New Office - Do I paint it, leave it, decorate it, or burn it?
9Okay, so I learned that we are a family. I hope to redeem myself by asking my new family the following (pics attached for reference):
I just moved to a new office. It's quite large but very sterile. I have a question, do I paint the walls something else, leave it the way it is, or decorate it with plush wall hangings and velvet Elvis pictures? Optionally, I could burn it and my landlord could collect insurance, but then I'd be without an office.
Thoughts? Especially from @lisaviolet, @sammydog01, @Thumperchick, @marklog, @DrunkCat, @sohmageek, @MEHcus, @mfladd, and @JonT if you're all still speaking to me. :-)
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(- 22 comments, 72 replies
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I think that dark blue is pretty nice and that light blue is pretty not nice. if you happen to like one of them more than the other, maybe you can get away with only painting half!
also that pencil sharpener definitely stays.
obviously velvis pictures still go everywhere (<--- sounds vaguely obscene)
@Lotsofgoats Awww, you saw my sweet-assed pencil sharpener? That is TOTALLY staying. It's got more shaved lead crammed in its old helical gears than a whole case full of Chinese baby formula.
@Lotsofgoats It looks greenish turquoise on my screen and dark evergreen. belch.
@ceagee Pretend I color corrected the images for fluorescent lighting. Which I did not. Which is why it's called "pretend." :)
I would DEFINITELY paint it! I love blue, but that just looks kinda "blah".. Is it just a home office, or something that customers and stuff will come into? I actually really like some shade of gray for an office, I know it's boring but I'm a fan of gray and it's pretty professional.. but I'm pretty bad at this.
@kadagan It's the second floor of a former home, but not a home office. Customers not likely to show up unless they're also friends I invite to poker parties (more likely to get people to show up at the new office than at the house, which is in a "Cabin in the Woods" country location).
@kadagan I've recently fallen in love with gray. I think that room would look nice if the yellow was gray. Just paint the doors and trim.
Now what shade of gray..........
@Teripie I'm thinking that's a good approach. The yellow, while "cheery" is a dreary yellow that also shows fingerprints on the bathroom door pretty easily. I'm thinking Storm Grey RGB #747880
@Marion14505 That looks good! As a trim, I think even a darker gray could look good.. Maybe like a gunmetal grey http://www.wargamestore.com/image.php?type=T&id=17312
I'm with @Teripie. I'm a huge fan of gray. Paint the walls a nice clean gray. It'll make everything else pop.
@kadagan I think you're right. I'd go with a darker gray. But then I'd be tempted to cover one of the blues with a light gray.
@hollboll Painted 3 of the 4 walls of my room gray, left one a flat white. Really nice vibes in there.
@hollboll FGFHGJFHG THE TV ISN'T CENTERED THIS IS A BAD THING WHO DID THIS
@connorbush Gray, at least pure grays, are not in my "favorite color swatch" catalog. I liked the darker blue, so would it be okay if I moved your gray to a blue-gray? Also, if that's an actual picture of your wall, then you have WAY MORE control than I do. Every horizontal surface in my current office is covered with something.
@Marion14505 I think this was meant for @hollboll
@Teripie If you had worked for the United States Navy for 36 years, you wouldn't want to see ANYTHING painted battleship gray ever again.
@Marion14505 Nah it wasn't my wall, just something I found on google. I'm stuck in a crappy apartment where I can't paint or really decorate.
Agree with @Lotsofgoats, keep the dark blue and lose the lighter shade. Also agree about velvis (I love this word!).
You know, and come to think of it, maybe you don't, this community did a fine job decorating the meh offices.
https://mediocre.com/forum/topics/the-end-of-seligman-pics-stats-and-a-wrap-up
Maybe we could help you.
@pitamuffin Totally LOVE the #seligman idea. Don't have $20,000 to spend on gift cards right now, and only 700 square feet to put stuff (not sure what we'd do with fertilizer AND beanbag chairs), but I like the idea. We may do something like that with our existing customers, and may do something like that with our meh family. THANKS FOR THE URL!
