A Little West Elm Office Makeover

I can only show you a little slice of this space….lest my super secret clearance card be revoked.  BUT I wanted to share a simple and quick makeover.  This was working truly on the fly.  We had 1 day to empty the room and paint and 3 hours the following day to redress the room with new furniture and accessories.   Everything happens fast around these offices…and this was no exception.

The original – run down beige (not so beige after so many years) chenille sofas with overly flat, dead pillows.  Laminate coffee tables from an office supply store.  Beige walls.  Beige…Beige…and more beige.  No accessories, no art – just them, their sofas and their work supplies.  They asked for a change.

First step – They asked for a little color.  I juiced up the walls with Benjamin Moore SMOKE #2122-40.  This is a serene color – color without being bright or distracting to their work, but softens the builder beige feeling of an office.

Next – They asked for new furniture that wasn’t the same color as everything else in the room (beige).  For the main pieces, I brought in charcoal sofas and chunky, sturdy grey washed wood coffee tables.  This needed to be furniture people could sit on for hours, take notes on, put computers on, eat their lunch on and put their feet up on if they wanted – but still be stylish and appeal to a wide range of ages and styles.  It also played into their next request.  That it feel like someone’s family room where you do all of those things.

Final piece of the puzzle – They asked for it to feel like a home, not an office.  I went to West Elm.  There really wasn’t any personality in the room before.  I knew that West Elm’s style was the vibe (and budget) we needed. We brightened the charcoal sofas with a couple gold prints and some grey and white prints.  I gave them some comfy throws and a few green and blue accessories with some shiny things for a tiny bit of bling.  There are baskets for organization of their office supplies, candy, magazines, whatever they need to add to the tables.  Time is up!

We couldn’t go overboard with the budget but still needed a space that was a little more stylish and easy on the eyes than the usual office conference room feel.  And we needed it all within a very short period of time.  This was a fast turnover.  But it turned out well and ended up being pretty budget friendly.  Most important, this space went from a room that possessed no form and only function (although the condition of the sofas made even that questionable) to having plenty of both…overnight.