staff lounge

I've been a very busy girl. In conjunction with our big admin off remodel,  I was given the task of designing our new staff lounge. Here's the sadness of what used to be:

Five tired Jappling arm chairs, a coffee table, and sad tv (with a huge lack of cord management). Yeah, it was nothing to brag about, especially since we work at IKEA. The back of the house was definitely neglected, so with the opportunity for a remodel, I definitely wanted to spice things up a bit and show our co-workers a little luxury. I also wanted to incorporate more seating well beyond five people.

Here's a photo of the room once after the flooring was stripped. Below you'll see that a new wall was installed underneath the header on the left wall.

My manager and I collaborated to choose the wall color. A vast improvement over the original wall color, eh? The focal wall is Olive Moss and the left and right walls are Deep Silver - both by Benjamin Moore. And because I love doing elevations, I thought I would share some of them with you, so here are a few in conjunction with my photos.

Since the tv has always been / will always be the focal point of the lounge, I decided to hang it lower on the wall so that it would be more ergonomically correct, and designed a grid pattern behind it to make it look more custom. 

By adding a bar, not only were we able to increase the seating for the space, we were also able to somewhat discourage eating inside the lounge. Has that worked out? Well, kind of. Lots of people actually eat at the bar, but drink spillage, left behind glasses, and snack wrappers are still an issue inside the actual room. Our team is thoroughly frustrated that co-workers would continue to treat our workplace as if they have maids cleaning up after them, but I guess you can't really raise your adult co-workers, now can you? (Hops off soap box)

I used the Maskros pendants help to balance out the the tv, and true to form, they bounce beautiful shadows around the room. I went with all leather furniture for durability and just a few accent pillows to sprinkle the colors from the print around the room.You would not believe how many co-workers asked me if we sell this print! It definitely stopped people in their tracks. It was introduced into the range last August, and truth be told, I would totally get it for our apartment if only we had a place for it...

Here's a shot of the Karlstad tufted loveseat against the custom bar. The PS nesting tables were greatly needed to help break up the black.  Plus, who doesn't love a nice pop of red?

 

A little close-up of some pretty things.

For the other side I decided to do an installation with Honefoss mirrors. I arrived at the decision mostly because I had never seen them used in one of our roomsettings. I must admit that they came out nicely, although they were a pain to apply. It turns out that every mirror in a package isn't exactly the same size, so the spacing between each will be slightly irregular. Caution - once they're on, they're not coming off! They are absolutely a design commitment. I would not recommend them for a rental. (You have been warned.) Anyhoo, I used them to design an asymmetrical shape that when viewed sideways actually turns out to be symmetrical to allow for a custom graphic - you'll see it applied below a little further down.

One thing my Com-In manager warned me about during the schematic phase of this project was to use as few side tables as possible in order to limit the accumulation of drinks and random glasses. I liked the idea of using the IKEA PS side tables next to the Mellby chairs for balance, but not necessarily for drinks, so I made them into cell phone charging stations. Before, our co-workers used one a random outlet in the staff cafe to charge their cell phone, so quad outlets on either side of the lounge is a dramatic improvement. 

 Here's the custom graphic I referenced earlier. I Googled the word "relax" and "Slappna" came up, but my lovely Swedish co-worker set me straight with the "av" at the end. Swedish lesson anyone?

The biggest thanks goes out to all of my amazing co-workers who helped me implement this space! You guys are the best and I couldn't have gotten it all done without you! So readers, now that you have toured the space where we took a sad, little lounge for 5 and turned it into sophisticated space for up to 14. What do you think?