Our New Office Design Progress

We've been teasing this over the month of October, but it is official - we are moved in to our new office!! Now, that doesn't mean that the office looks like this gorgeous rendering above just yet, but we have high hopes! We're in the middle of the permit process with the city, just like so many of you out there with pending design projects. We're also waiting for furniture to come off all the ships in the ports along the West Coast, so trust us when we say that we feel your pain through all the shortages.

For now, we're making use of all of our furniture from the old office, and being patient with the boxes and floating samples we have all around the space. Have a look below to see how we designed this space differently from our previous office, and the big plans we have for every area!

As a reminder, here's where we started with the last office floor plan - the starred plan on the bottom left is where we ultimately landed. As you can see, we really only had room for three people to work. I was intimidated and nervous to be leasing an office space outside of my home, and even more so during the middle of a global pandemic. I had just hired an assistant, and thought it would be plenty big enough for us. And it was... until we outgrew it in about six months. So this time around, I wanted to make sure that we had some space to grow into, including some warehouse/storage space to get our inventory of accessories out of my home... Brian is super happy to have more garage space!

As many of you know now, we debuted our online pillow and accessories shop this summer. Just as that was taking off, we were up for renewing our lease on the original office. A lot of terms changed per our property management company, and we realized that we had really outgrown the office after our first full year already!

So off we went searching for a bigger space that would be able to grow with us, and maybe even provide retail space one day for our shop! And here we stumbled upon this space, which used to be a hair salon near downtown Ventura. At just over triple the space of the last office, we have so much more room to grow, dream, and expand what we're able to do as a company, and that blessing is not lost on us.

We now have 6 work stations along the right wall as you walk in, and a nice seating area front and center for us to use as a team, and to use as samples for our clients for sit testing our upholstery favorites. Eventually this will be more of a retail space and allow for fun shopping events!

Moving to the left wall, we're repurposing our IKEA shelving from the last office and building out even more sample storage, so everything will have a place to live and stay neat (she says with hopeful optimism). Right in front of that is our big lunch and conference table for the team, and everything there is also an opportunity for finish and quality samples for our clients to see in real life. The same goes for the kitchen area - we thought it was important to build out the kitchen using our preferred builders, with the same level of detail and quality we would use in our design projects to give visiting clients a sense of what they can expect.

With this office, I realized how often I take calls and meetings and disrupt the entire office, so building a space to be able to close the door was important this time around. My office is now right behind the 6 work stations, and I'm excited to not be taking meetings in the car or at home to keep the office moving! Well, maybe not as many meetings...

Right behind my office is our team bathroom, and right behind that is the team call room, or space where they can all take meetings without disturbing everyone else. It'll be a quiet space if someone is on a deadline or just really needs to focus. If we don't end up using it at all, it'll probably be home to our pillow shop! I think as we spend more time in the office, the function will start to become a little more clear. The back room is the client meeting conference room because that room has the most natural light, so samples will show true colors at their best in that space.

Across the hall is our shop inventory room, and I know Brian is the most happy about this space, because all of that inventory and decor that I keep on hand for installs can finally live here, and not in our garage! And having this all here gives us the option to maybe open the office up to the public some day to shop! Stay tuned for the final verdict on that decision... We're taking it all step by step right now!

We learned our lesson about black countertops from the last office - this time around we're going for this light wood option, with coordinating slatted dividers between each person's desk for some privacy, but still allows the light from the front windows through as far back as possible.

We can't wait to have a full kitchen in the office! I have half a mind to install that Monogram Sommelier fridge I talked about in this post, you know, for clients to see and test!

As frustrating as the permit waiting process can be, I'm so excited I got to collaborate with my architect brother, owner of FORM Design Build, on this project. As soon as everything is finished, you bet you're all going to see the finished space.

Now, who wants to visit? I have a chair or a sofa calling your name!