Laminate Office Desks

Laminate office desks

Laminate office desks come in many shapes, colors and sizes.

The core construction of a wood desk is generally a particle board, fiberboard or some sort of other wood. More often then not it is a particle board.

Then a layer of laminate is put over the particle board for the finished look. One of the keys to make sure that you get a long lasting laminate office desk that does not peel is to assure it is a high quality manufacturing process. Laminate office furniture has come a long way over the last few decades, and the process that is used to make the desk is the key.

Another important aspect of a laminate office desks the edge detail. Around the top of the desk, you can get many different edge styles.

One type of edge is the self edge, which is a band of laminate that surrounds the edge of the office desk and makes a square edge. The problem with this is that there is a seam between the top of the desk and the edge, which can come apart or peel over time.

Another edge is a t-mold edge which is a rubber like edge that has a flat or rounded side to it. On the back side is a strip that comes out of it to form the T. The work surface top is routed on the edge and the T part of the T-Mold fits into that routed slot. This make it easy to replace in the field if needed, but this can come apart as there is a seam as well. However it can be pushed back into place.

PVC edge is perhaps one of my favorite edge styles from a durability standpoint. PVC edge is generally thermally fused on to the work surface and comes just slightly over the top of the office desk and seals the laminate under it. A PVC edge does not peel, and it holds the laminate in place and provides a durable long lasting edge. If you had a choice to pay a little more for a PVC edge over a T-mold or Self Edge then I would say go with the PVC edge.

Wood Edge is another favorite of mine, but you need to make sure it is a hardwood. A wood edge adds to the aesthetic value of your office desk or work surface by providing a natural look. It will be durable, but keep in mind that as with any wood you can damage it. Again, if I had to pay extra for a wood edge, I would go for it because the aesthetic look combined with the durability is what makes this one of the best choices.

Office Desks

Office desks today come in many shapes, sizes, colors, and product compositions.

Today we are going to focus on wood desks.

I often get asked do you sell real wood office desks? I think that what people are asking me if we have solid wood office desks. Meaning was it all built from a block of wood such as pure maple or cherry wood all the way through. A real solid wood desk is very expensive.

That is why you will most likely be looking at a wood veneer desk.

Wood veneer is a thin layer of wood that you see on the outside of an office desk. Underneath that wood veneer could be particle board, fiberboard or some sort of layered wood such as plywood.

The wood veneer on an office desk comes from real wood, but it is a thin layer of wood, that will show the natural variations of the tree.

The wood veneer finishes are an important component on the office desk. Since it is real wood on the top you want to make sure that you have a hard stain coat to assure that you have proper protection of the veneer. Then you want to make sure it is topped off with a varnish application, and then that it is cured to assure you have the best protection possible. Ideally you want this done for all exposed surfaces.

While a hard cured finish is essential, having a desk pad and coaster is still a must to assure that your wood office desk keeps it original look as long as possible.

Reception Area Design-Carpet Tiles

It is a smart move to incorporate carpet tiles into your reception area design.  Carpet tiles often called “modular carpet tiles” in the design industry have become widely recommended by thousands of professionals for many reasons.

The main advantage of using the carpet tile option over your typical “broadloom” carpet roll is that as they wear out over years of heavy use, you can easily replace them, without having to redo the whole reception area space.

As you can imagine, the carpet where you get all the traffic will wear out much faster than in areas without traffic. As these get worn out and dirty, you can easily remove those existing tiles and place down new ones.

Carpet tiles come in various sizes and styles. They are offered in circular, square and rectangular overall shapes with thousands for patterns available. Sizes can vary from 12″x 12″ to 36″x 36″- depending on which sizes would best fit your reception space. When these tiles are laid out for installation they can be laid to various patterns customized to your space (without the custom costs).  This really gives your space an unique designer touch!

One important thing to remember to if you are going to be using modular carpet tiles is to order extra tiles when you plan your reception area flooring.  The typical suggested overage is about 5-10%. This allows you to have an easier convenience when the carpet tiles are in need of replacement years to come.

