Office Kitchen Makeover

The day has finally come! After completely my first paid design/contractor job making over the half bathroom in the office where I work, my bosses mentioned wanting to hire me to fix up the office kitchen as well. Unfortunately, things slowed down for a while at work and they didn't have it in their budget. But now that things are picking back up and I'm finally mostly recovered from my surgery, the time has come to start the kitchen renovation.

And as you can see, it needs a lot of work...

Excuse the poor quality pictures. I was told I could begin work on the kitchen yesterday at the end of the work day, so I snapped these with my cell phone before I left. I'll bring in my real camera to document the room better before I begin.

It's a pretty small space. There's a break room just across from it where we all eat, so it only needs to serve as a place to prepare our lunches and make coffee. But even those simple tasks are not being performed all that efficiently right now.

For starters, that table sticks out so far that there's not a very big isle between it and the fridge and microwave. When the fridge door is open, you're pretty much trapped in that little space back there.

Also, the server and other computer equipment are not exactly improving the view in the corner. All those wires! It looks like my living room, actually. lol Oops.

Just past the kitchen is the doorway to the newly refreshed half bathroom. And next to that is a very underused cabinet with tons of potential. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get my hands on that, but I sure hope so!

This small area is currently being used for a lot of purposes, but it's not doing a great job at any of them. So hopefully, I'll be able to make the space more functional and make it look fabulous too.

I still need to talk more with my "client" (aka my bosses) to find out what they want for the space, but here's what I'm thinking we'll need at this point:

• Paint the walls and trim
• Cover up the server area with something decorative (but keeping them easily accessible)
• Get rid of the extra microwave
• Get a narrower counter to free up space
• Hide the trash and recycling bins (possibly under the above-mentioned counter?)
• Find a place for the mop and broom to live
• Maybe add shelves to get stuff up off the counter/table?
• I would love to do an accent wall for that back blank wall but we'll see if I can get them to sign off on that one (took weeks to get them to decide on the right shade of grey for the bathroom)
• Possibly add storage and organization to the nearby built-in cabinets
• Would love to add some pretty artwork to the walls (haven't managed to convince them to do that in the bathroom, so again, we'll see)

I do know that I can rearrange the space as needed, so the fridge doesn't need to stay where it is or anything. My initial thought is roughly rendered below. That square with the asterisk is the fridge, so it will be on the opposite wall, next to the server, which will be inside a dummy cabinet of some sort (maybe like this?). On the opposite side, I'd like to have a long, narrow cabinet that the microwave and coffeemaker will sit on. Above it, I'd like shelves to store frequently used items. This picture and this picture are super cute little coffee stations, so maybe something like that? This is another fun inspiration pic.

All the other items (including trash and recycling) will be able to go in the cabinet. And in the built-in cabinet near the door, I'd like to house the mop bucket and broom, if possible. If not, they may fit in the dummy cabinet under the server.

Just looking at this rendering, I can see that it might be nice to have that long narrow counter be a bit shorter so we don't run into the corner. Or have some sort of rounded edge on it. Also, I made the hallway to the built-in cabinet way too long. Oops.

But you get the idea. I think the solution is simple and will meet our needs. Of course, a tall, repurposed storage cabinet opposite the server with a short table next to it could also fit the bill. And then I could incorporate a really fun unique find like this. (Spoiler alert, they'll never go for that color! lol)

Obviously still in the brainstorming phase, so let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions. I want to have some good stuff to present to my bosses clients!