How to Create an Awe-Inspiring Small Business Interior
By Anna Tomalik
A small business usually equals little money for fancy decor. A professional interior designer is, for most of us, out of our budget reach, hence our office spaces lack functional arrangement and a gentle touch of art. In other words, our small business interiors suck. But should we keep them this way? No way!
What I’ve learned over the years of living on a tiny budget is that what limits us frees our creativity. No money for gas, pick a bike. No funds for new cabinets, repaint. No cash for a classy painting, print-out your life motto and stick it on the wall.
Creativity is the power you’ll befriend while making your business space beautiful. It’ll guide you through an endless buffet of options and choices, and hopefully, it’ll help you to design an office of your own style.
But before you do, I’ll just kindle it with a handful of inspiring small office designs. Let’s go!
A Flower Shop
We can find crumbling cabinets, shelves, chairs, tables, and other sorts of old furniture in this tiny flower shop run by two hearty sisters. Flowers seem to love this arrangement as they can wildly take any space they want, be it the inside of the cabinet, the cabinet door, or the entire table top. They go nuts.
Clearly with a small or zero budget, the owners of the flower shop were able to create a wow interior. They mixed white empty walls with cranky white furniture which, by the way, came from their grandma’s old kitchen. This composition set the stage for the main characters in the shop — the flowers of all colors.
A Hair Salon
Each time I enter this hair salon I gaze for a while at this huge wall poster of Marilyn Monroe with Jane Russell capturing a scene from a historic movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It made an awe-impression on me the first time I walked in the salon and the feeling still remains today. The studio, run by a talented and energetic hairdresser, is arranged in pop-art style. The checkerboard floor pairs seemingly with Monroe’s poster, and a white sofa perfectly completes the black and white scene.
Now, if we look from the wallet perspective at the design of this place it turns out that it was quite a low-budget option. The greatest impression is made by the well-matched wall poster. Wall posters and murals come at a price of one or two hundred bucks, so it’s a very doable option.
A Small Coffee Shop
Another place I’d like to show you is one I’ve never been to — simply because, it’s overseas. But I’ve seen pictures of it and the minimalist style just made me aww. The place is a newly-opened coffee shop curated by two bloggers fromthe Minimalists and a couple of their friends. Surely, a space like this pulls a chunk of change out of the owners’ pockets, but I bet they followed the minimalist rule of bringing in less stuff.
There are a couple of things that work well in this interior: the black, white, and wooden colors, a huge wall window looking out into the street, and the lack of unnecessary objects. No excessive decors, no knick-knacks, no clutter. Hence, a lots of clear space to deliberately enjoy the delights of freshly brewed coffee.
A Bookstore
I found an inspiring floor arrangement in this bookstore, located inside a mall in Rio, Brazil. A multicolored ramp surrounds the children’s book section, helping the little ones explore the titles comfortably at their height. Moreover, a couple of floor pillows thrown in at the center of the space, create a homey atmosphere inviting parents and children to forget about time and enjoy their books.
Although it’s a mall-size bookstore, the design of this interior is a concept that could work for an any-size business. Using the floor as a playground, or as a cozy room, be it for kids or adults is an arrangement that is fairly simple, yet quite innovative. It may turn out that if you make your business space more homey, people will feel comfy inside, enjoying whatever you offer them more.
Any Office
Finally, I’ve got the icing on the cake for you — a hand-painted wall mural that welcomes Basecamp’s teammates and visitors at the entrance to their HQ office. I know that Basecamp is definitely not a small office example, it’s quite the opposite. But I throw it in here as a lesson from an older brother.
The wall mural was crafted by skilled designer Nate Otto and it’s a black and white abstract cityscape with a few Easter eggs hidden in there, just for fun. It also goes around the corner of the main wall which makes it look even cooler.
“(…) I love doing murals, and I especially love doing them in offices,” wrote Nate Otto on the Basecamp’s blog. “It gives me a chance to soak up a company’s culture for a few days or a week while I work, and tech companies always have snacks. I’m down to fly to Germany (or wherever) and do a mural in your office.”
A piece of art like that is a tempting proposal, mostly because it emerges as a result of a designing process between an artist and an office owner, a kind of artistic flow appears between them. However, it may be an expensive deal.
So for this one, an option could be digging into an art website like:Depositphotos or Flickr, finding a piece that chimes with you, and printing it out as a wall mural. Or another option would be working with affordable online interior designers like PIXERStudio and crafting, a mural of your own with some minimal assistance.
On to You
As you can see, there are many ways to go with the interior design of your small business space. There are zero-budget options, as well as small-investment options. It’s up to you and your pockets. I hope the mentioned flowers in the cabinets, Marilyn Monroe’s look, spacious coffee shop, multicolored ramp, and wall mural will serve as a springboard for your creativity. All in all, it’s about making your personal working space beautiful. So make it happen.
