 of Building Work - All Pets Vet Care slowly coming to life:
At the end of another week all the partition walls are now up, insulated and covered in plasterboard.
The plasterers have come in and started on the ceilings and the first windows have been taken out and are beeing repaired - there are 27 of them, so that will take a while!
The front door needs replacing and the new one came in on Friday and has now received its first layer of paint.
With the main part of the building now being seen to, the smaller rooms at the back of the building - the pharmacy, the office, the former kitchenette (which will become one of the toilets), the cat and exotic kennel rooms and the former boiler room are now receiving work.
Week 9 of Building Work - Plastering, plastering, plastering....
This week was in the majority about plastering and there was an awful lot of it.
Jerry, the Irish plasterer, did most of it and finished it all in week 10 and made a fantastic job out of it.
Week 10 of Building Work - First signs of getting pretty
After the plaster made it all look dark, parts of the building have now been painted and looking beautifyl - light and airy!
The safe door has been sanded down and freed from several layers of different colours of paint.
We were hoping to bring it back to back to bare metal, but found that the surface is too uneven and will repaint it again.
The units and worktops have arrived and will be installed from Monday onwards in the areas which have already been painted.
Week 11 & 12 of Building Work - Lights & Units....
All the internal windows have now been put in, then entrance porch is coming next Monday.
All the units were put up this week and the first sink was installed. Daves nephew is over from Oz and he has also been roped in, making up the drawers and attaching the unit doors.
The electricians have been busy all week putting up lights, but there are still more to do!
We nearly had a set-back through a mini bus, which knocked a lamp post down at the back of the building, with the lamp then smashing up part of the roof! If it would have rained more, it could have damaged some of the new ceilings. We found this out on Monday morning, but everything was quickly sorted between Jeff from the Port Authority and Mike our builder, who repaired it all.
Week 13 &14 of Building Work - Lots of small stuff!
The internal doors were hung in week 13 - this took quite a long while, followed by architraves, locks and handles being fitted. In the last week Dave has been painting the architraves.
The plumbers have fitted the new water and gas boilers and the electricians separated our and the cafe next doors supplies, which had been running together until now!
Our intruder alarm system is now up and running - unfortunately something that vet practices seem to require these days to prevent break-ins.
The podest for the dog kennels was finished, but when they arrived, Dave found that he had to take them apart to get them through the front door!
The grass was sown to be ready by the time that we open and the external window sills have been repaired.
And at the end of week 14 we had a clean-up, getting ready for the flooring people to come and do their job.
Below are pictures of the transformation from nearly derelict building to modern vet practice
and some of the old documents we found in the attic.
All Pets Vet Care
Veterinary Surgery
The Old Docks Office, Sybil Way, Milford Marina, Milford Haven, SA73 3AA
Phone: 01646-663 883, Fax: 01646-468 111
