We are so excited to take you inside our office today, the place where all the magic happens, and where we get all of the behind the scenes work done on the daily here at c2s.
We recently did a little refresh, and we called in the troops from Style + Dwell and mdesign to help us bring this space together and get it organized the right way. And we couldn’t be happier!!
And best of all, we are already feeling so much more productive being in a much more organized space. Less mess to muddle through means less time it takes to get jobs done. So not only are we sharing our latest refresh with ya guys, but we’re also going to walk you through our office organizing tips and tricks that we learned through these wonderful teams to make for a more productive day!
We started renting our space downtown Elk River a few years back with our friends and colleagues, Northface Construction. And a few months ago, due to their growing team, they moved out, and we took over and thought it’s about time to get it a bit more organized!
So we put together our mood board and office inspo and got to work!
Declutter
Our first recommendation when it comes to getting your spaced cleaned up is to purge your office and get rid of all the stuff!
Our office was a disorganized hot mess!! So before we went crazy buying everything, the first thing we did was declutter to figure out what we didn’t need and what we could still utilize so we didn’t buy things we already had.
We realized we had all of these samples that we never wanted any client to spec. Why did we have them laying around if they weren’t going to get used? So we tossed them out. We also realized we had tons of notebooks that we were never going to use and hundreds of resources from brands that we had duplicates of and only showed one at a time, so we handed them over to colleagues.
Before we dive into the details, as you can see, we went from a messy, disorganized room…to lots of baskets and organized storage.
Create a Space that Reflects & Inspires YOU
When thinking about your office space, you want to create a space that reflects you! A space that makes you happy, gives you life, and gets those creative juices flowing.
One of my favorite pieces of advice that I got from my friend Mercedes Austin, the owner of Mercury Mosaics, is, “Create a space you love, and your life will launch off of that.” Jordan painted this quote on a wall in our office so that it’s a daily reminder for us.
She told me this quote when we were remodeling our kitchen and I couldn’t agree more! Now that we are creating our happy place in our home, doing things we love, I’m more energized and content when I’m simply at home. And I wanted the same vibe for our office.
And that even goes for the pieces you put into your office space, think intentionally, and bring in things that motivate and empower you. One of my favorite things in our space is our coffee mugs. You wouldn’t know it but each of them inspire and motivate me and make me think of things that keep me going. The one in the middle there, that was the one that my dad drank his coffee out of at work. The one on the right is from a presentation we gave to middle schoolers.
These things might not match or be pretty, but all of these things in our coffee bar station have a story to tell and were placed there intentionally to create our happy space.
And you guys know I’m all about the gallery walls, so of course we created one in our office space with a collage of our projects and team. Every day I look at them, it puts a big smile on my face!
Clear off Your Desk
Another big and simple thing that we often forget to do, clear off your desk! Our desks were piling high and we didn’t even realize it.
We also went to IKEA and got a couple of their white desks, and I feel like that makes you want to keep your desk a little bit cleaner!
Gather & Redistribute
- The first tip is to always take everything out before organizing and go through what you own. You’ll always find items that you no longer need that can either be donated or discarded. With the office, we found this to be true with a lot of the samples. Same thing when we moved onto the stationery and paper as well.
- When you’re ready to put everything back: create a system that makes sense and one that is easy to remember. This will keep you organized in the long term, and it gives everything a dedicated place.
Create Zones
The other big thing we did was to create work, play, and storage zones. Before bringing Style + Dwell in and mdesign, we had everything flowing from one room to the other. We didn’t have designated zones for anything. So we officially decided to create our sample room, our office room, and keep the main area to client meetings, which you know requires a coffee station, wine bar, and some quick and easy samples to pull down! Now each square foot of our office has a zone.
Invest in the Right Storage
This was a big one that I knew we needed to do, but never took the time to do my research and bite the bullet and buy! Yet again, thanks to Style + Dwell and mdesign, they took good care of us and took all of this off our hands.
mdesign’s products are AMAZING, and we couldn’t be more happy with them. They were super easy to put together, and now that we’ve been utilizing them for a couple of months, we’ve realized how durable and what good quality they are.
Their Natural Woven Storage Cube Basket Bins – Seagrass are some of our favorites! This is what we have here in all of our cubbies. And they’re the perfect color and pretty stylish if you ask us.
The metal storage bins also came from mdesign and are our favorite! We love the mix of metal and wicker containers together.
Another goodie that we used for the small tile samples was their lazy susan turntable, the perfect organizer for any hard to reach place but also something that you need easily accessible.
Baskets are Key
Our favorite thing about basket storage containers is that you can easily quickly pull out, grab and go! And they look pretty great styled on any shelf, floor, or cabinetry.
We have our baskets loaded with not only samples organized by colors, shapes and patterns that we can pull out for our clients when going over designs but also filled with office stationary and files that we can quickly pull out and are organized within.
Don’t Overload with Knick Knacks
This is a big one that you probably don’t realize, but keep in mind, the more stuff I have, the more stress it causes me. It’s easy to get little gifts from events, clients, brands, and keep it even when it does nothing for you.
One of the easiest things you can do is get rid of the knick-knacks, and things that don’t have a purpose in your professional life. My rule of thumb is if it’s not meaningful to you, and it doesn’t inspire you – get rid of it!
This is about the only knick-knack type things we now have in our office, and it might not look like it, but they all have a meaning, purpose and inspire us!
Add a Peg Board
We’re all about the peg boards! We have them in our home, workshop and now office. We like to call it our work bench and they don’t have to be a boring one either. We’re all about painting ours and for our office we painted it in one of our favorite 2020 colors of the year, called First Light.
Peg Boards are such an easy way to keep things off of your desk, organized and also fun way to add some inspo such as with quotes, pictures, and printables.
Be Comfortable, But Not too Comfortable
On top of creating a space that you love and inspires you, you need to remember that you want it to be comfortable to stay productive! But not too comfy. One of the favorite things we invested in was our mauve comfy chairs. Not only do they make Jordan and I so happy to see them every day, but they’re pretty comfy too!
Shop our Office
metal storage bins | natural woven storage cube | lazy susan turntable | mauve velvet upholstered office chair | bar cart island | bench | gray cube storage | white desks | pillows | marble & gold table | rust channel back slipper chair | jute runner | office rug, out of stock – similar one | letter tray | cork board | letter board | plants | terra cotta pots | storage jars
This transformation of the workplace looks very attractive, I am sure that it is very comfortable to work here. But I am more inclined to think that productivity is influenced by those factors that affect internal work processes. Organized documents and automated workflows can have a greater impact on team productivity.