[CINEMATIC INTRO]
One third of our lives is spent at work and so as you progress and grow, your workspace
should grow with you. Over the last year I've outgrown my space and I've made the big decision
to buy a new condo space to transform into a dedicated home office and creative studio! I'm
excited to bring you guys along this journey and into this new space so welcome to the
first episode of the Setup Makeover Series. Hey friends, Andrew here – hope you're well!
If you follow my Instagram (@andrewethanzeng) you'll know that I've been working on renovating
and transforming this condo space and in fact I've been asking for your help on the design
choices like the floorboards and furnishings so big shout out to those who shared their opinion
with me on Instagram it was genuinely useful and it was pretty awesome to get you guys on board
this process in today's video I'll be sharing the design Philosophy for this new space the
renovations and give you an initial walk through and share all the new tech and Furniture I've
included so far I want you guys to be as much a part of this series as I am so make sure you're
subscribed with the notification Bell turned on for future episodes in this setup makeover
Series so just a bit of a back story to how I got this place and what the plan is I purchased this
property a few years ago brand new with the income I had coming in from the e-commerce business years
ago and I've actually just been renting it out to tenants since it's a one bedroom condo at
about 700 square feet so I think there's enough space for what I am planning to do which is to
transform it into a dream home office setup and multi-purpose creative Studio I've definitely
outgrown my previous home office space though and they were featured in most of my desk setup
videos which you might have already seen they've been getting millions of views which is pretty
mind-boggling to think about but anyway let's start with the design inspiration and how I began
to plan out this entire move so this new space acts as a completely blank canvas and interior
design options are Limitless so typically with a large project like this I like to start mapping
it out with two specific digital tools to get me started the first is figma a collaborative design
tool which I use to brainstorm and visualize the way I want this new space to look before buying
all the furniture buying all the tech and making those renovation decisions I've cut up the floor
plan in figma into various use cases including a filming Studio multiple desk areas and a wider
home office area or with their own specific purpose I also plotted out all the interior
styling and furniture and events here so as you can see the theme I have going on for this space
is light mode I'm typically a dark mode person so this changes kinda jarring but I've settled on the
light mode aesthetic because the new space gets a ton of natural light throughout the day unlike
the previous space which was really quite dark so I wanted to lean into that warm natural lighting
this means a lot of light oak wood of white walls and light tone furniture and Tech the plan really
is to keep this place feeling minimal bright Airy and an incubator for creativity and deep thinking
next I used monday.com to visualize and organize all all the moving parts and monday.com also
happens to be today's video sponsor if you've ever moved or renovated you'll know that there's a lot
of moving parts and headaches involved especially since we're working with Brands suppliers and
creating content too so it was really useful getting the entire workflow and process onto a
work operating system like monday.com so we could smoothly keep track of everything once I invited
the team and got them onto the platform we started to build out the various different workflows via
the library of Quick Start templates which saved us a heap of time and I was able to start managing
assigning and scheduling just about any task the other Big Time Saver is monday.com's workflow
Center which is essentially automations for apps we already use so for example we use slack
to communicate with the team so I just search for slack here then when status of a task gets changed
in the office board I want to notify our manager kerlene who oversees a lot of what we're doing so
in here change status to offers then something to working on it then change the notification message
and then the user to Colleen so once each task is done like the floorboards buying certain furniture
and Tech well Market is done super visual as you can see here we also had set up a custom dashboard
so the entire team can track the most important parts of the move and the entire project it also
just works well for teams and organizations looking to track workflows visualize data and
collaborate effectively and I'll drop a link to a free trial of monday.com below if you personally
want to check it out or your team would like to check it out too now moving on to the renovations
which has been unsurprisingly a headache of delays this new space is both and offers for
the company and remains an investment property for the future so I wasn't able to go you know
too crazy with Renovations but I still find it important to refresh the foundation and also I
also wanted to make this office feel like a home and a creative Studio less like a sterile office
sterile rarely Sparks creativity so there's a few areas I definitely had renovated including
the kitchen bathroom especially the nasty looking carpet which looks so worn down it looked like an
expired melted pancake yep it made the space so dreary so after some research I picked out this
light oak wood laminate floorboard not only does it look amazing and tonally match the light mode
aesthetic laminate floorboards are also a really durable water and scratch proof solution which is
important with all the gear and creative work that that's going to be going on here and the
main reason why I didn't choose hardwood one thing I'm not the biggest fan of though is the skosh is
here that I actually didn't ask for in the first place I would have preferred the flooring to go
underneath the timber skirting for a cleaning for the vanity Shelf polished chrome Tower rail that
wasn't previously there and vitrified porcelain and ceramic tiles throughout moving on to my
favorite Parts the furniture and the tech the first really cool piece that I want to share
with you in this space is the Govee Glide Hexa Pro sitting on the feature wall here I've added
these in to give a splash of color and creativity into an otherwise minimal and light space they're
essentially rgbic light panels with 3D effects achieved by the boxed lines and a slightly raised
design unboxing it you have the manuals 10 light panels power block a level and connectors and
installation was simple enough with the app but it is a pretty particular process because each panel
needs to be linked consecutively in the companion app I've automated these lights to transition and
