James Dykes-Brown

Moving to Pembrokeshire in August 2019, I'd subcontracted again for a short time, before starting to supply and install again under the new brand of Pembrokeshire Carpet & Flooring. Here I focused on design work, setting myself a new challenge. With almost instant success, we were soon known in the county for our quality of products and installations. While LVT was our day to day, we also fell into the category of commercial resilient, completing small projects regularly, and often invited to tender for larger projects.

Returning to the tools again, I'd turned to a company who'd once reached out to me before, Golesworthy. Golesworthy are predominantly a family owned company operating from Bristol, supplying and installing domestic and commercial floorcoverings on a large scale. Working for large housing developers, we were required to install coverings such as LVT, Vinyl and Carpet to new build plots. Complying with H&S requirements was a necessity on a day to day basis, alongside complying to specific flooring standards, such as damp testing and suppression systems.

Working here also gave me a great insight to the working systems of a larger supply chain. We'd often work among up to 30 teams of installers from a single warehouse, which worked seamlessly.

Hoping to come away from the physical side of flooring, I secured employment as an area manager at JHS, serving their largest, and most successful area. Here I enjoyed the day to day work of meeting with clients, talking through their projects, and showcasing any of JHS products that may of been suitable. Sadly, I chose to leave JHS only after 3 months for multiple reasons, which were mostly due to lack of organisation from the company,

Here though, I was often called by other longer serving representatives for installation knowledge, once also required to present my knowledge during a sales meeting, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

After securing a buyer for J.Dykes-Brown Flooring, I was contacted by a previous work colleague, offering an installer position at a Tapi flagship store.While working here we mostly rectified and replace jobs. Our milestones here were being selected for Tapi's highest value job at the time, and also, being selected as the most competent team to uplift, and durafit Sir Lord Harris's Manchester college, at Oxford university.

After leaving CarpetRight, I entered a much larger enviroment of flooring, as an independent retailer. Immediately after opening we began supplying and installing a range of sized projects for clients such as, Priory Group, Lockheed Martin, Capita, Appetito and Dale Maintenance. These clients required coverage at multiple locations that spanned from West London, to South West Devon, and inside Bristol area. Higher profile jobs also seen us work for Robbie Williams on behalf of Godrich Interiors, London, and Directors of Reymond Langton Design, architects of super-yachts, based in Bath.

Here I managed, and worked alongside a full time team of 5, while also using subcontractors on a weekly basis. I would visit all of the sites to ascertain quantity, and observe the general conditions of floors for preparation. Managing time was also a key element, and with such a small team, we had to work efficiently, also working inline with school closure times, meeting deadlines so these facilities can reopen in time for new terms.

Alongside gaining experience in different aspects of floorlaying and business management, I also met a huge amount of contacts throughout the industry, many of which I still keep in touch with today. This has proven to be one of the most useful aspects gained at J.Dykes-Brown Flooring, and I expect to still prove useful in the future.

Working alongside my father as subcontractors one of the counties most successful stores, here I laid some of the foundations to my career in flooring. This was a fast pace work environment, where we would manage multiple jobs during a working day. Communication and time management was key in maintaining satisfied end users, as well as profitable working weeks. We would have to adapt and overcome issues on a regular basis, and were a preferable team for this reason, often working on higher profile jobs, with higher value materials.