I think you should paint it purple.
@conandlibrarian I do like the deep blue (and that's where my desk of white board on top of storage bins is temporarily housed). Not so fond of the light blue. Maybe the light blue will get painted purple....hmmm.....
@Marion14505 yep, purple. 'nough said.
@Barney I love purple!
@juststephen Are you feeling okay?
I like the dark blue. I also like the light blue separation if you are looking for separation. I think it depends on what the office is going to be used for, Is it just for you, for you and other employees, is it for customers? I think insufficient data has been given for a fully complete opinion to be formed for me. With current data, I'd say looks great! Then again, I like blue... Light blue reminds me of my old room... I love that color. Dark blue makes me think of a certain police box. So... Currently I like, but I'm not the best at designing.
@sohmageek The primary purpose of the space is to house me, one of our full-time inside sales people, and a place to land for a couple of our local outside sales people. Plus (apparently) a place for my wife to store Halloween decorations while our fallen-down barn is being rebuilt. Oh, it's also our lab space for engineering and support people to try to duplicate weird customer issues.
Customers will likely never see this place (we sell VoIP to other businesses, so if we need face-to-face time, it's 99.999% going to be at their offices, not ours). Only time a customer might see it is if they're also a personal friend and get invited to poker night - which is more likely to be attended if held at the new office than at our "middle-of-the-country" house.
And yes, I like the separation (not the least reason for which is that there is about a 3 inch difference in height at the color demarcation), but I prefer the darker blue to the lighter blue.
Lastly, I wear Hawaiian shirts to work every day, my inside sales guy wears whatever doesn't stink, and corporate "culture" leans more towards Google than IBM. I collect telephones for the office, including one that I just scored at Big Lots that plays scary recordings when you pick up the handle.
Let me know if you need more info! :-)
@Marion14505 Given all that information. I'd say hang up some good wall art and call it a day. That or perhaps if you don't like the lighter blue go with a purple. I think @Barney would approve of that. Although, Blue purple... may not be the best design choice.
I wish I had known you collected telephones, we had a few old phones (similar to the ones you see at MEH offices in the mediocre bot videos, I still feel bad that you guys are running on that platform, maybe that's why you guys don't want to give out phone numbers...) we were trying to get rid of. I think we got rid of the last power brick the other week (unless more show up...)
@sohmageek My goal is to program our calling system to play music on a bunch of old VoIP phones that have their ring tones set to musical notes. The more, the meh-rier.
I'm going to be the dissenting opinion here. I think the dark blue is too much. I love the idea of separating the different areas - by use/function and paint color.
I wouldn't pick a color for you without more information, but you should totally rock the Velvet Elvis.
@Thumperchick :-) I'm hoping tomorrow's twofer is velvis....
@Marion14505 We need a Velvis Irk doll.
All I know is if that place happens to burn in the next few days you will have some explaining to do.
@MrMark
What colors do you like? What colors are most relaxing to you? I'd find it hard to work in an office with yellows.
I think greys are nice and can be offset by blue (but not light blue, but a bright cornflower or sky, but not the soCal summer sky blue that's almost white, but the sky blue where the air is cool and crisp). The lighter the colors, the more the space is opened up and not so cave like.
Naturescape paintings or photos of subjects you really like. Check out some of @darkzrobe's stuff : http://darkzrobe.deviantart.com/ (I don't think this is for sale, but this is what I'd love to have hanging on my walls - but I'd probably get lost in them and not get much work done). And if I found a painting or photo I really loved, I'd use that as the starting point for the wall paint color.
Velvet Elvis? And dogs playing poker as well? laughing
@lisaviolet I like blues. :-) Actually, I like anything dark but not too dark. My favorite blue is the blue you see if you go underwater and look up at the sky as you sink backwards. Tough to do without diving gear, but well worth it.
Wall space may be at a premium - we're white-boarders. Having said that, I never thought about dogs playing poker. That...would...be...AWESOME for poker night!
@Marion14505 In that case just go with whiteboard paint!
