6 Simple Steps to Achieve the Best Furniture Layout
Congratulations on your upcoming move! Now comes the fun part – creating a beautiful and functional furniture layout. Whether you will bring your furniture and decor from your old abode or you plan to purchase new items, arranging the space to be open and attractive is important.
But what if you aren’t a designer? How do you achieve a beautiful space? Today, we’ll discuss some ideas for creating the best possible floor plan and describe how you can try out your furniture layout ideas without the heavy lifting!
How to Create a Furniture Layout:
- Map out the rooms
- Get to the drawing board
- Arrange in a balanced way
- Consider traffic flow
- Highlight a focal point
- Use lighting to your advantage
1. Map Out the Rooms
Before you lug all of the furniture into the rooms, we suggest getting a good feel for the doors & windows, outlets, lighting fixtures, and any key focal points.
Deciding what furniture goes where will depend quite a bit on the location of these elements. To map out the space, use old-fashioned graph paper and cutouts of the furniture, or an online floor planner like the RoomSketcher App to plan your furniture layout.
Note that depending on your budget and timeframe, you aren’t necessarily tied to the layout of your house. If you have the resources, you can update the floor plan by moving or removing walls or adding windows. Open floor plans for the living room and kitchen are trendy home improvements with high ROI.
2. Get to the Drawing Board
Once you have the rooms mapped out, you can brainstorm ideas on laying out the furniture in each room. Create several options, discuss them with family or design-oriented friends, and make adjustments based on their inputs.
This process will save you a lot of time and energy when you physically arrange the furniture because you’ll already have a good idea of what goes where.
For help with this part of the process, check out the RoomSketcher App. With RoomSketcher, you just click and drag to draw your home’s walls and add in the windows and doors. Next, add furniture and easily create multiple room options.
Best of all, with just a click, you can (virtually) go right inside your rooms in Live 3D and take a look around. See exactly how the room would look with the couch moved over just a smidge. Add an extra chair or a different side table. It’s so much quicker and easier (plus better for your back!) to let RoomSketcher do the virtual heavy lifting for you.
Top RoomSketcher Tip!
Once you’ve decided on a layout, print out the floor plans to help you, or your movers, during the actual move.
3. Arrange in a Balanced Way
One important tip to keep in mind is to arrange the space in a balanced way. For example, when placing furniture and decor in a room, don’t group all the large or small pieces on one side so that the room feels lopsided.
The room’s furniture should balance out fairly evenly, and you can then use accessories to refine the balance.
4. Consider Traffic Flow
Think about how people will enter and flow through each room. You don’t want anyone to trip on furniture or have to step aside to pass another person.
Make sure you leave enough space between items of furniture so that there is a clear path through the space. Doing so not only makes it easier for people to navigate through the room, it contributes to a feeling of spaciousness and light.
As a rule of thumb, interior designers aim for a 75cm space around the furniture to create a good flow.
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5. Highlight a Focal Point
Does the room have a fireplace? A large window with a view? These are natural focal points or central design elements.
It’s a good idea to pick one focal point in a room and arrange furniture to highlight it. Arrange seating to face a stunning fireplace in the living room.
In a bedroom, the bed is often the focal point, so make sure it has a nice headboard or add a beautiful picture above it. If a room doesn’t have a natural focal point, you can also create one. A media center or bookshelf is often used as a focal point in a living room.
6. Use Lighting to Your Advantage
Good lighting is one of the most useful tools to bring a house to its full potential. Since every room doesn’t have the same, good natural lighting, you can install lighting fixtures to provide the best lighting for that room’s needs.
First, understand where the natural light comes in through the windows and how much it illuminates each space. Then, if needed, adjust the placement of furniture, keeping in mind that you don’t want the light to be blinding.
Once you’ve decided on the furniture layout, add in lighting options that will work well for daytime tasks and any additional lighting for nighttime needs.
Get Started
Plan your home move today using RoomSketcher. Start out with a free subscription to draw your floor plan, and try out furniture options. If you want to view your rooms in 3D, or generate high-quality 2D and 3D floor plans, simply upgrade your subscription.
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