Remodeling Your Dental Office to Provide a More Luxurious Experience

Posted by HJT Design

You have a dental office with outdated aesthetics and in need of an update. You have recently purchased an existing practice with décor that isn’t in agreement with your personal taste, style, and really needs to have a transformation. You are experiencing tremendous growth; need to add additional space to meet the current and future demands of your practice.
Perhaps everything is in their proper order and all that needs to be done is a fresh coat of paint, new floorings and a change of artwork and or accessories. Perhaps what is needed are some minor element relocations and or tweaks of existing walls, doors and an updating of paint colors and finishes.
Or the place needs a small wrecking ball for a real BIG transformation.

Take time to plan and clearly identify the desired end product of the transformation; understand the scheduled processes involved and the budget. Depending on the scope of your renovation, it could be an over the weekend project, a week or two shut down or three months or more, for total rehab. It’s a messy, dusty and noisy process. Embrace the process and make as many improvements as possible to improve the functionality of your dental office and improve your life. You can choose to drag it out in multiple phases or plow forward and get it done, as quickly as possible.

Whatever the reason for updating or renovating your current dental office, here is some food for thought:

Entry Door

Your front door doesn’t have to be “just a door”; make it stand out to draw attention to your business. If it is easy to find and you have a vestibule, use it like a display window by keeping it lit at night. It may be the only lit-up vestibule in the strip, thus standing out against neighboring tenants. Additionally, a well lit door attracts less mischief.

Patient’s Lounge

This space is like your parlor, where your guest can relax before their scheduled treatment time. This space should be laid out with sufficient floor space for circulation and flexible seating arrangements. Upscale finishes, soft tone colors, and accent walls of color or textured materials add visual depth and interest. Comfortable seating, warm ambient lighting, and accent light of various fixture types (including recessed cans, pendants and sconces with accent trims) accentuate the architectural features and art work. Compliment beverages and latest publications can help ease time. A good first impression is important so regular maintenance and tidying will sustain the upscale ambiance that is designed for your dental office.

Office Lighting

You need general lighting and the most cost effective source for general lighting is still from fluorescent fixtures. However, the starkness of the light from these fixtures is visually cold. Implement a blend of direct/ indirect fixtures, recessed cans, wall sconces, pendant fixtures and coved lighting. This will add warmth and soften the overall ambience of the interiors with an up-scale appeal.

Walls

This is an item where you can creatively express yourself. If on a tight budget, changes in colors can do the job to brighten up an old tired space. Offsetting, otherwise, straight linear walls can add volume and breakup the bowling effect of long corridors. Curve walls soften up the design instead of being dominated by sharp corners. Wall coverings add texture, richness and protects the wall. Wooden wall base, wainscot, chair rails and picture frames can elevate the walls from basic to grand without breaking the budget. Over-laid or wavy wall treatments can also create very interesting design features. Furthermore, walls don’t have to be of the common stud and gypsum board. Be a bit daring, have some decorative glass, resin wall panels or perhaps woven metal mesh fabric, etc.

Flooring

Protect your flooring investment; start with walk-off carpet at your entry door so visitors can stomp out the snow or dirt from their shoes. Use tile instead of broadloom, more economical for replacement of singular tile vs. the entire area. The materials, patterns, colors, textures, sizes, etc. can be mind numbing. Costs often are the determining factor on what flooring materials will ultimately be installed. Be mindful of acoustics and care requirements when selecting your flooring material, for your dental office. However selecting flooring materials can be narrowed down to the following:

Aesthetics – Stone, Tiles, Carpet, Wood, Luxury Vinyl, Cork, Leather

Performance – Will it hold up under the intended use?

Maintenance – How does one clean or keep clean the materials and the costs associated with maintaining it?

Costs – How much will the installation of the material cost?

Ceiling

What’s your brand? You can go the minimalist route and leave an exposed roof structure, void of a finished ceiling system or have a grid only ceiling to accommodate lighting fixtures. The other option is to hide all of the utilities above and have a clean standard suspended white acoustical ceiling grid. Also, embellish it with a number of ceiling treatments to suit your creative whims.

A ceiling doesn’t have to be boring and just for utility purposes. Design strategies can be incorporated to increase visual and aesthetic value, such as varying elevations, materials, colors and or textures. Cloud elements can add design features to further enhance your aesthetics. Also faux finish, printed panels or stretch ceilings can also be options to make your renovation stand-out.

Accessories

Accessorize your newly renovated space with art work. Quality prints in nice frames can dress up otherwise boring walls, which can tell a story without breaking the budget. These small investments will upgrade the public’s perception of higher quality and patient experience.

Windows/ Day Lighting

A view to the outdoors and natural lightings are two items that we, as human, just can’t get enough of. If all possible, include adding windows, skylights and utilize borrow lights and transoms to bring natural light in.

Small Stuff

Taking your aesthetics from average to awesome doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor; embrace change for the needed improvements that you have learned to live with and invest into a few feature elements and accessories, just say good bye to ordinary.

No matter the complexity of your project, our staff of experienced professionals are ready to help navigate you through the process and fulfill your specific needs. If you would like a second opinion on how to get started, contact HJT to schedule a free consultation for answers and knowledge to prepare and empower you in moving forward with confidence.