The Big MOVE

We have been gifted a beautiful big new office space. Once we learned we could move in on April 1st, our current space felt so cramped! It has served us well, but the time has come to move onward and upward. 

As office Manager, I was assigned to organize the move and I recruited McKenna and Kassidy to help. I tell you what- this was the most organized move in the history of moves, thanks to my team! 

We had our big All Hands Meeting on Friday morning- this is a meeting with everyone. I took a minute to explain what we would all be doing. Once the meeting ended, we all grabbed lunch, then dived into our tasks!

We had different sections to be moved with teams to box, label and move. Once their section was done, they'd join another team and so on until it was all moved down to the warehouse. We even organized the warehouse based on what would be loaded first.

Part of our awesome moving crew!

This is nuts!

 

Here's what our warehouse looked like within an hour or so! (The right side is another organization we share with.)

We got everything boxed up and moved within an hour! It was so awesome!

The next morning with everyone that could, met at the warehouse and loaded everything up into box trucks, cars and trailers. Again, we had everything loaded in an hour!

Then we brought everything over to the new location and unloaded. Everything was labeled with a number. Every box, chair, coat rack- everything, and we had posted the coordinating numbers on each room at the new place. It avoided being asked a million times, "Where should I put this?" It was so nice to get everything moved into place- or at least the correct room it would live in. In fact, the whole move was so organized, none of us felt frazzled and pulled in every direction needing to answer questions. There was also no standing around while people waited to be told what to do. Every team knew exactly what they were working on and where they were moving to when they were done with that. We shared a pizza lunch and started setting things into place so that we could begin actual work on Monday morning.

This space has been used by a summer sales group of guys, so there are towers of pizza boxes and piles of Mountain Dew and Gator-aid bottles. They cleaned up most of it, but need to store all of their furniture, foosball table, pool table, X-Boxes and car posters here until they return at the end of August. We don't mind too much, since we don't really have any furniture. And this is a huge place to fill! Also, every square inch needs a fresh coat of paint.

 

Here is the Entry:

 

 

I am super excited about an entire closet for office supplies! I installed a wall of floating shelves in the last office to fit all of these items, and I love that it can now all be tucked away out of sight. I found a cheap bakers rack on Facebook marketplace that fits in here great.

I decided on this deep blue-green color for the entry and will tackle this area first. We have a beautiful metal sign getting installed next week so it needs to be painted in time!

This back room will be our "Board Lounge". Our Board Members come into the office regularly, some are retiring and would like to be more involved and will now have a place to have meetings and work. I pulled couches and chairs from around the offices and added all of our gifts and plaques we have received over the years to the window sill. Once the entry is painted, I'll tackle this room next!

The back "Training Room" is huge! For now it has been the landing place for all of our stuff that we are waiting to assemble or find a home for- or decide we can donate it.

I can't believe we have our own kitchen! This is amazing. I can't wait to add some color and organization here!

Here is our main big work area. As you can see, we have some couches that we will enjoy until Sales Bro's come back. A lot of our desks were also donated and we are happy to have matching desks and towers! I am excited to get this space painted and decorated as well!

I can't believe we have not one, but TWO conference rooms! We would use our old conference desk for meetings, mailing projects and trainings so it was a challenge to keep it cleared and tidy. Look at how bright and open this room is!

Here is the smaller conference room. There are no windows, and I'm thinking about embracing the dark and going with anther deep, rich color.

I spent a weekend getting the entry painted and ready for the new sign. What a different vibe this deep color gives it! I also repaired and painted a fresh coat of black on the desk while I chatted with Adren one Monday night.

I've been scouring Facebook marketplace for items. I needed to find an entry table that was long enough to fill the wall, shallow enough to not be intrusive but wide enough to hold substantial lamps- and super cheap. Found it!

I kept watching for lamps that would work and finally found some gorgeous ones I could not stop thinking about. When I went to pick them up they were more gorgeous than I imagined. And HUGE. Too big for this entry table... But not for my dresser at home... I love them.
I covered the existing lamps on my dresser with Plaster of Paris, bought new shades and they work great here! I also grabbed the mirror that has been leaning against the wall in Paisley's room for the past 6 months. She doesn't need it. Once I put it up I realized it was too small for the space. I'll keep looking!

We had a plaque made to thank National Processing for our fabulous new space.

It was really exciting to get our new sign installed! I am so glad we went with the silver metal instead of our orange and blue signature label. It opens us up for so many more options.

They also installed our decals.

During all of this, Wayne, who owns National Processing kept popping in and was loving what I was doing to the place to freshen it up. He texted me one morning asking if I could help him out by painting his office before a bunch of cubicles were being installed- the very next day! I really did not have the time, but felt like I should say yes, since he has done so much for us. I couldn't believe I was here painting! He asked if I could do more areas, and I told him I really didn't have the time between all the work to be done at our new space- as well as my HR duties! He paid me very generously anyway. Such a nice guy!

Now I keep bringing items from home to tuck here and there. I put the lamps on timers and they look so cheery when you enter each day!

As everything was blossoming with spring coming, I grabbed my clippers and went for a Sunday drive. I thought these blossoms would look so gorgeous in my green vase on the entry desk.

Unfortunately, they were set outside because they smelled so bad.

But they looked fabulous on my island! (They were a bit stinky though!)

I didn't snap this pic of our exterior sign fast enough- the trees filled in and cover it. But it looks so great! I also suggested to keep this one all white. It looks really good all lit up at night!

One evening while at home, I thought I would run over to the office and quickly paint the Board Lounge. I figured I could knock it out in a couple hours.

I chose this chocolate-brown-mauve-y color that is so pretty!

It feels like a good feminine touch to all the masculine furniture in the room.

It was several hours later and well after midnight when I finished.

But it looks great! It makes the room feel very cozy.

Meanwhile, I keep hunting for a better mirror for the entry. I found one on Facebook marketplace. When I picked it up, it was, once again even more gorgeous than I imagined! I leaned it against the wall in my front room and decided it hurt my heart too much to have it at work, and it needs to stay in my house. No worries, I found a ginormous mirror at the D.I. I'm not kidding, this weighs 100 pounds. It has a great aged green frame and it is perfect! And $15! I also found a basket for the faux tree. The Sales Bro's have so many faux tree's!

Maybe you can't tell, but this mirror is much better. I gave the other to one of our Volunteers who just got married and she is thrilled.

I brought some of my pillow forms, a vase and greenery to add a little more accessories to the space. Am I donating these? Using this office as storage? Time will tell. I do like emptying my storage at home though!

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I got these cute pics blown up and printed from one of the orphanage visits and I think they turned out so cute!

I can't believe we have been able to do all of this in month one of our move. I still have more to tackle, but the front entry and back room is done! Now time to tackle everything in-between!