Holiday Inn Dumfries, in the 85-acre parkland and gardens of the historic Crichton Estate, will reopen 16 newly-refurbished bedrooms later this month.

The 71-bedroom venue, one of 31 hotels owned or operated by Jupiter Hotels under the leadership of CEO Shane Harris, suffered a burst water main causing flood damage last autumn.

Helen Hooper Interiors are the incumbent interior designers for Jupiter Hotels and Helen Hooper led the design process for the rooms that will be ready to welcome visitors later this month, while local specialists Eco carried out the refurbishment.

Martin Curtis, property manager at Jupiter Hotels, said: “We have very demanding, exacting, technical and quality standards and from start to finish, from the initial emergency to completing the full refurbishment, Eco has met them all.

“They are a one-stop shop, with all their different skills, their building skills, flooring skills, interior design skills, and restoration skills.

“They always did things the way they said they would, and worked collaboratively with the hotel team to complete the job on time, on budget and to our very high standards.”

He added: “We have high occupancy rates at the Dumfries hotel and it was very important to us that the rest of the hotel wasn’t affected throughout the restoration work.

“From the very first day Eco stepped in, and throughout the work, they had a good relationship with everyone and worked in a way which enabled us to carry on trading without any disruption to our guests.”

Eco, run by managing director Eddie Black, has bases in Carlisle, Mealsgate near Cockermouth, Dumfries, Creca, and is building its own 3,000 square metre HQ for 80 staff in Annan due to open in the summer.

Paul Currie, Eco’s contracts manager, said: “What we at Eco pride ourselves on is that when someone has got a problem, we come up with a solution.

“Within 90 minutes of the call from Jamie, we were on site with nine of our team, including managing director Eddie Black and myself.

“We took over the situation. We got the water out of the building as quickly as we could including removing a floor to ceiling window for quick and safe access to skips and containers.

“We put temporary partitions up so that none of the guests would be affected by the areas we were working in and allowed us to comply with fire safety legislation.

“Within two hours we had 15 dehumidifiers on site and we removed the carpets and skirting boards to alleviate damp going up the walls.”

The Eco team got the furniture out of the hotel and into storage and sent any furniture for restoration to the Ghyll House arm of its business.

They also brought in expert drying out specialists to assess the situation and draw up a programme of action which Eco carried out.

They used their contacts to immediately involve McGowan Miller chartered surveyors from Dumfries when the insurance company didn’t have anyone who could help nearby.

Paul said: “When it came to the flood restoration at Dumfries we did everything floor to ceiling. The hotel had a very tight 12-week timescale and we came in within budget and on time.

“All the trades were involved, the joinery work, plastering, tiling, electricals, flooring, plumbing, internal decoration - at one stage we had eight painters all working at the same time.”

Martin said: “Helen Hooper Interiors do amazing schemes for us throughout our portfolio – each is unique. Helen came up with a scheme of colours, finishes and casegoods that was value engineered to meet the budget.

“Through Eco’s interior design consultant Fiona Boyle they were then able to source all the furnishings and fabrics and carry out all the refurbishment, in a completely new-look, all done to Helen’s scheme.”

As well as supplying all the furniture, cushions, curtains and carpets, Eco turned to its Ghyll House business to reupholster some of the hotel’s existing furniture.