It’s a great question. Your crib room is important to your employees. It is the area where they can take a breather, sit down, and enjoy some food with their mates or on their own. When it comes to designing the crib room in your camp, you want your employees to be as comfortable as possible and feel as at home as they can.
Imagine it for yourself. You’re tired. You’ve been working all day, and all you’re looking forward to is a nice hot meal and a shower. When you walk into the crib room to grab some chow, you spot your mates sitting in one corner, laughing, and sharing stories for the day. You grab your food and make your way over to them, all the while perking up as you take in the scene around you. Coloured chairs and pictures on the wall brighten the room and its buzzing with noise as your team mates eat their food and have a good time. Doesn’t that sound inviting for your employees?
Gone are the days of having giant rooms filled with long tables and chairs. Gone is the school hall feel. Replacing that is the feeling of a restaurant or upper-class food court. More emphasis is placed on making the area a design masterpiece, rather than on lowering costs. The crib room now becomes an enjoyable experience for your employees rather than a clinical function room where they eat.
What do you want to achieve in your crib room?
How do you want this space to feel? We often find that the crib rooms of old tend to look like the old-fashioned school halls featured in story books. We are finding more and more camps want to upgrade this to feel more like a nice eating space to encourage socialising and relaxation. The crib room might feature some different zones to encourage different groups and personalities to use the facilities as they should be used.
With the old design many employees were getting their food and then heading back to their rooms to eat as that was where they felt most comfortable. With the new design crib rooms, employees are encouraged to sit with their mates and socialise, or they can sit comfortably in privacy if that’s what they desire. Either way, the new designs encourage the employees to use the rooms and have a good time in a good place, which in turn boosts morale and mental health.
Is your crib room new or existing?
If your crib room is new, its like starting with a blank canvas. We can go anywhere from here! Here at Minesite Furniture we offer a complimentary design service. We’ll visit you at your camp and there we can thrash out what you need and want in your area, face to face. We can design up your area and offer a proposal for what we believe would work and look best in the area. With a new room, there are many possibilities.
If your room is an existing one that you’re looking to revamp, that’s no worries either! Existing rooms can pose more of a challenge as you will have to think about existing features such as flooring, walls and cabinetry that will need to be designed around. However, nothing is impossible!
What is the design of your crib room?
You want your crib room to be comfortable, modern, functional, and easy to clean. You want it to be warm and inviting, rather than clinical and cold. Pendent lighting rather than harsh LED strip lighting is another way you can make your space a little homier and little less like a hospital or school.
If you are unsure about design, ask a member of our team of consultants. They will be more than happy to help out and offer some ideas for you.
What is the style you’re wanting in your crib room?
How big is your room and what is the seating capacity. These are two things that will greatly affect the amount of furniture, and therefore, seating, that you can fit into your room. Depending on the style you are wanting in your crib room, you might want a mixture of zones throughout. Different zones cater for all personality types and give access to groups as small or large as you like. Offering dining tables, booth seating, bar tables and cocktail tables will ensure that everyone has a place they will feel comfortable to eat their meals.
With different zones throughout the room, you will create interest in the room. For example, one corner might be set up as a casual café setting, while another might feature big bar tables and cocktail bar tables for groups of 2 or groups of up to 6. Booth seating allows for more intimate groups and more privacy for anyone looking to quietly enjoy their meal alone.
The layout of your crib room will also provide encouragement. Simple things like placing your bar tables next to windows so diners can see out at the view while they eat is a great way of utilising your space and area.
How often is your crib room used?
Depending how often your crib room is used will be what you can use as your deciding factor for the amount of furniture you want to put into it and the design and layout you choose. If your crib room is used often, you may want to look at creating more zones with more furniture to cater for larger quantities of people. Alternatively, if your crib room is only used spasmodically, you could get away with less furniture in the space and possibly less zoning. However, we would still recommend you offer the zones as a way to encourage as much use as possible.