Would be interested to know if you used a Room/Furniture Layout Kit and which make/brand did you find to be the most helpful. Believe it would be helpful to be able to place sofa, etc. on a page & be able to move around the room. Considering I find it difficult to draw & re-draw a straight line on this graph paper, I need help!
Appreciate!
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Replies
I have used a Stanley kit, but its 15 years old and I got it from work. I don't know if it is still available. It has the vinyl lines, etc. that you can easily reposition. The one drawback is that the standard sizes were not always the size of the furniture I had.
A few years back, my office moved to a new facility and I had to pre-plan furniture placement. For that, I used MS Excel. I made the rows and columns exactly square. I decided each square was one square foot. Then if familiar with the program, you can draw lines for the walls, etc. and boxes/circles, etc. for the furniture. When printed out, I cut out the pieces (which were labeled) and practiced sliding them around on paper. This worked out great and I liked it better than the kit. (It helps overcome the drawing issues. You can shade the furniture shapes too.
Another "manual" technique I've seen used it brown kraft paper sized to the furniture sizes and moving them around in the empty room. This helps you see the space between objects, how the traffic flow would work, etc.
Have fun and play around. It's easier to plan ahead than to have people repositioning furniture over and over and getting cranky, not to mention the strain. It also helps if you are purchasing something new to ensure you get the right size piece. Good luck!
Thanks! You certainly provided many ideas. I wish I were Excel proficient; still learning so doubt I would be able to accomplish via this method. Know exactly what you mean about repositioning & people being cranky...hubby prefers sofa on the wall instead of in a thoroughfare. However, new house plan will place him smack dab in the thoroughfare. Just cannot have a long closed hall with large entrance opening as leaves no space for sofa on a wall! So much for the personal bit here in the home; just another oversight; cannot capture everything.
Suppose I will just get out the drawing paper again; though I may shop at local office store to see what options exist there. Again, thanks!
I use "Punch! 5 in 1" software. It has a pretty good drawing tool, and then you can see the rooms in 3D, walk around in them, etc. I attached a picture of a bedroom I have.
I bought the softare at Office Depot for $40.
Good luck,
TTF
Edited 12/10/2005 10:25 pm ET by TTF