Office Space Design, Cause & Effect

When you are planning an office space, whether it be the whole office space, an individual office, the conference room, or the reception area there is one thing to remember, something that you probably learned in school many years ago.

Newton’s 3rd law states;  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Since this law holds true in everything, it most certainly applies to office interior design.

So let’s say you want to update your conference room.  You get new a new conference table, but you do not update the walls, ceiling and carpet at the same time, or the chairs for that matter.  What will it look like?  Well the conference table will look nice.  But the rest of the room will look worse than before.  This points back to Newton’s 3rd law.  The action that was taken was to get a new conference table.  The equal and opposite reaction is that the rest of the space looks worse because the newness of the conference table is reflecting the outdated carpet, walls, ceiling and lighting of the conference room.

This is why planning an office space is so crucial to do ahead of time, instead of trying to just update it with a band-aid apporach.  If your office furniture needs updating,  chances are that the rest of that space does as well.

Conference Room Tables

Conference room tables come in many different sizes and shapes.   It is important to make sure you can get it to your conference room as well!

Standard conference room tables come in sizes starting at 6′, and go in 2′ increments.  You can in theory get a table as long as you want. Generally speaking any table that is over 8′ long, you will want it to be a 2 piece table so that it is easier to move.  As you get larger than 16′, you will need to have 3 or more pieces for the table.   Many elevators are not big enough to hold conference room tables longer than 8 feet, and sometimes not even an 8′ table will fit.    Stairwells have a lot of turns, and as the table gets larger you may not be able to make the turn with conference table when it is longer than 8′ feet.

Now there is an old folk tale that is talked about in the industry about conference tables.

Once upon a time there was a company that was on the top floor of a sky scraper in New York.  The CEO of this  company wanted a big,  once piece conference table for his board room.  Legend has it the table was about twenty five feet long.  Of course every time this tale is told the table gets longer.   In order to get this table to the board room, the glass of the conference room window had to be removed and a crane was used to get the table to the conference room through that window.  The CEO got his conference table for his board room and everyone lived happily ever after.

So be advise that when it comes to conference tables, size does matter.  Be sure before you buy a conference room table that you have figured out a way to get your table into your space.

Office Space Build Out

Interior designers can take an office space, make that any space and plan it out for you. They will use software to design a floor plan to meet the needs of your particular business. Once the desired floor plan is achieved, the next step is to start getting construction documents made. Part of this process is having a licensed architect stamp off on the drawings before these documents are created.

Now you may ask why not have an architect do the planning of the build out for your space?

Well there are several reasons to work directly with an interior designer instead of an architect on your office build out.

First, interior designers are specially trained to do the interior of spaces, hence their title. While architects are capable of doing the interior design, architects generally do not focus on the interiors, but usually focus on the building as a whole. Having a specialist like an interior designer design the interior will give you a better overall design of your space. I would compare and contrast an interior designer and an architect to the medical field. You would go to your general doctor if you had a problem with your shoulder. The doctor would then send you to see a specialist who deals with shoulders all the time, also known as a specialist.

The same is true for office space design. You should see a specialist when it comes to designing the interior of your space.

Second, your office, medical or reception space will need to have someone who is trained to assist you in selecting a color scheme for your space. An interior designer is trained to be able to design your space to look and feel great. By using the proper colors, your space will be a desired place to be.

Finally, you should consider hiring an interior designer because of the cost savings. You can get an interior designer to create a floor plan and layout for your office space build out much less expensive then you can an architect. This might be the best reason to make sure that you explore this avenue for your office space build out.

Medical Reception Area Design

The medical office space reception area gets a lot of traffic, and the reception area design is crucial to the  flow and efficiency of patients, as well as their psyche.

As a patient walks in the reception area, they have to check in with the reception desk, and then take a seat and wait to be called to go back to the patient room.   Then that patient has to check out when they are done.   When this is all done in the reception area, it can get chaotic if it does not flow properly, and if there is any slight delay and patients start to back up, the chaos can become apparent.  Throw in current Hippa privacy laws and you can more issues then I even want to cover here in this rant!

