Armchair personality

Russians are ripe for the desire to work at home in comfort

Traditionally, the home office was a place not only for work, but also for receiving guests and holding business meetings. The office is still the calling card of its owner, and outwardly it has changed little, but the technologies and materials used in the manufacture of furniture for home offices have changed. Along with solid wood, many manufacturers began to use valuable wood veneers in furniture finishing. The model range has also become more diverse and functional - new elements have been added to it for integrating office equipment, safes, bars, and many transformable elements have appeared - computer and coffee tables, cabinets. The rhythm of life of a modern business person is so intense that for many Russians the office really becomes an integral part of the home. In this regard, the market for furniture for home offices will develop intensively, says Anton TERENTYEV, General Director of the Felix company.

—Has the office become a necessary room in the house in the new Russia? Is the demand for them growing? What is the customer base?

-- Demand for home office decoration has been growing recently. When building a house or buying a new home, many Russians already plan in advance where and what the office should be like. For many, having the opportunity to work comfortably at home is not just a desire, but a production necessity, which is why the contingent of customers is very different - from middle managers to corporate presidents.

One thing is obvious: home offices have begun to be purchased more often and the requirements for office furniture have become higher. It should not only be comfortable and durable, but also aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly.

-- In terms of price, is a home office a luxury? Or have affordable solutions for the middle class already appeared?

-- The price is largely determined by a person’s idea of ​​what a home office is. For some, this is a separate, specially equipped room with everything necessary for both work and relaxation. For others, a minimum set of comfortable furniture: a table, a cabinet, an armchair and a cabinet for storing documents.

The first category of clients prefers expensive luxury furniture, be it classic or modern; for them, a unified style solution for the entire interior is important - from the design of the walls to the selection of accessories. Often such clients purchase custom-made furniture, made according to individual sketches and using rare and expensive materials in decoration, such as marble, exotic animal skin, and gilded elements. And the price threshold here is practically unlimited by nothing except the imagination of the client himself.

A more economical option is furniture from serial collections for executives. The range of most of them allows you to create a comfortable, stylish environment not only in the office, but also at home. Standard furniture is convenient because the modularity principle inherent in many collections allows you to quickly change the furnishings, adapting it to the needs of the client.

Our company's assortment includes furniture for executives of different styles and price categories. This could be, for example, the extravagant “Diplomat” in a combination of fashionable contrasting colors of “wenge” and “zebrano” veneer or a more classic and restrained “Attache”.

-- How do the costs of furnishing a home office compare with the costs of other essential elements of the interior of a Russian apartment - such as a bedroom or living room?

— In general, there has long been a tendency to decorate apartments and houses in the same style, and large companies are already using this. For example, the furniture factory "Europe", which is part of our holding, produces not just furniture for the home, but offers solutions for the comprehensive arrangement of home interiors - from hallways to offices. And prices for furniture sets of the same series for furnishing, say, a living room, bedroom and office are quite comparable: from 30-35 thousand rubles. for a set of the middle price category and from 135 thousand rubles. for a premium set.

-- How competitive is domestically produced furniture for home offices compared to imported counterparts?

-- Competition in the furniture market has been and remains high, so large Russian manufacturers keep up with the times - their products are not inferior in quality to imports. Our clients have already been able to verify this from their own experience and are now not afraid to choose domestic furniture, and not only home offices.

The first classic home office that we began to mass-produce was the Versailles. Its production uses solid wood, natural and artificial leather, and high-quality laminated chipboard. The model range of this series is so wide and versatile that it allows you to equip not only a separate office, but also an entire apartment or country house - from the bedroom to the living room.

Such versatility, by the way, was previously considered a distinctive feature of exclusively expensive Italian or Spanish furniture collections for home offices. But now our furniture, without compromising on quality, definitely wins in price. The cost of a minimally sufficient set of Russian furniture to organize a workplace - say, a table and a wall - will be less than the price of just a desktop in any imported collection of home offices.

—Where are home offices most often designed—in country houses or in city apartments? Are there solutions that allow you to create a work area, even a small corner, in a typical apartment in a typical high-rise building?

-- More often it is a country house or an apartment with an individual layout. Typical housing is poorly suited to accommodate a classic home office with tall and spacious closets, a two-meter work desk, a library and a relaxation area. However, in order to organize a comfortable work area, you don’t need a lot of space. To arrange a work area, you can use furniture from the staff collections. In principle, we have all this: from small tables for working at a computer to multifunctional compact ergonomic models. And you can “complete” the workplace, creating the effect of a full-fledged office, for example, using attached or mobile cabinets and shelves. As an option, we also offer a special set of furniture for small rooms: a computer cabinet with a pull-out table. You can separate the workplace from the living space of the room using a mobile partition, matched to the color of the furniture or interior.

-- What new products are now offered for home office design? How often do you have to “invent” new elements due to the emergence of more and more new office equipment?

-- We can say that furniture collections are constantly updated: the model range is expanding, individual elements are being modified. To decorate home offices, so-called president kits are often purchased. They are less conservative in style and respond more quickly to changing trends in furniture fashion. Presidential sets may have a bolder design, bright colors, and extraordinary design solutions. Thus, one of our new products in the assortment, the Italian cabinet LUNA, is almost cosmic technology and unconventional design with maximum functionality. For example, you can build a plasma panel into a cabinet door, which is already included in the kit.

—What do Russian clients prefer: classics or more modern hi-tech options?

-- Russian buyers of home offices can be divided into two types. The first type of clients copies the office environment, recreating it at home. The second is looking for something completely different from the environment that surrounds him at work. Therefore, collections ranging from the most modern in hi-tech style to classic ones are in demand for home office equipment. But the classic is still a favorite - it is preferred by the majority of buyers. Good old classics are synonymous with comfort for many, and they never go out of style.

— Do our compatriots often resort to the services of a designer? And in general, is there a service as such - a turnkey home office?

-- Any of our salons will offer the services of a designer who will measure the room and help you choose the right furniture and arrange it in the room in compliance with all ergonomic standards. In addition, we have our own interior studio, which offers the services of an architectural designer. If desired, they will develop an individual interior design not only for the office, but also for the entire house and organically complement it with accessories and upholstered furniture that suit the style.

It must be said that clients who purchase expensive furniture resort to the services of our designers in almost one hundred percent of cases. And this is not a tribute to fashion or a whim, but a necessity, since it is very important to organically “fit” the furniture into the interior so that the client is satisfied. During a design project, you can always accurately show the dimensions and configuration of furniture, add or modify furnishing elements, and give the client the opportunity to see his future office in an already partially created interior. A professionally done design project often helps to avoid mistakes when arranging furniture and to find the correct match between the sizes of furniture elements and the dimensions of the room. The designer, among other things, plays with the color of the interior - walls, curtains, floors, and it is very important, even at the stage of construction and decoration of the room, to choose the right color, materials and decorative elements in order to create a truly comfortable, functional and beautiful office.

Interviewed by Marina SHEREMETYEVA