One of Ireland’s largest decorating contractors, John Codd Decorators Ltd in Co Wexford are beginning to creep up on 40 years since they first opened up shop. Building Ireland caught up with Denise Codd to learn all about the company and some of their current projects.
These past 12 months or so have seen a real turnaround for John Codd Decorators and Denise Codd, for one, is happy to report the good news.
A second generation decorating contractor based towards Wexford’s south, the family run company has seen its workload increase substantially over the past 18 months or so to the point where it’s been taking on more and more staff since the dregs of the economic downturn.
As the name would suggest, John Codd Decorators was originally founded by the man himself back in 1978 and over the years it has grown to become one of the country’s top firms when it comes to the art of decorating.
John’s son Martin in conjuction with John’s brother Alan now runs the business and his sister Denise was good enough to fill us in on what they’re about and how more recent years have saw them concentrating on the educational building sector thanks to the healthy demand of their faithful clientele.
“We’re based here in The Dirr in Bridgetown, Co Wexford and the company itself would be established since 1978,” explained Denise.
“We’ve 30 full-time staff here at the moment – my position is Office Manager and my brother Martin is running the company as its Managing Director with Alan as projects manager in the greater Dublin area.”
So what exactly do they do? Private residential projects, Residential developments, Hotels, Public buildings and Commercial properties all fall under the umbrella for John Codd Decorators, although lately they’ve been concentrating heavily on one sector in particular.
“Mostly what we do is painting and decorating from private houses, to schools to leisure centres to everything really,” she stated.
“Right now, we’re busy between residential work and a couple of school projects, so we can’t complain at all. Most of our work would be in the Dublin area and right now we’re working on two residential developments their along with a school in Wicklow for Sammon Builders. The school we’re working on there is called ‘Wicklow Educate Together’ and it’s a great project; we’d just recently finished a National School project in Greystones as well, so we’re kept busy with them.”
Sammon Builders, as known as Sammon Group, are a building contracting group based in Kilcock, Co Kildare which have been busy clients of John Codd Decorators’ over the past couple of years.
Many of their projects are Dublin based and, as Denise explains, they are happy to meet them halfway.
“We’ve had a good relationship with Sammon Builders over the past five of six years,” she said. “We did a nursing home for them six years ago in Castleknock and since then we’ve been working with each other.
“The two residential developments we’re working in Dublin at the moment are for the Ballymore Group, so you could say that we also have a healthy working relationship with them as well, having been with them from the start, practically.”
Indeed the Ballymore Group have stuck with John Codd Decorators through thick and thin (and vice-versa), considering the effects of the recent economic downturn which tore through the country’s construction industry from 2007 onwards.
Denise explained the effects of the recession were so substantial to the company that their staff numbers dwindled from 70-strong all the way down to single digits, before having risen back up again over the past two years.
“I have to say that in the last year to 18 months there has been a real turn around for us. The downturn did hit us hard,” said the Office Manager.
“We went from 70 staff all the way down to five, so that will tell you the effect it had on us. We’re back up to 30 now though, so obviously things have improved a lot and we’re just hoping now that things will continue to go good.”
Loyal and long-time clients were part of what helped John Codd Decorators through those testing times and despite so much advisory they continued to apply their trademark ‘Quality and Quantity’ motto to each and every project.
Their solid relationship with the Ballymore Group – a European renowned firm – goes back to the days when John Codd first started his company and it continues to be as strong some 38 years on.
“As I said, we’ve been with the Ballymore Group since the beginning really and John has had a great relationship with them since day one,” Denise stated.
“Noonan Construction and Mythen Construction would be two more long-term clients of ours and we’ve done tonnes of projects together. Right now, we’re down in Wexford doing a National School for Mythen, so we have projects on the go with all of them.”
So why do these high-profile companies continue to choose John Codd Decorators first? Denise feels it has plenty to do with the calibre of work they carry out time and time again.
“I think it’s down to the quality of work that we do for them,” she said.
“We feel that our workmanship is unrivalled and with us there’s never a stone left unturned. It’s what this company is known for and what we continue to do for our clients.”
When John Codd originally founded his company it was a one-man operation which stemmed from the time he spent working alongside his father, who was a painter.
Now the business has been passed on to the next generation of Codds, with Martin now its Managing Director, and Denise says she’s very optimistic about the future.
“Things are going good right now, thankfully. Fingers crossed, it stays like that and the future looks good anyway at the moment,” she concluded.
John Codd Decorators Ltd
Address: The Dirr, Bridgetown, Co Wexford
Tel: 053 9139309
Mob: 087 223 9026
Web: jcdecor.ie
E-mail: [email protected]
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, September 2016, Vol 2 No 5
