Every great furniture idea starts in someone’s living room or office, then ends up in someone else’s. And there they find themselves a disaster. Maybe the sofa covers the balcony door? Or the table leaves you with no space to walk around? Maybe the cabinet hides the one socket that you need?
This is why measuring the room before planning furniture is one of the most important, and the most often ignored, steps. Measuring the room is not the boring technical step we’ve been led to believe. On the contrary, this is the part of the process that helps every subsequent decision become a bit less confusing. Because if you have actually measured the room, it is no longer a vague concept that you have to imagine. It is a room that you have, and a room that you have tested.
Start by measuring the room’s walls. Then measure the location and width of doors, windows, radiators, and any wall fixtures such as a built-in shelf or column. Be sure to measure any nooks, crannies and odd corners too. Because furniture rarely goes in just any corner, and every corner isn’t just a corner. For example, if you’ve measured where the door is and how the bed is going to fit next to the door, there isn’t going to be any problem. If you have measured where you’d like to put the desk because the windows will offer you a nice amount of light, there shouldn’t be any problems. But if you have measured the exact height you will place the shelf, and it will cover the electrical outlet? Or place a piece of furniture too close to the radiator? That is a different story.
Once you have the measurements for the walls and any other wall fixtures, look to the movement of your space. As you walk throughout the room as you would on an everyday basis, notice where you go and when you turn. Which path leads you to the window, closet or door? Which one takes you to the balcony or bed? Which path will lead you to the sofa or desk? Mark where these walking paths lie on a graph paper or on any floor-plan template available. Doing so will let you know what pieces of furniture you can place in your room and where your furniture might get in the way of your everyday usage. And because having a well-colored room that requires you to take a step away to get to the chair makes for a very uncomfortable space, this step is very important.
Next, list the dimensions of the furniture you plan to put in your room. Whether the piece you plan to place is something you already own or a new item you plan to purchase, make sure you know the measurements of each piece. Measure the width, depth and length of your sofa, table, bed, chair, cabinet, and other furniture you already own. And if you are buying something new, don’t just look at the image of the piece you like. Make sure that you take a quick glance at the item’s dimensions on the website where you found it. On your floor-plan template, even an approximation of that piece of furniture as a rectangle will tell you what it would like to have and how it would need to be spread out in the space. This is where the practicality of scale and proportion comes into play. You don’t have to do a perfectly detailed floor plan. You just need to know if your furniture will fit the room you have.
Once you have the space measured, make two drawings of your room. Put the furniture where you think it should go in the first one, and then adjust the second one, placing furniture where you think you might want to go, making space for walking paths, the door, and the swing of a door, as well as the window and the negative space. The result is going to be very telling. The first sketch shows the way your creative brain wants to work and the second shows the way your room wants you to work. If the two differ dramatically, stop. Before you go into choosing colors, textures and materials, slow down.
Also, measure the size of the room’s corners and wall gaps. Beginners in design usually assume that the empty space of a corner needs a chair, plant, basket or lamp. That may or may not be true. Because sometimes the space is not meant to have furniture. Sometimes it is just what you need so your room does not feel crowded. Or the same can be said of the space left between two doors, or a door and a window. Maybe you need the space, or maybe it’s just right for your room. Measuring these gaps will help you avoid cluttering a corner because it has available space, even if a chair is the only thing that can fit.
A measurement plan will also make your mood boards less of a mess. Instead of choosing colors that would look nice in another size of a room, choose furniture shapes, lighting, storage options and textures that match with the actual furniture you have and the size of the room. You don’t want to strip away creativity. You just want to help your creativity to stay in its place. If you have done all your measurements, laid out where you will go and how it is going to look with the things that have not changed over time (your furniture and the shape and size of your room), you are much more likely to end up with a color palette and a decor that support the room, not fight it.