How Do You Arrange Furniture In A Small Office?
Just as we arrange that beautiful furniture in your apartment, you must also pay close attention to how you should arrange furniture in your small office.
Yeah, how you arrange your office tells so much about your level of productivity and motivation towards your work.
A small office space, some say, usually makes them feel confined and makes it tedious to get things done around the round.
That’s not true. The problem is not space, but the furniture arrangement, which leads us to the question before us “how do you arrange furniture in a small office?”
In this regard, this article is an in-depth, step-by-step guide tailored to walk you through how you should arrange furniture in a small office.
Sound’s good? Let’s dive into it.
Clean Up and Clear Out
The first step is to think about making the most out of your small office space is cleaning up.
Go through all those boxes, files, folders, and anything laying around and discard anything that is no longer of use to you.
You have to focus on anything in the space that doesn’t contribute to your productivity or work.
If you’re always on a busy schedule throughout the week, you can fix a date on a quiet Friday or Saturday to clean out the mess.
For those that work with a team, you can make the process even more fun and organizing a pizza and clean-up session on a weekend.
Think Paperless
When arranging furniture in your small office, you need to start thinking paperless – by that, I mean you need to pay close attention to the volume of paper you’re printing and storing.
You don’t want those paper files to start competing with the space for the furniture, so we recommend converting paper files into digital files with the help of a hard drive.
Doing that will make the space you would have used to store files available for the furniture, plus it also keeps your small office looking professional and neat.
We understand that they are some essential paper files, those are the only kind you have to store.
Analyze the Office Layout
Once you’ve cleaned up the office and everything looks in order, it’s time to take a close look at the small space you intend to arrange your furniture.
You can use tape to measure out space in the office, so you’ll know the strength and limitation of the space you’ll be working with.
When analyzing the small office layout, you have to consider the windows.
Does the small office space have a large window?
If it does, you can emphasize the windows to make the room less confined. Drawing out some furniture designs can also play a vital part in making the most out of the space.
Consider Your Workspace Needs
When you’re done analyzing the small office layout, you have to go back to the drawing board to consider how you intend to use your office space after you’ve placed the furniture.
Do you need individual desks? Or are you likely to share your desks if you’re someone that works with a team?
You also have to consider your storage needs and the amount of movement that will be going through the workspace – to ensure easy mobility.
Yeah, we’ve heard many people say that there don’t know how to make the most out of their small office space.
The fact is, all it takes most times is a little bit of creativity and flexibility – you must be willing to try something new.
You must be willing to ask yourself questions like, do I need to use this set of furniture? Are there any better and more potable fit that can serve the same purpose?
For example, most businesses have switched from having a dedicated desk for each team member to a simple “hot desk” system.
There are several options out there you can explore to make the most out of your small office space for a comfortable workspace.
There are some key small office space design principles that you’ll want to consider when improving your office workspace.
Natural Lighting
When arranging furniture for small office space, light is one crucial thing you have to consider.
Research has revealed that natural light helps a lot when it comes to productivity, so it’s best to place the furniture in areas close to the source of natural lightening like the windows. It will even make the room feel more spacious.
Nevertheless, if your office space doesn’t have natural lighting, artificial lights can also get the job done. But it’s vital that you reduce shadows and also brighten dark corners in the office space.
Another thing you also need to consider when arranging your furniture is that the placement of indoor lightings like lamps shouldn’t be far away from the furniture.
Placing lamps or indoor lighting close to the furniture will help curb out the issue of eye strains, primarily if you or your team always work long or late hours.
Compact office desks
One way to arrange furniture in a small office is to make sure you’re using a compact office desk.
Even though larger furniture or desk tend to offer extra room for work and more storage space, a compact office desk remains the best piece of furniture for a small office.
You will still get plenty of ample space and good storage options instead of placing large furniture in the area.
If you’re placing furniture for your small home office, you can take advantage of slim-built desks, which are specially designed for home office use.
They provide a considerable amount of space for efficient work and fit into the most confined space because they are usually 600mm-800mm wide.
One desk (furniture) should be enough if you’re working alone. If you work with a team, you can arrange banks of these furniture types in the workspace.