@lisaviolet If there is one you really like I can go check what resolution I have it at. Some of mine are huge and would print fine. I could get you the file if you wanted to print one, under the condition you make no profit from it.
@darkzrobe Thanks! I'd really like that. (And I don't profit from the stuff I make.)
@lisaviolet Which one were you thinking so I can double check it. Some of them may not blow up nice.
@darkzrobe The two I like best are Hawaii Beach 1 and Pike Peak.
@lisaviolet
https://app.box.com/s/azx46wonl43cgacpxh3dwdaxvp42irjn
Let me know when you are done so I can remove the share.
Not sure what the max size you can print on that as my brain has the dumb today and I cant do maths.
Not responsible if you look too close and see the photo merge lines :P
I also require pictures of where you use them.
@darkzrobe Downloaded! I showed them to my husband, he really likes them. Especially the Hawaii photo.
I don't know when I'll get it done, I have an idea where I can hang at least one of them, but after almost thirty years in the same house, there's really not a lot of room left on the walls. lol
@darkzrobe I really like your landscapes - lovely.
@Marion14505 Nice come back thread. Best I've seen. I like the walls.
@marklog Thanks. For all three sentences. Seriously.
@lisaviolet I have some of my random photography at www.juststephen.com... I have a crapton more I haven't posted. Feel free to ask for the high res copy of anything.
@juststephen Thank you. Humane Society photos made me sad. But the goat photos made me smile. I've bookmarked your page.
i'm thinking magenta or fuchsia. there's a difference, right?
@carl669 What if I painted the east and west walls magenta, the north wall fuschia, and the south wall fuchsia?
@Marion14505 and the ceiling could be alternating lines of magenta and fuchsia!!
@Marion14505 - When I first got my little house (only 100 sf bigger than your office), it was painted white with Fuchsia trim. I liked it because with flowers in front it looked like a cartoon house. When I painted it a year or two later, the neighbors driving by honked and cheered.
Oh, and I like the colors in your office. Probably the darker blue better, but both are okay since you hate painting. Maybe hang some watercolors on the walls. See how it makes you feel when you come to work.
@Marion14505 You'd end up having your office burned for you if did that and invited certain contributors to that exchange to your place LOL
Don't think I'd go with the Elvis on velvet. Now, wild horses on velvet, that would be fabulous!
I'm not a fan of either blue you have now- the light one is too colorful and the dark one too dark. But I paint everything yellow so I'm biased. Do you like outdoors prints? Maybe a green that's not too in your face and posters of trees or mountains or something like that? And plants? And a blue ceiling? I must spend too much time inside.
@sammydog01 There are 10 windows in this space, so I could just look out at trees. Can't paint ceiling; it's a commercial drop ceiling. And I ain't got the patience to paint ceiling tiles.
@Marion14505 You could consider colored acoustic ceiling tiles as replacements: examples
@duodec Hey, there's a thought. I might go for that before going for repainting at this point.... Thanks for the tip!
A vote for new paint ! The colors look like my dentist's office. I can hear the drill just looking at it. You don't want that do you ? I'd go w/ something neutral. You can get your color from accessories. The grey is an ok idea. Get a big red chair for in your office to go w/ that.
@ceagee Maybe tan? Same idea but warmer.
@sammydog01 I'm liking tan better than gray. Will have to gimp it.
@Marion14505 you can get some bright tans, have more red than yellow undertones and will pop a big. I have something called Bar Harbor Beige that is like that.
I would go to a paint store and bring back some sample sheets and hold them up to see what you like.
@ceagee Bah Habah? They have a beige named after that place?
@ceagee My front hall is similar to that- I didn't think I'd like it, but it turned out really well. It makes artwork look really nice.
@ceagee I like how the lamps block the TV
I think the dark blue with white trim will look good behind white boards. I like the color and think the dark shade works well when you see less of it.
Not sure about the light blue. It might be fine with a different trim/door color that makes it less... cheerful? I don't know. But that's my two cents.
Oh... And wait to burn it. You might need an outlet someday. And it will look less suspicious when some time has passed and you actually lose a little bit in the fire.
