Plotting spaces with paper
By Never teh Bride
Before the official launch of the blog, I wrote about shopping your home when you need a decor pick-me-up. What do you do, though, when you’ve found all of the perfect pieces for a certain room in your house or apartment, but you have no clue how to arrange them? When I find myself facing this conundrum, I put scissors to paper.
I could explain myself in my own words, but Seeds of Knowledge wrote it out so succinctly:
1. Measure your room. Draw it to scale on graph paper which you can find at your local discount store. Use a 1/4 in. equal 1 ft. scale. If you can’t figure out how to draw out scale, ask your know-it-all teenage son!
2. Mark anything on your room drawing that will affect the arrangement of the room. Outlets, telephone, cable, light switches, windows, doors that open in, the space between windows, and the height of the window sills are all things that should be measured and noted.
3. This is the fun part! Make scale paper cutouts of your furniture (just like cutting out paper dolls!) Use the cutouts to arrange and rearrange the furniture in your room until you are satisfied with the result.
That’s it–without breaking a sweat, you can be sure you’re spaces will look wonderful in their new configuration. Even if you find drawing tedious, it beats asking your friends, significant other, or “know-it-all teenage son” to help you move your couch over and over and over again.
December 28th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I would also recommend Plan 3D. It costs more than graph paper, but isn’t crazy-expensive to download. Once you get used to the interface, it’s really nifty to use — just put up walls so that you have re-created your room’s dimensions, drag in furniture (which you can then re-size so that it’s the same as your own) and move it around with abandon. I designed my entire kitchen this way, and am now playing with furniture placement in the living room.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Thanks for the recommend, La Petite Acadienne. I’m not up on the design software yet, so it’s good to have a starting point!
December 31st, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Graph paper–that’s just what I did when I redecorated my bedroom a few months ago. It really helped a lot.
January 1st, 2008 at 10:05 am
Also fun and FREE is the Bassett room planner which is on their site. You measure your room and put those figures in and then put in doorways, doors(and with their swing), windows (including bow windows), fireplaces, etc. Then you can add carpets of various sizes and shapes, chairs, tables, plants and lamps. It’s a great planning tool.