Sizing up Your Private Office

In general, I can walk into a room and before I take any measurements I can tell you roughly how much furniture will fit in that room. More importantly, I can tell you how much furniture will not fit.

The Case of the Private Office
I met with a client that wanted to design their new office. One item they really wanted to focus on was the executive offices.

Existing office floor plan

Floor plan w/requested additions that fit (barely)

Now, these were good-sized executive offices, but they weren’t the size of William Parrish’s private office in Meet Joe Black. Or Samantha’s private office in Sex in the City. My client’s office was about 175 square feet and it had an L-shaped desk, a task chair and two guest chairs in front of the desk. A decent-sized office, but not as big as he imagined it to be.

The goal was to make his office seem a bit more welcoming and comfortable so my client wanted to add a sofa, accent chair, coffee table and end table. He actually already picked out the sofa—a Chesterfield found online (which actually didn’t even meet code for a commercial space, but I digress….)

I immediately told the client that’s not going to fit.

This was the part of the conversation where the client didn’t believe me (even though I literally do this everyday for a living) and asked why. And then proceeded to tell me that he thought I was mistaken.

I asked for the link to the sofa and checked the dimensions.

I paced out how tight the space would become. The client needed to choose between two guest chairs OR a loveseat, accent chair, coffee table and end table. But there’s no way we could fit all 6 pieces in that room.

I don’t like being the bad guy. Really, I don’t. But I’d rather be the bad guy at this point in the process, rather than blindly order a sofa because my client liked it and then realize it doesn’t fit during delivery and then need to deal with customer service and hope they provide my client with a full refund.

Typically, when I feel a bit of pushback from a client on something I know will not work, I don’t bother arguing about it. I usually draft up a design to show to the client. The to-scale floor plan doesn’t lie.

As you can see in the updated floor plan even with the guest chairs removed, it’s tight. You barely have room to scoot past the desk with only 1’-0 1/2” clearance. The office wouldn’t feel comfortable or inviting. It would just feel cramped.

The Solution
Have a scaled furniture plan drafted with the actual furniture that you intend to use in your office space. It’s preferable that this is done before you even move in. Many floor plans that aren’t drawn by interior designers show just the walls, windows and door openings—and not a stick of furniture! And you’d be surprised how many I see without any dimensions. When you depend on furniture to comfortably do your job, that floor plan isn’t complete unless it has furniture in it.

Although, I can generally tell what will fit into a space the sizing of something like an accent chair varies a great deal depending on the style. That’s why we don’t use placeholder blocks for a proposed design, we check the specifications and draft the furniture to size—that’s the only way to ensure that it will fit properly in the room There are also other things to think about. Circulation around furniture and leg room being some of the most important considerations.

If you’re moving to a new office space or updating your current space I’d invite you to schedule a free information session phone call, there are so many ways we can help.

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