That seems to be the question nowadays.
For everything.
Where is this chair gonna go? Where is this dresser gonna go? Where, where, where?
Ok. This is my little tutorial in space planning.
My Disclaimer: I’m not an interior designer. I’ve never taken mechanical drawing pictures. I took two college interior design classes. Two! Don’t expect Candace Olson here.
I just had to get that outta the way before I show you my little ‘method’.
As usual, I didn’t bother to first Google “How to arrange furniture”. I just did my own thing that I’ve been doing for years because it works.
However, I did Google it this morning and found these sites, if you want better drawings 
.
- American Drew (LazyBoy)
- My Décor – this site even has 3D
- Copenhagen Furniture – a pdf doc to download
Here’s what you’ll need:
- A good tape measure. By ‘good’ I mean one you can use yourself and that’s plenty long.
- A note pad
- Grid paper
- Calculator – to convert inches to feet & feet to inches
- Ruler
- Pencil, Pen & Eraser
- Scissors
- Restickable glue – or tape. But tape won’t let you reposition your furniture cut-outs, and that’s the whole point. You can get repositionable glue in any craft store in the scrapbooking section.
First, measure the room and note all your measurements.
- Walls
- Windows
- Doorways
- Built-ins (if you have any)
- Protrusions and cut-outs
Next, the tough part . . . at least for me. Figure out a scale for your room on the grid paper.
My grids were 4 squares to an inch, but I had to figure how many squares to a foot – big enough so I could see, small enough so they’d fit on one page.
I thought about putting four pages together, but ditched that idea and wound up with 2 square:1 foot.
Like I said, I’ve never taken a class in space planning, so I just draw a big box with openings (doors) and little rectangles (windows).
See that little box up there in the top left corner? That’s an old floor heater. But it still works.
Just one more issue for this living room.
Next, measure all the furniture you’ll be moving into the new house, draw them and cut them out.
That ‘measure twice, cut once’ applies to this too. I mis-measured the couch and had to redraw it and cut it out.
Of course, you can do this for your existing home if you don’t feel like pushing stuff around all afternoon.
You can find more furniture templates at the sites above.
Then start playing around with your cut-outs.
This is our issue. Right now the TV is in a beautiful armoire. There’s no way to configure the sectional and armoire in the ‘new’ living room.
We might split the sectional into two pieces. And the TV might come out of the armoire.
I’ll keep playing with this because after looking at it for 2 days, I still can’t find an arrangement I like.
Oh, and one more little issue – trying to get a good feng shui layout for this room. Not working.
Basically, you want to walk into an ‘open’ seating arrangement – not the back of chairs or sofas. I’ll write more about this over at Feng Shui Savvy, if you’re interested.
For the dining room, allow enough space for the chairs to pull out.
Most of the time it’s just the 2 of us, so I’m gonna push the table and unused chairs against the wall for more space.
For years and years, Mom & Dad had their bed against this wall – the one shared with the living room.
There’s nothing wrong with that, except in feng shui terms where you want to see the opening from your bed.
This bedroom is big enough to accommodate Mom’s four poster bed on the other wall.
The only problem with this layout is her nightstand/dresser would be on the left – farthest away from the bathroom. Those 2 little doors are french doors that open to the spa room.
We don’t even use the door on the left, but it’d still look weird having a bed in front of it.
So if I move the bed farther to the left, I can fit her nightstand on the right (where I think she’ll sleep). This puts the bed in front of a little window.
See that little window above the white dresser (and my brother’s head)?
This is one of those “I’ll have to see it” things.
I know, I know, the question arises, why doesn’t my mother just sleep in the middle of the dang bed so the nightstand can be on the left?
Well, she just doesn’t. She sleeps on one side, all nice and neat. She’s not one of those that tears the whole bed up in the middle of the night. (example: me & BBH’s bed)
So those are the 3 major rooms that need space planning. I haven’t done the upstairs yet, but there’s not that much furniture to go up there.
I’ve made sure the refrigerator, washer & dryer fit. They’re 3 years old, going into a 1920’s house. I wanted to measure, and measure again, just to make really sure.
So now, we’re gathering boxes for moving and will start cleaning a house that hasn’t really been lived in for 3 years.
Can you say ‘spiderwebs’?
I’m curious – what do you do to arrange furniture? Do you just take an afternoon and push and pull until it looks ‘right’? Or do you methodically measure and plan . . . and then push and pull?
Right now, I’m open to any tips you got!
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