An often over looked aspect of the reception area design is the way it presents itself.  If it is sterile and boring, it will irritate patients as they wait for their appointment.  Especially if their appointment time has come and gone and they are not yet taken to see the doctor.  Creating a pleasing atmosphere will help temper patients attitudes as they wait for their turn to see the doctor.

An interior designer is not only able to help you systematically control this chaos, but will also make your space look great in achieving that goal.  Sure you could buy chairs and pick out some paint & carpet colors for your space and “doctor” it up yourself.  But did you go to  school and get a degree in interior design?  A professional knows the value of hiring a professional.

A great medical practice that truly cares about comfort of their patients would spend a little extra money to get it done right.  They would hire a specialist, that is an interior designer to design the reception area.  Just as a patience sees a specialist because of their experience and expertise to help with an ailment or disease, an interior designer is your specialist to design your medical office practice space.

The choice is yours.  Good or Great.

Designer or do it yourself!!!

Interior Designer For Your Office Space

Hiring a professional interior designer to plan your office space is a great way to assure that your space lives up to it’s potential.  An interior designer is trained to make sure that your space is functional, and looks great.  Spaces that look great takes planning.

An interior designer is trained to make sure that your office space layout is functional for your business operational needs, that your colors scheme works and looks awesome, & to ensure proper implementation of your project occurs.
When planning your space, not only do you want to make sure that you meet your space requirements, but it is also important at that time to plan what the final outcome of the space should look & feel like.    After the planning and design is complete, the fun begins with the Create phase. It is in the create stage that your space gets created and you have a finished product.

The create stage of any project is where the rubber meets the road.  If you have planned properly and taken the time to make the investment in the design of your new space, the create stage should be a smooth process.  But it is in this stage that you want to make sure that your interior designer is also the project manager.  The designer who helped you plan and design your space, will assure that you get the finished space just as planned.   The project becomes the designers baby, it’s her pride and joy.  It is a reflection of her hard work.  A great interior designer will make sure that the project is done right, is on budget and on time.

Interior designers are not in this business on accident.  They love what they do, and take great joy in seeing their design implemented.  An interior deisgner has an internal love for design.  They see things differently than the average person.

Interior Designers vs Decorators

Interior design professionals are not in this business on accident.  They love what they do, and take great joy in seeing their design implemented.  An interior designer has an internal love for design, and they have invested in their love for design.

Let’s talk about what separates an interior designer from a “decorator”.

A sure way to offend an interior designer is to call her a decorator.  It is like calling a psychologist a counselor.  Or a CPA a bookkeeper.  Like counselors & bookkeepers, decorators can be anyone who hangs out a shingle.

A professional interior designer has a bachelor degree in interior design, and take their profession seriously.  There are interior design school such as Harrington College in Chicago that offer degrees in design.

A decorator can be anyone who says they are a decorator.  Now I have nothing against decorators nor do I think designers look down on them, however they are not professionally trained.  Interior designers spend a minimum of four years in college, and some go on to get master degrees in design.

So if you are a professional, or have a company, you may want to make sure that you have a professional interior designer designing your space.

Or you could just hire anyone to do the job!

Reception Area Seating & Chairs

Since your reception area is the “living room” of your office space, it is important to make sure that you have seating that is  professional, stylish & comfortable.

Who sits in this “Living Room”?

It is your customers, vendors and other visitors to your company.  It is from this seating area that the visitors of your business start forming an opinion of your company and the owner.  If the visitor is sitting in a plain old chair, the impression is going to say “we are just another plain old company” at best.

However if a forward thinking owner cares what his visitors think of the company he/she will make the investment to assure that the seating is comfortable and elegant for their guests.  In a medical reception area waiting room, this should be the rule not the exception!

In a medical practice reception area, patients, let’s call them clients, are often waiting for long periods of time.  To top it off, chances are they have some sort of ailment that has sent them to your medical practice.  By making an investment in seating to assure that your clients are comfortable, you will give your clients peace of mind that they are at a doctor’s office that cares about their patients.

The best way to achieve this:

Plan the reception area for the patients, not for the doctors.