Care home decorating is a discipline of its own. The buildings are occupied. Residents live in them. Staff schedules don't bend around contractors, and the fabric of the building - listed or otherwise - has to be respected at every stage. Getting it wrong is not an option.
GME holds two care home programmes that show how that responsibility plays out in practice.
The first is The Chocolate Works in York, a flagship Care UK care home set inside a converted part of the original Rowntree's confectionery factory. A listed building, full of history, with 42 bedrooms - each individually styled to reflect the character of one of York's most treasured historic buildings. GME was asked to redecorate all 42, one bedroom per day, with residents in place and the home continuing to operate around the works.
The second is a 12-year maintenance contract with Leeds Independent Living, covering 11 LiLAC (Low-Impact Living Affordable Community) care sites across Leeds. The scope is varied: external painting, communal areas, high-ceiling corridors that need specialist lift equipment, and Rainbow House - a children's respite home that closes every three years for a full redecoration and has to be turned around in one and a half weeks.
Two very different projects, one shared standard. Decoration delivered around the people who live, recover and are looked after in these buildings.
A 42-bedroom listed-building care home renovation in York, plus a 12-year multi-site maintenance contract across 11 LiLAC care sites in Leeds.

Care UK's residents could not be uprooted, and the listed fabric of the building demanded respect throughout. The brief was clear: one bedroom prepped, painted and handed back every day, to keep Care UK's refurbishment schedule on track without disrupting daily life in the home.
Fire safety regulations in a live care environment meant doors could not be propped open. Solvent-based paints were off the table completely. GME specified water-based acrylics throughout - low odour, fast drying, and the right product for a building where residents cannot be asked to put up with fumes or wait for rooms to air out.
One room prepped, painted and handed back. Every day. No slippage. Superior finish throughout.
The LiLAC programme is long-term relationship work. Across 11 sites, GME sequences external painting, communal areas and corridor refurbishment so the day-to-day running of each home is disrupted as little as possible. High-ceiling corridors are tackled with specialist lift equipment; external work is timed around the weather and each building's calendar.
The most time-pressured element is Rainbow House. When the respite home closes for its triennial redecoration, the clock starts immediately - families relying on that service are waiting for it to come back. GME turns it around in one and a half weeks. That doesn't happen by accident: the programme is planned well in advance of the closure, materials staged, team briefed, sequence confirmed. Every day is accounted for before GME arrives on site.
Both projects come back to the same principle. Decoration in a care environment is shaped by where and how it sits in the building. Product selection, working hours, dust and odour control, fire safety - every decision is taken with the residents in mind first. That's what allows the team to keep pace without the standard of finish dropping, whether the window is one day per bedroom or one and a half weeks for a full respite home.
At The Chocolate Works, all 42 bedrooms were completed on schedule, to a superior finish, with no disruption to residents. Care UK have since extended the relationship into ongoing pricing work across their wider programme.
At LiLAC, the 12-year contract continues to run on consistent delivery across a complex multi-site estate. Rainbow House is turned around to programme every cycle, ready for the families who depend on it. The standard of finish doesn't drop because the window is short - that's a non-negotiable for GME and for the people these buildings serve.
Care home decorating done properly is not just about the painting. It's about working in a space where people live, recover and are looked after. That's what shapes every decision GME makes, from product selection to the order the team works through a building.


















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