Where do you spend more time than in your own home? Likely, your office. So needless to say, it is very important that you take as much care in designing it as you would your own home.
We recently were invited to take over the loft space of Okanagan Hardwood in Kelowna. It overlooks the main showroom and was previously being used as an office and a catch-all for carpet and flooring samples. Our challenges were that it wasn’t as big as I would have liked – we had 400 Square feet to work with – and it had a horrific textured ceiling that I couldn’t live with.
When you are designing a studio for an Interior Design company you need to keep a couple things in mind. The first thing is that it needs to have a tremendous amount of storage. We carry a large variety of samples for our various projects. It’s important to have easy access to everything without it looking like a cluttered mess. In our previous studio we had some custom shelving units that I wanted to reuse in the new space – but we were going to have to be creative to make it look like it was built for this space.
We brought in Cory from Creative Woodwork to help us. He built the original components, and with the direction of my cabinetry expert – and designer extraordinaire – Alyx Walsh – they came up with all of the missing pieces. Not only did it look intentional, but it was so chic. We had space for all of our furniture catalogues and finishes, as well as our fabric, wallpaper and rug samples. Plus, and maybe more importantly, we managed to squeeze in a fridge (for wine…Ok and water) and a coffee maker. That made me very happy.
We also needed desks for each of our designers. We are quite mobile, so we are not often all in the office at the same time. I wanted 4 workspaces that could be shared if necessary. We did one wall of desks and brought in two large computer screens that we can all use if we want to present something to a client, or if we need a larger font because of our aging eyes – yes I’m talking only about myself now.
We wanted to have a different finish on the desks than the rest of the cabinetry – which was dark, so we went with a lighter wood grain melamine surface. I love how it turned out.
Because we work on projects as a team, and also because we meet with our clients around house plans and finish samples, we needed a large island to function as a workspace. Pure Granite Rocks in Vernon installed a fabulous Caesarstone countertop for us. Just like when you have guests over at your home, everyone always sits at that island. I love how collaborative it is. And the island has so much storage. Fashion and function – that’s my motto.
As for the textured ceiling, that I hated, we brought in Zach Dejong, our project manager, to save the day. He and Jason Lowery- of Lowery Construction, managed to drywall over the offensive finish, and add in pot lights in all the right places. As you can imagine, lighting is very important in our job. If we aren’t properly lit we will have a terrible time puting finishes together. The ceiling changes made such an enormous difference to our space.
We are Hunter Douglas Blind dealers and I wanted to be able to properly showcase them. We added in an incredible Luminette blind in our studio. As I mentioned our studio overlooks Okanagan Hardwood Floors. There is only a half glass wall separating us. We love that we can see into the showroom, but when we installed the Luminette it did two things.
The first is it gave us a bit more privacy and actually reduced the noise. The second is that it looked so glamorous. That’s a win win as far as I’m concerned. We put 11 other styles of Hunter Douglas blinds on the windows in the tile room below – all powered and in similar colours. I think it is the best way I’ve ever seen blinds displayed. It allows you to compare them all together. Truly a game changer.
Just below our loft we installed a wall of area rug samples. I find this to be a big challenge for people. You need a lot of options, and that requires a lot of samples. We showcase 75 samples in our display and we have at least that many more upstairs in our studio.
Lastly, being designers we need a little ‘wow’. I wanted all brushed gold hardware on our cabinetry. I love how warm the gold is – and the tones we have now are not as harsh as the gold we used in the past. And the crowning glory was the chandelier above our island. I work a lot with Kiersten Hincks at Pine Lighting. She puts up with all of my crazy lighting requests – I am constantly looking for statement pieces. Together she and I found an incredible fixture from Eurofase. Large blown glass orbs in three colours – clear, grey and amber. Truly the finishing touch.
I am so happy with the way it turned out. I love being there. And when you love where you are, and love what you do, you have the best recipe for success.
