Better Office — 50% Cheaper. How?
Step 1: Look at a piece of junk and dream how you can turn it into something beautiful.
Phase I: the lookout.
In September this year, we were informed that we could no longer stay in our beautiful and spacious office we occupied for the last 16 months, and that we have to leave by the end of the year.
It was a bummer; an end to a very beautiful place that I was attached to and team members loved. But hey, this meant now we have the chance to start over!
We started looking for offices in the same price range we were paying, that were more or less the same size. We saw more than 15 offices, all of them had flaws. We were used to the luxury of being in an office with a lot of open space, good lighting, and a perfect location all at a reasonable price.
It was becoming a depressing endeavor, as we began to worry that we would not find an office which was the perfect fit for our team. Suddenly, we stumbled upon a online ad with no photos for an office which was four minutes walking distance away at a price that seemed too good to be true.
We decided to take a look, made our way there, and this was what we saw:
The entrance:
…this unfortunate entrance reminded me of an old classroom in elementary school.
The hallway:
- A monstrous AC which spanned across the hallway, making the ceiling look low
- 60’s style cubicles make the office look scary and very unwelcoming
More cubicles:
Note that there was only one wall with windows. One of the windows was blocked by the monstrous, ugly, and unnecessary AC.
I couldn’t believe that people worked here for 15 years. I wanted to shoot myself in the foot. The feeling would be the same…
Two big rooms: We named them yuk and double-yuk
The entrance to the only rooms in the office.
Room 1 — a little spacious, with a window separating it from the other room. I wondered if the previous occupants ever put an obscene picture on the window to make the other aliens in that office, laugh.
Room 1- the monstrous AC wasn’t the only unnecessary thing. Really, I think they stole it off a motorhome.
Room 2- the parquet flooring is torn out, and it looks like someone tried to escape by digging through the wall. I could actually picture fingernail scraping.
The worst part — wait for it….
Kitchen. Here’s the right side of the room (Below — Hum).
And here’s the view on the left (below).
Yes. This is not a joke. People actually prepared food and drank water next to this. Anyone want to take the double-dog-dare to use the bathroom and prepare your lunch at the same time? Come-on, are you chicken?
Phase II: Processing….
We thought about it for a while, and considered our options:
The cost of this terrible-looking office without renovation is half of what we were currently paying.
We made a deal with ourselves: If we could manage to renovate with a low budget, bring down the rental cost, and create a situation where we will still be paying half of what we currently paid — including renovation — then we would go for it!
Okay, now that we figured out the financial kinks, we needed to test viability, which meant we would have to:
- Convince the office owner to decrease the cost of the rent by 30 percent:
To convince the owner, we sent him pictures of the current office we have and made it clear to him that not many people would rent his office given the way it looks at the moment. However, if he allowed us to renovate it, he would have the option to charge twice the amount of rent once we left the area.
2. Map out the changes and additions to the new office, bring in professionals, and get a concise price quote for the entire renovation process:
This wasn’t easy, as we needed to find the right person, and once we did, we shared detailed material to make sure we get a realistic estimate. We took the price estimate provided and multiplied it by 1.5, because, well.. surprises tend to happen.
Here is an example of the material we prepared — before contacting a professional — of how the office looked and what we wanted it to look like post-renovation:
Eventually, we’ve got people who committed to renovate the office based on our plan with a cost that is within the budget. Now it’s show time!
Phase III: The Transformation
After looking at few inspirations here and there, we decided to do the following:
Tear down most of the cubicles and turn it into an open space. Leave only one cubicle for the kitchen.
Remove the countertop and sink from their current (and awful) location, and put them inside the kitchen cubicle.
Here is the sink in the kitchen cubicle, before it received a paint-job.
Keep the two closed rooms — one for meetings and the other for a quiet workspace.
The lighting in the office was terrible and the closed rooms weren’t getting enough of it. That was a nice excuse to install glass inside the walls.
I was still irked by this AC. I knew I didn’t dislike it — I hated it!
So we removed it.
Ahhh much better.
We installed the new glass windows into the walls of the two rooms which faced the rest of the open space.
We decided that a black and white color scheme would go well with parquet flooring.
We painted the kitchen cubicle, as well as the countertop doors themselves, it looked great with the black and white theme.
The black/white color scheme was nice but it also looked cold.
To make the office look warmer, we installed butternut parquet flooring.
Phase IV: Move In
It was sad to pack up everything in the old office; the team and I were truly attached to it. However we knew it was for the best.
When unpacking, we needed to keep in mind that our newly renovated space would soon feel like home too. We went over the benefits:
- One meeting room
- One quiet room
- An open space
- A kitchen
Not many rooms, which meant we needed to use the furniture wisely and create visual barriers. Our solution: shelves filled with plants.
We highlighted the space layout by placing shelves filled with plants to separate the workspace from the chilling/playing area and kitchen.
Ping-pong table, kitchen, and chilling area all in the same space separated by shelves.
— — — — — — — Our meeting room — — — — — — — —
Finally, I’ll just leave the before and after pictures here.
Final Words
In the end, this was a very successful transformation that required a minor initial investment, plenty of time from all of us, and a solid vision.
The reward of a new office which was tailor-made to fit the team’s needs was worth leaving the old office behind and worth the time it took for planning and execution.
We’ve did it! We saved ourselves 50 percent of the cost we were paying before for an even prettier office just by thinking outside of the box.
