For years, the two small conference rooms in our office have been referred to as "the interrogation rooms." This tongue-in-cheek reference had less to do with any questioning taking place in those rooms and more to do with the prison-like atmosphere cultivated by stark cinder block walls, spartan furnishing and a stained drop ceiling. Plus, there is always an Arctic blast of air conditioning in the rooms — turning even friendly conversations a bit chilly.

An idea to improve the appearance of those two rooms bubbled up in a newsroom improvement committee meeting, and, of course, I took the bait. As writers, we know that setting influences plot. I was determined to make those rooms a less institutional place to have a conversation, but it wasn't until I committed to the makeover project that I discovered the budget: $200, plus the cost of paint.

Clearly, this would require some reinforcements. I enlisted the help of interior designer Scott Tjaden, who also writes an occasional design column for Lifestyle, and Scott Bujnak, the carpenter supervisor in our building. Due to our limited funds, we had to approach the project in reverse, gathering our available resources before coming up with a design vision, but the end result impressed even our cynical colleagues.

We discovered that even the most utilitarian and sparse office space can be transformed with some creativity. If you have a home office that lacks inspiration, follow these seven steps to a low-cost, high-style office makeover.

1. Define the purpose.

Every smart design project begins by figuring out exactly how the space will be used. We determined how much seating was needed for small groups of editors and reporters to be able to meet about a developing story. We knew each room also needed some sort of table and decided to add a whiteboard. These items were our essentials.

"Unless those things are defined, you're going to get off track," Tjaden said.

2. Identify the strengths and weaknesses.

When I first showed Tjaden the rooms in their original state, his first reaction was: "We need paint to disguise these architectural deformities."

He instantly noted which elements we needed to hide because they were impossible to replace. The ceiling tiles were just plain dirty. And, the concrete walls could not be changed. There was no natural light and a single dingy sofa, well past its use-by date.

On the plus side, we had free reign with color choices and we could freely plunder the building for furniture cast-offs.

"You can't have a vision for something until you know what is available, especially when you have a tight budget," Tjaden advised.

He had already decided that the walls would be striped in each room to help disguise the concrete cinder block walls.

Vertically, stripes can make space look taller. Our objective was to make the space look wider, so we went horizontal. It created an illusion of space.

3. Determine what is already available.

This was when we started scavenging the building for pieces with any sort of potential. We pored over rows of decrepit, dated and discarded furniture. The same can be done in your home, as long as you can see older pieces with a fresh perspective.

Initially, Tjaden was looking for a large tall item for each room and seating. We found some key components, like an older wooden storage cabinet, which we asked Bujnak to refinish and lacquer. We also found a large bookcase with shelves, along with wooden white boards, which would take on new life with a fresh coat of paint.

Each room needs three sorts of elements, Tjaden explained: A dominant, subdominant and subordinate. Even a small room needs one large object for drama and attention. In our case, the bookcase and storage cabinet would be the dominant pieces. The stripes and other furniture were subdominant, and accessories, the subordinate pieces, would pull the room together.

In the newsroom's much larger conference area, I had my eye on a neutral gray, camel back sofa. We measured it and discovered it would fit perfectly alongside one wall.

"People automatically assume that a small room needs small furniture, but that's not true," Tjaden said. "It can also be wide, like the sofa that goes wall to wall and maximizes seating. Plus, it's a neutral color, so it disappears."

4. Refinish and repurpose.

If you have the ability to refinish a piece of furniture yourself, it's certainly the cheapest option. Fortunately, we had a talented carpenter on staff, who indulged our multi-stepped refurbishing requests.

The dated wood cabinet got lacquered in a high-gloss aqua color. The bookshelf was repainted black with the inset shelves painted an accent cayenne orange-red.

"A bold color scheme and large items work well in a small space," Tjaden said.

5. Make a list and prioritize.

Finally, it was time to go shopping. One of my colleagues suggested installing a minibar in one of the rooms. There were two problems with this idea: One, alcohol is banned in our workplace, and two, did we really want to hear potential story ideas from sloshed editors?

More important, we still didn't have any seating, which was really the whole point of the rooms. We made a list based on our budget and started prioritizing that list. We knew we needed seating and some art for the walls.

This was the time to start cruising used office supply stores, Goodwill and the Salvation Army.

We started with Warehouse of Fixtures, 2653 Locust Street, which carries a great selection of gently used, high-end office furniture in a back room. (There's also Store Supply Warehouse, 9801 Page Avenue and Value Village, 7435 Watson Road.) The store had rows of beautiful, black leather Herman Miller swivel chairs. They were the perfect size, color and type. Unfortunately, they were completely out of my price range. On the plus side, the owner was willing to negotiate based on how much we were buying.

We found two black plastic chairs, with a curved back that matched the back of the sofa, along with an old, wooden coffee table, which we hoped Bujnak could refinish and paint, and four of those swivel chairs ... all for $160. We had to arrange the pickup ourselves, but we were so excited by the find, we would have carried them four city blocks on our backs.

We had chosen the dusty and worn-out table for its size and straight, clean lines.

The square table reflected the stripes that would be painted on the wall and the grid pattern of the ceiling tiles and lighting.

The geometry was softened by the rounded backs of the plastic chairs and curved top of the sofa.

"Measure, measure, measure," Tjaden said. "Take the height and width measurements of a room, along with where the door is to make sure you buy pieces that actually fit."

6. Paint.

Easily, the cheapest way to transform a space is by painting it. In our case, it ended up being our biggest expense because we chose so many different colors and finishes.

Tjaden suggested a dark color for the drop ceiling. It makes the space look larger, while hiding the ceiling tiles. It would also unify tracks and tiles, by painting them one color. One wall would be painted the same color as the ceiling to reunite the ceiling with the rest of the space. And a dark-colored wall automatically creates drama in a room.

Both rooms have the same commercial, looped multicolored carpeting (which we also couldn't change). For the accent colors in each room, Tjaden pulled the orange, blue and gray present in the carpet. One room would have a more whimsical feel with bright blue and green stripes, while the other has more muted, neutral stripes.

I was a little concerned about how such a bold statement would carry (or scream) in such a small space. I looked for reassurance from Bujnak, the carpenter who would be supervising the paint job.

"What do you think of this color scheme?" I asked. He refused to play.

"It's your party," he said.

7. Finishing touches.

Once we had fresh paint on the walls and our new furniture in hand, we needed the accessories to complete the rooms. During our previous walk-through the building, Tjaden noticed a weathered, old portrait of the Pulitzer brothers, and we discovered the 8-by-10 could be scanned and converted to a high-resolution jpeg image. We also found clever, black and white drawings of the Weatherbird gathering dust in a corner.

And our photography department had the perfect photo we wanted to enlarge and frame for one side wall. The head of the photo department tracked down the jpeg of that original, and I ordered poster-sized prints of each from Sam's Warehouse, for about $9 a piece. I found cheap black poster frames at Walmart. Our expenses, not including paint, came in exactly at $200.

I also found a globe on a co-worker's desk and a tall plant in a hallway on a different floor. We rescued a metal stand from a trash bin and turned it into a phone stand.

"I think it turned out great for the budget we had," Tjaden said. "One thing that was successful in making the two spaces cohesive yet distinct was the stripes," he said. "It's the common denominator."

You know you can declare a design project a success when a manager sends you an e-mail saying: "You can decorate my house any time. … The rooms went from 'early prison' to glam."