The Buchele Adventure

This is record of the Buchele Adventure, as reported from West Africa.

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Furniture Shopping–Ghana Style–part One (by Suzanne)

As part of leading the engineering programme effort, making decisions about furniture and lab equipment has partly fallen to me. As many of you may be aware, ordering engineering lab equipment has been stressing me lately. With US orders placed and larger, European equipment being out to bid with local distributors, our Operations Manager and I went furniture shopping in Accra last Friday.

IMG_6108

[Design Lab – under construction]

Much of the furniture for the new engineering building is being built by local craftsmen; I have been involved in the specification of that furniture as well. And have been impressed. Almost all of the furniture for the existing classrooms and labs were built locally and much of it has held up well.

IMG_1077

[locally built classroom chairs (or academic torture devices)

However, the wooden classroom chairs are rather heavy (and I find them uncomfortable for more than 30 minutes or so) and the tables are also wooden, heavy, and either fixed to the floor or too heavy to move easily. For the smaller classrooms and design lab in the engineering building, we wanted lighter furniture that was more easily configurable than the massive wooden ones we have. The carpenter (or, more rightly, furniture maker we are using) said, no problem and showed up two weeks later with a prototype metal-framed engineering lab station (very nice, we made one or two modifications but it was largely exactly what we wanted), the next week a design lab and classroom table (again, very nice, we made a few changes but it was largely perfect) and then a lab stool. When we first started talking lab stools, the furniture maker wasn’t sure he could do what we wanted, and others voiced the opinion that we should just buy proper lab stools – they can be found, imported from China or other places. But our president said no, no, no, we want to make everything local that we can, it is part of our mission to support quality local enterprises. (And by the way, the next week it was all over the news that the Government of Ghana decided to get all new furniture for their Parliament and they ordered imported furniture from China).

The furniture maker sounded doubtful about the lab stools, but one of the engineering faculty said, “go check out the Holiday Inn, at their outdoor bar they have metal framed stools that would be a good model for what we want.” And no kidding, the next week he showed up with a lightweight, metal framed, prototype stool!

[locally built lab IMG_1503stools]

It had some problems: was a bit unsteady and it was too narrow - fine for me, but it wouldn’t do for some of our more “traditionally built” students (as No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Mme Romotwse would say). But it was light, comfortable, the back was just the right angle and just the right curvature, etc. So he’ll come back, probably this Tuesday with another prototype for us to try.

IMG_6098

[Multipurpose Space in new Engineering building]

The larger multipurpose space will sometimes be a classroom with a total of about 20 tables and 80 chairs, and sometimes be set up for a large lecture with no tables and 260 chairs. So, for that space we really want foldable and/or stackable chairs and foldable tables. Hence the furniture shopping.

A friend of Ashesi was visiting all fall, and I knew her area was design (plus she has great taste), so I asked her to go furniture shopping with our Operations Manager in November-December. They went for a whole day and came back with copious notes and many photos, but the short of it was they didn’t find anything that was perfect for our needs: relatively inexpensive, no chrome (it rusts), comfortable, sturdy/would last, stackable/foldable, feet that wouldn’t fall off with use, feet that wouldn’t loudly scrape the tile floor (with a room full of 260 chairs, loud scraping of chairs could get overwhelming – it already is in our classrooms of 75). We were prepared to go ahead and order the best of what they had already scouted out, but we ran things by our architects and they found some other furniture dealers/stored we hadn’t been to, that many of their customers who may also have discerning taste use. So with this list, we set out.

Now, there are many challenges to shopping in Accra, the first of which is finding the store. There are no street names, or as Steve rightly points out there are now street names, but no one uses them. So on the list, instead of the address, a location such as, “near the old HOT-FM station in Adabraka” is listed. Note that this takes not only current knowledge of the city of 3 million, but also historic knowledge, as HOT-FM hasn’t been there for many years. But this is perfectly normal and reasonable as a location in Ghana. Plus we had at least one phone number for each business. Not always a name (there were several named “Office Furniture Company (?)”). So our plan, again perfectly reasonable here: drive to the approximate location, and start looking for a shop that sells office furniture; if we don’t see one on the first drive by, call and ask for directions. Which is a great idea if they answered their phones.

Shop number one we may have found – it wasn’t named what the suggested name on our list said, but it was near the landmark listed and it sold office furniture. None of the phone numbers we called answered after many tries, so we’re not 100% sure. We looked quickly, they had mostly “executive” (desk) chairs and desks, no decent quality foldable or stackable chairs and no foldable tables, so we didn’t stay long.

to be continued…

12 Comments:

Blogger Atico Export said...

nice blog !! i was looking for blogs related of Engineering Lab Equipment supplier. then i found this blog, this is really nice and interested to read. thanks to author for sharing this type of information.

7:41 AM, May 19, 2015  
Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

4:33 PM, July 02, 2015  
Blogger configure office said...

Great Blog' Great furniture, amazing designs and colors too.
Glad to read this. I hope you will come and check my site too Office Chairs in Orange County Thanks for share that....

10:51 PM, July 13, 2015  
Blogger john smith said...

but none perfect: one with chrome legs (rust an issue), one kind of flimsy-looking although it seemed sturdy. HC Plastic Chairs

7:48 AM, March 11, 2017  
Blogger jade said...

This piece will have two sizable doors that will be required to lay flush in the case. Demir Leather

4:32 AM, June 22, 2017  
Anonymous Hannah said...

Office Furniture Installation. It's difficult to be specific about the process of office furniture delivery. Overtime versus straight time: Overtime deliveries are more costly than those during normal business hours. If the product is for a project that requires installation, then you should discuss the options with your furniture representative.

3:03 PM, March 02, 2019  
Blogger dashinithu said...

Nice post. Thanks to sharing your post.
Furniture Stores In Chennai

10:34 AM, April 02, 2019  
Blogger dashinithu said...

Nice post. Thanks to sharing your information.

Furniture Shops In Chennai
Furniture Stores In Chennai
Wholesale Furniture Shops In Chennai
Home Furniture Chennai

8:25 AM, April 09, 2019  
Blogger singhmovers said...

When you receive Furniture Delivery Melbourne, there are actually many situations that can arise and put you in precarious positions.

3:13 AM, April 18, 2019  
Blogger Alice Parker said...

I really enjoyed reading this article, and found it quite informative. And especially the part about Home furniture. Thanks for sharing! I generally prefer Gfurn to buy mid century furniture and would recommend it to all.

7:25 AM, July 13, 2019  
Blogger malarp said...

Informative pot. The tips you have shared are useful for designing the house. Check out.
Furniture Shops In Chennai
Wooden Flooring Chennai
Wallpaper Dealers in Chennai
Window Blinds in Chennai
Best Curtain Shops in Chennai
Window Curtains in Chennai

9:49 AM, November 26, 2019  
Blogger riyapatel said...

Very nice; Thank you for sharing this.
lab stools

11:28 AM, July 23, 2020  

Post a Comment

<< Home