@christinewas Good advise on the burning. Also, I color corrected the DropBox links so they have more realistic colors. Can't figure out how to get the inline images updated.
@Marion14505 In the color-corrected version, I'm liking the lighter blue a lot more than I did at first. I think it could look good with some simple black and white photos (I usually prefer a more slate-blue, "rainy day blue" behing black and white... but keeping this would require less work). Something like Ansel Adams photography, if you like nature, or buildings/architecture.
@christinewas Big fan of wildlife photography. Used to try to make a living at it in a longlongago spacetime. I'm thinking architectural imagery would look good there like you say, though.
Maybe install some carpet with a pattern that makes people think they are seeing things- a very trippy pattern.
@dashcloud The carpet that is there is old industrial stuff. In a year or two, it will need to be replaced. I'm thinking hardwood flooring if the landlord will go for it.
Paint some fake doors with hallways behind them. Also put up curtains against random parts of walls so it looks like there's a window behind them (spoiler alert: there isn't).
@DaveInSoCal Trompe l'oeil is always a good bet! I'm just not artistic enough to do it myself. Would have to hire it. Which is fine. But I'm thinking - get the meh community to come up with the design....
Them colors look good to me but if I honestly had an opportunity to at a clean wall I'd probably do something stupid nerdy like apply a ton of Metroid decals or maybe even just the entire map of Zebes.
@DrunkCat Not knowing what Zebes is, that sounds like a GREAT idea!!!
@Marion14505
@DrunkCat Besides not being able to see the image (browser says it's broken) I'm guessing that this would be better if I were a fan of Metroid...?
@Marion14505 Yes.
I dunno just move in and start working, you're probably gonna have to move again in a couple of months anyway
@cranky1950 Signed a five year lease. Not moving any time soon and I'm already working there.
For those that care, I updated the Dropbox photos with color corrected images that show the true colors much better. Not sure how to update the in-line images, but I'm too lazy to care right now.
@Marion14505 Woah, that blue is dark. Good luck if you decide to paint it. I like the lighter blue much better now. I can't tell the color of the staircase- is it yellow, green, or cream reflecting the blue?
@sammydog01 It's a dirty vanilla yellow. Can't figure out how to say it more clearly. Honestly, if I had to rank the colors from least to most favorite, that dirty vanilla would be at the top of the "least" list. The light blue is...okay, and I like the dark blue. But I'm open to change. :)
I am not the person to ask about decorating. Football, yes. I never had an issue with you. Everyone can make a post they wish they could take back. It's just that this community can be very protective and is something I love about them.
On my last day of goat I take all responsibility for any post(s) you wish you could take back - your meh. soul is clean. I will lop off the head of anyone who disagrees with me.
Good luck with your office and welcome to the meh family. :)
@mfladd Thanks. Though I must admit to not getting all the goat references.
@Marion14505 You might as well start here:
History of the Scapegoat
@mfladd Thanks. Just confirms that I do not have time to know things. Just time to know that things exist.
@mfladd Why do they call it football, if they hold the ball so much... I blame you for my confusion...
@sohmageek
It's your office. Paint it what you want, what you like, what makes you productive and gives you good vibes. If you don't have to worry about customers and it's red, do a red wall. That's good with pale grey accents. If it's purple, paint a wall purple. Monochromatic is so 20th Century.
Understand whatever you do, that it should and will impact all your decisions from your floor coverings, to wall decor.
Good luck
@Cerridwyn Of course, one thing I am trying to do is to not paint. I hate painting. And the landlord will not do it for me because they just painted it the colors they are before I moved in. As a child of the 20th century, I'm okay with monochromatic though. :-)
Neutrals... offices should be neutral colors... think whites and warm grays and taupes... whatever you do don't paint it red... don't do it...
@thismyusername Neutral colors?
You could shortcut the visualization process, which I'm not good at, and go to houzz.com to look at many, many home office color ideas. And other ideas, like furniture. It's a very dangerous site, but it's free.
@OldCatLady Sweet. Thanks!