Another great way to arrange furniture in your small office is to make use of a standing desk to have more workspace.
For example, a sit-standing desk like the Scandinavian design is easily adjustable, offering more flexibility as you go about your work every cramping it up with large furniture.
There are many lightweight office space designs in local retail outlets and online shops, like small corner disks and mobile office furniture that are multipurpose and flexible.
Office chairs
Asides from your desk, another thing you’ll have to take into consideration when arranging furniture in a small office is the chairs.
An ergonomic office chair is the best to use for any office, especially for small office space. They are specifically designed to fit into confined space and also help improve your posture, which is beneficial to your health if you work long hours.
Asides from that, an ergonomic chair will blend well with a compact desk because the furniture will help manage the space in your office efficiently when compared to other types of furniture.
You wouldn’t want your furniture to get in the way of the computer cables or wires, because that can lead to accidental disasters while working.
To avoid that, you can use a cable tray or cable management port to keep all the computer cable safe and secure while you arrange the furniture.
Asides from that they are also some desks designed with a built-in cable management port in their legs, like the cantilever desk, to make things easier while arranging the furniture.
Consider monitor mobility
Now that you’ve got the basic setup for the furniture in your small office, it wouldn’t be out of place if you considered a mobile monitor.
Using adjustable monitors will help manage your office space because you won’t have to move furniture from time to time.
Using adjustable furniture will give you more flexibility when you want to move things around your office.
There are adjustable monitors that you can easily clamp to the edge of your compact desk.
Alternatively, if you have the furniture (desk) against a wall, you could consider wall mounting it permanently on the wall, which will help save your desk space.
Take advantage of vertical space
Yeah, we know storage is suitable for any office, but that doesn’t mean you have to clutter up the office with bulky units.
Instead of arranging bulky furniture units across the office, you can make the most out of your small office through the vertical space opened to you.
A perfect way to utilize a vertical space is to invest in a desk that offers a considerable amount of shelves and storage above it.
This type of furniture arrangement is designed to offer an all-in-one small office management, built with a study and work area, cable, and storage management option while still sleek and compact.
If your kind of business does require a lot of storage space, you can use implore furniture like a tall cupboard or narrow standalone filing cabinets, which will help save important floor space.
Give space between furniture
Everyone is often guilty of the mistake of letting their furniture a little cluttered, especially during the arrangement.
Though bigger offices are unlikely to experience this because of the extra space available, you can also do something by spacing the furniture a bit when arranging.’
Doing this will not only curb out the problem of a stuffy office but will also extend to ensure some sense of good mobility in the office, especially if you’re not working alone.
It’s crucial to give spaces at least 4m between furniture during your arrangement in a small office.
Don’t think that space between furniture will consume the space, because you won’t be putting large furniture in the office.
Like we’ve earlier mentioned, all furniture coming in must be compact and simple, allowing you to create some space between them.
Interior Designer
We understand that not many people have the creativity skills like those of a commercial designer when it comes to arranging furniture in small office spaces.
Asides from that, the price to hire a commercial interior designer to help you arrange your furniture can be expensive, which some startup businesses cannot afford.
So, to give you a bit of edge when arranging furniture for a small office, you can take advantage of free layout software like MagicPlan, Room Sketcher, and SmartDraw.
This layout software can help you have a visual layout on how you can minimize your office space.
Nevertheless, if you have the budget, you can hire an interior designer’s professional help to efficiently manage your small office space.
Interior designers will help you with your small office layout’s core element, and design includes lighting, ergonomics, storage, functionality, and organization.
CONCLUSION
Overall, we’re positive that this article has helped provide an in-depth insight into how you can arrange furniture in a small office space so that you can make the most out of your workspace.
Asides from that, you must also be willing to keep your office neat at all times because untidiness is one of the reasons that makes you think a small office is too clustered.
You can do this by decluttering your furniture like the desk every morning by clearing out all the files you no longer need on your desk.
A great option for this is a desk cluster designed with in-built storage to help make your organization easier.
Furthermore, when arranging furniture on a small office space, try to always keep the focus on your business needs and your personal needs so that you can keep your productivity in check.
This will help you have the perfect small office space that motivates and inspires your work.