Furniture for a consultation area

Cianos

Hey folks,
In our shop we've finally painted the basement and made it more presentable. We want to be able to hold consultations down there, so it needs to look professional and comfortable.

I'm thinking of making a trip to Ikea today to pick up a few things for it and thought I'd post here for a bit of input

At the moment it's totally bare with white walls and a low ceiling and laminate wood flooring. We do have a nice cream/yellow couch that could (but doesn't have to be) used.

The consultations will happen around a laptop, so the client and the person giving the consultation should be sitting so that they can both see the screen at the same time.

I'd love to hear any ideas off the top of your head - I'm thinking of dragging my 2 year old out to Ikea (she actually loves it ) to get it all done in one swoop.

Thanks v. much

Rancid

Tub chairs and sofas have that clean uncluttered look while still being very comfortable. They're also quite neat and leave plenty of space for a table or desk.
Faux-leather covered and they're easy to keep clean, too.

Haven't been in Ikea in a while so not sure if they have them, but I've seen them in some of the Capel Street shops in town.

Thoie

If it's a basement with no windows and white walls, consider a small projector (they've come down in price), so that people don't have to squish together to view a laptop screen. Small Dell projector.

Depending on what kind of consulting you're doing, don't forget surfaces where people can put a coffee cup/glass of water (end tables/coffee tables/desk). Wood will make people paranoid and have people watching for heat rings.

The place sounds a little stark (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on what you do). A canvas (or framed poster from your business) on one wall and some fresh flowers might be nice. Fresh flowers will always look best, but it's an ongoing expense, and someone has to look after them (keep the water clean, change them).

Cianos

Thanks for the replies!

It will mostly be one on one consultations so it makes more sense to use a laptop for the consultations, but we do want to eventually host Coding For Kids sessions (we did this in our pop up shop, pic below!) so we'd want to have it set up in such a way to allow for a projector.

Also I'm thinking now that a long desk rather than a couch would be more suitable because it maximises the number of people who can sit and work. The key would be to making this comfortable for an hour long one on one consultation as well.

Thoie

If you're holding hour long meetings around a laptop, I'd look at desk chairs. Ikea has these ones for €45 each: http://www.ikea.com/ie/en/catalog/products/50212486/

You can wipe them down (in case of spills), they have arms, and are somewhat adjustable for people of varying heights. At that price I'd imagine they may not stand up to 24/7 use, but presumably you're not running consultations all day, every day?

It sounds like what you really need is a conference table.