“That makes us different than others,” Awtry says. Today, out of its 200,000-square-foot showroom at 5000 W. Roosevelt Rd. in Chicago and a new design studio and sales office in River North, the 85-person company provides workstations, desks, seating, file cabinets, conference and reception furniture, as well as continuing to take on decommissions, furniture buybacks and deliveries.

Rightsize now handles about 300 office spaces a month. The jobs range from quick space plans for a few cubicles that they can turn around in hours to complete redesigns and renovations of 450,000-square-foot spaces that can take months.

The firm, for example, recently won a bid to help expand the office of the Better Business Bureau of Chicago. The group has more than 50 employees and the whole effort, which involved more than one month of evaluation and work, resulted in Rightsize replacing all existing furnishings with remanufactured green product including Herman Miller AO2 stations, Steelcase Criterion task chairs, and Steelcase private offices. Rightsize also provided moving services and disposed of the old assets.

Disposing of old assets and decommissioning space, in an eco-friendly manner if requested, remains an important part of the business, Awtry says. “If you flip a building upside down, anything that would move, we will get it out of there,” including file cabinets, chairs, desks, and cables. But Rightsize will also patch up any holes in the walls and generally make certain that vacating tenants are in compliance with lease requirements.

“We evaluate the qualities and usability of the assets and make the appropriate arrangements,” he adds. The company scraps some stuff, sells other pieces directly off the job site, and puts still others in the Roosevelt Rd. showroom. It decommissioned about 3-million-square-feet last year.

“Whether we're helping someone grow, move, redesign, decommission or downsize their space,” Awtry says, “this is an art, not a science.”