Planning Your Move
It helps to find a place for everything ahead of time, says Joanie.
by Joanie Gaither
You’re in your new set of quarters — a rental house or possibly your dream home — and the first big dilemma rears its ugly head: “Where am I going to put all my furniture?” Here’s some advice on how to remove some of the clutter from your life.
1. On a medium-sized piece of poster board, draw a floor plan of each room using a scale of 1 inch equals 1 foot. Draw in all electrical outlets so you know where you can put the TV, computer, phone, etc. Add windows and doors to scale and be sure to indicate which way the door swings.
2. On the corner of the poster board, list every piece of furniture you want to put in that room. Work in pencil, because it’s a lot easier to erase the sofa than it is to move it for the fourth time.
3. Think about the room’s requirements and where most of the activity will take place. Ask yourself whether you need a TV, a computer or, in my case, a window with a good view.
4. Now it’s time to have some fun. Draw your furniture onto your floor plan. As you put each piece on the poster board, scratch it off your list. If you’ve been thorough in the first step, you won’t have a seating/conversation area in a location without electrical outlets for your lamps or in a spot where a door opens, smacking into a chair — or the person sitting in that chair.
Sharpen your pencil and draw away!
JOANIE’S RULES FOR ARRANGING FURNITURE
1. Try for equal balance and value — don’t put all the heavy items on one side of the room.
2. Mix upholstered and wood pieces. This is particularly important if you have traditional furniture. I’ve covered many perfectly good end tables with fabric (draped all the way to the floor) because all I could see when I entered the room was a forest of furniture legs.
3. If you live in an open floor plan home that features one main living area, vertical space considerations need to be addressed. Just as you try to balance the heavier pieces, your taller pieces of furniture will need to be balanced as well. Your home is not a major metropolitan area, so you don’t need a bunch of tall things bunched together in one location.
4. The most frequently overlooked item in planning space is traffic patterns. If you don’t want kids, dogs, etc., interrupting an area, arrange the furniture so they have to go around.