How to choose the right office furniture
Whether you run your own business from home, or you manage an office for a much bigger company, the time usually comes when you need to order new office furniture. The choices available of modern office furniture are so many and varied that it’s a good idea to have a few restrictions before you start looking, otherwise who knows what fantastical furniture you could end up buying!
Restrict your budget
Throwing your entire budget at your office furniture may not be good for the near future. If you set a certain amount for the project, list the essential items, and stick to both list and budget, happiness will surely be yours. Better still, looking at furniture that can be used for more than one thing will give you more for your money.
How will it be used?
Multifunctional equipment doesn’t have to mean an all-singing-all-dancing photocopier-scanner-coffee-maker. It can be as simple and space-saving as a desk that contains a small, lockable filing cabinet, or one that conveniently extends to enable the office to be converted into a board room when needed.
Space, the not-so-final frontier
How much space you have really does dictate how much furniture you can have. Getting the measurements right can be tricky, and translating those into a catalogue of furniture is even harder. Scale drawing may seem like a ridiculous amount of effort for the sake of getting the right furniture, but they can be extremely useful, especially if you and your co-workers have a tiny office to play in. Additionally, estimating the space correctly will save having to send everything back later.
Get it right, now
Nobody really knows for sure where they or their business will be in a few years, but keeping the future in mind when you order your furniture gives you a slightly longer rein. For example, buying quality desks made from solid wood, and good ergonomically-designed chairs will save you money in the long term because you won’t have to replace them every couple of years.
Choose a theme, and stick with it
Themed furniture can encourage productivity amongst the people who work there, so bright colours with funky designs are great for bohemian or creative companies. Utilitarian furniture doesn’t have to be ugly, and can come with space-age style or be traditionalist and wooden. On the other hand, if it’s only you who uses the office, you can style it according to whatever you like, provided it does the jobs you need. It’s worth remembering, however, the very nature of ‘trend’ is inclined to change, so the designer pods or pebble-shaped breakout stools that look cool this year may not be so rad in two years time.
Get comfy, it’s going to be a long one
One of the most crucial aspects, certainly when choosing seating, is one of comfort. If you can’t spend around 8 hours a day in your chair because it makes your back ache, or if it’s a kneeling chair that causes your knees to crack and your hips to feel wonky, it doesn’t matter how cool it looks, the choice will be a bad one.
All in all, if you can take into consideration any number of these ideas, it should enable you to restrict your choices adequately to make a few excellent, long-lasting decisions on office furniture.
Author Bio – Sakina Murdock writes professionally about aspects of interior design, and is a regular contributor to and researcher on websites such as http://www.calibre-furniture.co.uk.