Out of the Dark
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A Florida company creates a high-end office out of a dark storage closet.

Leslie Halsall says she created dimension in the room by dropping the desk and the file cabinet area behind the window ledge.

Out of a small, dark and crowded storage room, Leslie Halsall, president of Alpha Closets and Co. of Gulf Breeze, FL, created a luxury office space.

Halsall says that she was working on a tight budget and the client, a cosmetic dentistry and dental accounting office, needed this space converted into an upscale office. The room needed to protect patient records and equipment, as well as act as an upscale consultation room.

“The office manager wanted it to be a functional office and the dentist wanted his expensive equipment protected,” Halsall notes.

“The appearance needed to be upscale, comfortable and fluid to current office design,” Halsall says. “We used the angled wall to our advantage to provide ventilation for the stored equipment by creating air vents in the cabinet walls and individual ventilated pull-outs for each unit.”

The desk was created using full contour edged laminate, with a honed stone appearance. It had a pull-out keyboard shelf, with room for a mouse, and a file drawer designed to hold current records. Additionally, cabinets with Shaker-style doors, with one locking, stored private records.

Grommets were used for wire management and the wires were hidden behind a bead board panel that was glazed and painted.

“Track lighting and task lighting helped create function and ambiance,” Halsall adds.

She also made sure there was adequate file storage by using double hanging files, and she extended the desk material under the shelf unit for eye appeal and to make the area appear larger.

Some of the material used in fabricating this project included amber glazed finish on painted maple exterior, pre-finished birch for interior cabinets, oil-rubbed bronze hardware, rolled custom cut laminate countertop and soft-close drawer glides.

The end result of Halsall’s hard work? The client loved it, she says.

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