Owner Lois Burak wanted to spruce up the nail area at Philadelphia’s Beauty Worx salon to create more seating and accommodate small pedicure parties, but whirlpool pedicure chairs, at several thousand dollars apiece. Were considerably beyond her budget. Her solution - a $700 renovation that required creativity on her part and a fair bit of elbow grease on the part of her fiancé Ed.

BeautyWorx’s original pedicure area was comprised of a larger area housing nail tables and a seating area and small, semi-private room that held a pedicure unit and a chair for facial waxing. In the larger area, Burak moved the existing nail tables to one side of the room and added hand-crafted pedicure benches to the other side. When not in use, the benches can double as seating for clients waiting for facial waxing or for their turn for a manicure.

“We installed wooden platforms under the foot baths that adjust to the client’s height,” says Burak. “That’s not only nice for the clients, our nail techs seem more comfortable as well.”

The semi-private room, which had been partitioned from the larger area by a wall, is now separated by a smaller, glass-paneled door. “I wanted the room to be separate, but still have an added a storage cabinet with a rock fountain on top.

It was a stroke of good fortune that led Burak to a wooden door just like the one she had envisioned.”I never imagined on the way to Lowe’s we would see one by the side of the road out for trash,” say Burak, who made Ed cross busy highway to retrieve it. “We stripped and repainted it, leaving the hardware alone-including the mail slot at the bottom.”  

The bold red tones and pretty wood grains make the new nail area come alive. The couple did the renovation over the three-day Memorial Day holiday, so they wouldn’t interrupt business.

Burak’s fiancé built the pedicure benches here in the semi-private room and in the main area. “He’s tickled pink with himself. Although he’s handy, he had never tackled a carpentry project like that before,” she says.

Here’s the nail area prior to the renovation. The doorway to the semi-private pedicure area is on the right.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.