rotate through scenes and these scenes make these lights seriously such a visually stunning piece
to have in this particular creative space but I can't seem to choose between my favorites like
ocean collapse and Matrix let me know which one you think I should stick with almost everyone
who's come through this offer so far has been immediately drawn to the unique light panels
I'll drop a link to these cool panels below if you want to check them out at the height of the desk
setup is the desk itself another set sand desk was a no-brainer they're incredibly versatile
super easy to build and just make a lot of sense for my use case of always wanting to move about
This one here is the new Ascent desk by Omnidesk in the extra large size the larger size of the
desk will allow me to spread out multiple screens and laptops shelves creative material space that I
didn't get in my previous office and I'm pretty excited to air out my creativity on this larger
desk if you're working with a small space it's really important to limit colors and tones and
be really intentional with them so to complement the light's Woody tones in this room I've opted
for the solid heavier wood top which is similar to the lights made for wood it's natural wood
markings and teething are a beautiful touch and add an air of sophistication to the desk I brought
over this huge 40 inch 5K Ultra wide monitor which is perfect for multitasking and sitting
on top of the monitor now is Logitech's new BRIO 500 which Logitech has kindly sent over it's a
great affordable full HD webcam and considering I frequently work from home and am in quite a few
virtual meetings a good webcam ensures I'm able to bring my best self forward to every meeting
this feature packs webcam includes AI face image and light correction and Logitech's auto framing
feature so I'm able to walk around during meetings and still be in frame the feature I personally
find most interesting is show mode which lets me present sketches or items on my table by simply
tilting the webcam down and makes my presentations that much more engaging and it seemed to impress
others on the call the webcam is perfectly complemented by Logitech's Zone Vibe 100 headset
I now use it in the office for work and play it's professional enough for meetings with its noise
canceling boom mic and ensures that my voice comes through clearly outside of meetings the microphone
is tucked away for a casual enjoyable listening experience when I'm winding down or doing
deep focus work both of these items are really affordable and amazing work from home companions
I'll drop a direct link to them both below and of course I've bought over my cherished Herman Miller
Aeron that I recently bought this one is the newly released and remastered Aeron Onyx in the jet
black onyx color and features ocean-bound Plastics two thousand dollars is an incredible amount to
spend on a chair yes but it's two thousand dollars your butt and your back will thank you for the
rest of its lifetime it genuinely is that good and it's unfortunately hard to sit on other office
chairs now that said I still totally recommend the Ikea Marcus as an alternative at a fraction of the
price but if you can push the budget I recommend saving up even a secondhand Herman Miller Aeron
if you can which if you're lucky you can find for about half the price after the desk was set up I
had to get music flowing through the empty space music is really important to me so to lift this
space musically I'm decking the space out with my favorite sound system Sonos I bought in the
Sonos One smart speaker the Move and the extra portable Roam to tie room together and between
these speakers High Fidelity audio floods are 700 square feet of space for a lavish listening
experience that elicits the creativity I need to do my best work I always love how Sonos speakers
are beautifully designed so they look beautifully integrated into this creative space it really is
worth going the extra mile with what you choose to Grace your personal spaces with another element
I'm excited for is all of the additional storage space I've got in my previous office space I had
Brown boxes literally everywhere it was all over the place and the Clutter impacted productivity
and mood I've got three to four large storage cupboards now to store all the tech I'm reviewing
all the camera production gear and my extra stock that I might have on hand I'm also really enjoying
this feature shelf that I've built which now displays some of my favorite coffee table books
beautiful design items in my tech most of which was just in storage previously so it's really
nice that they now get to see the light of day this Unique Piece is actually two shelves sitting
next to each other and the white wood and light oak Blends nicely with the new floorboards and
wood paneling here the piece really does elevate the open-ended space I'm sure it will be filled up
in no time at all lighting is going to be a big project in here too since there'll be some days
where I'll be working later into the night at the moment the harsh down lighting just doesn't
cut it so I'm planning to overhaul the lighting with smart lights right now I have this really
beautiful Halo Lux light from Sohnne I believe it's pronounced which is a modern minimal Halo
shaped dimmable light I've linked everything down below in the description in case you're interested
in anything I've shared in this new space I finally feel like there is room to stretch my
legs and mind here and if you want to see more of the setup in progress check out my Instagram at
Andrew Ethan Zhang I'll be sharing the progress and behind the scenes there and I also want to
thank all of you watching especially if you're still watching genuinely thank you so much for
your support and tuning in every time it's crazy to think that since quoting my nine to five job
starting a Shopify store and also starting this YouTube channel that it will turn into a dedicated
creative studio and office with an audience watching it's crazy to think about out but here
we are and I cannot wait to share more episodes in this setup makeover series you can expect new desk
setups giveaways and some seriously Cool Tech to come also I almost forgot we worked with The
Talented Folks at passionate agency to launch our new redesigned website and dust it off the
cobwebs with a new brand too the website's now home to weekly content all around premium Tech
beautiful design and purposeful business and yes we are now hiring on our new jobs page check it
out and please let me know what you think of the new website if you made it to the very end of this
video Drop the code word comments set up and I'll give it a like for now I'll share some videos on
screen here of my previous desk setup that you might want to check out which will now be my
secondary workspace at home as always thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video