How We Furnished Our Office Space at “The Nest”

How We Furnished our Office Space

Kinglet headquarters, more affectionately known as “The Nest”, is located in the Baltimore neighborhood of Federal Hill. We purchased the shell of a row-home and used our background in real estate development to convert the dilapidated building into our corporate headquarters.

View looking into what’s now our kitchen (left side with light) and main work area (right) on the first floor of our office.

View of our main work area on the first floor, pre-renovation work.

After 6 months of construction, we were finally ready to move in! Well, not just yet. The next step was getting furniture into the space.

Before construction started, we worked with Baltimore Interior Design firm Hyperspace to come up with a space plan that fit the needs of our business. We weren’t working with a big floorplate so we had to be extremely cognizant of each piece of furniture that landed in our space. Hyperspace was wonderful to work with, and matched specific furniture pieces to their design.

Post renovation, pre-furniture.

View of the four workstations on the first floor of The Nest.

Below you will find a breakdown of the source and costs of our furniture:

1. Tak screen

We are only working with about 450 SF on the main level of our office so space is tight. We wanted to keep an open work environment but also provide some privacy for each team member. The Tak Screen by Watson is the perfect way to break up an open work environment. Watson offers thirty colors to choose from and they cost $98 per screen.

[http://www.watsonfurniture.com/resources/finishes?line_id=7]

2. Quinze and Milan - Primary Pouf 01

Extremely versatile, comfortable, and it has an awesome name. We have two Pouf’s in our office at the end of each work-station, and they are great for quick and easy impromptu meetings. We purchased the Anthracite color (dark grey). Somewhat pricey at $299, the Pouf has become my favorite part of our office.

[http://www.allmodern.com/Quinze-and-Milan-Primary-Pouf-01-PR-POUF01-QUM1000.html]

3. Worksurface

Each worksurface/desk comes from the Hon Voi line. This entire line of desks can be found here: [http://www.hon.com/Documents/Voi-Brochure.pdf]. These are great for price-conscious businesses looking for laminate & veneer desking. Our worksurfaces are 2 ft x 6 ft in size. We were hesitant about the 2 ft length but after working on the space for a few weeks it is plenty big enough to keep everything on my desk. We went with the Columbian Walnut color.

[http://www.hon.com/pages/surface-materials.aspx?l=FINISHES%7CCore%20Laminate]

4. FLOR Modular Carpet Tiles

Flor is an innovative system of carpet squares that you assemble to create custom rugs, runners, or wall-to-wall designs of any shape or size.

Common rug sizes:

12 squares = 5’ x 7’

30 squares = 8’ x 10’

42 squares = 10’ x 12’

We purchased the Lacebark style in the Pearl color which comes in at $14 a square

[http://www.flor.com/lacebark-pearl.html]

5. Storage / low credenza

Each desk has its own storage credenza, purchased from the Hon Voi line as well. We went with the open look but also included some pull-out drawers that offer a key lock for added security. Our color choice was Brilliant White. We love how the white contrasts the exposed brick.

6. Outlets

The least sexy part of our office, but maybe the most important are these power outlets by Axil: [http://www.cableorganizer.com/byrne/axil-x/]. This model is great because it has a USB outlet to plug in a charger for your phone. You don’t have to get something this fancy for your desks but make sure you have easily accessible power sources to plug in all your devices.

7. Lighting

We used a great lighting consultant, Greg Schlum of Flux Studio Ltd., to make sure we had enough ambient and natural light in our space. Lighting is an important factor to think about and shouldn’t be overlooked. We have so much light projected onto our brick that we don’t need individual desk lights.

We are extremely happy with the way our office turned out. It was definitely worth the wait because we now have a fully customized space that fits our exact needs.