For the record, I don’t like Journey but it seemed like a good blog post title. I’ll probably regret it later when I have that song stuck in my head for three hours. My apologies in advance.
I know I’ve mentioned to you guys a few times how much I love working on our furniture floor plan layouts in AutoCAD. It’s addicting — it’s like a puzzle game where you move your furniture around and around and around and around — without doing any heavy lifting. The moral of the story today though is that sometimes you do have to do some heavy lifting for your living room to feel balanced.
When we plucked the little love seat off Craigslist a while back, I of course rushed off to look at my furniture layout options. “Newbie” as I took to calling the little guy had a nice diminutive scale that gave me more options in the living room than I had before. I printed out a few of the on-screen layout options and presented them to JT for review/heavy lifting approval.
Here’s what we decided to try:
And guess what — it works on paper but really failed in real life. Because although everything fit into the space with plenty of clearance, the sofa bisected the living/dining space and made it feel smaller. A lot smaller. And in a small space that wasn’t really the feel we were going for.
(There are the real life shots here folks. Mess on the table, laundry, dog treat box, slippers, brooms propped about, you know – life.)
So we tried this:
It’s been working a lot better for us. It’s fairly similar to the layout we’ve been using for a while but we brought in the larger than life storage drawer from the music room and made it our “entertainment center”.
So even though I have access to AutoCAD and can do fancy floor plans to my heart’s content, sometimes the best way to see if you will like your furniture in a new arrangement is just to move it around and try it out. Also I will chime in with the decorator’s advice of using large things in small spaces — before our sofa was large and our TV stand was small. By switching out the sofa to a smaller version, having the small TV stand started to make the living room look like a kid’s play set. So we beefed up the TV stand and it evened the whole thing back out. Rooms, like people, need balance (and vegetables – or vegetation as the case may be).
So that’s what I got this Monday. What’s new with you? Do you rearrange your furniture every weekend? Coming up this week is some major changes to the bedroom and the back porch. We’re on full speed ahead over here and no room is off limits! Cheers – CT
Living Analog 
Since I moved into my new (tiny) space, the furniture in the living room might as well be bolted to the floor, because there aren’t any alternative arrangements. I’ll probably satisfy my need for rearranging in the bedroom, where there are two choices. 🙂 Your room looks great now with Newbie and the big TV stand.
Thanks Dana! I think most people have a need for rearranging. At least you can do a lot of rearranging (if you wanted to) of your cubbyholes/display wall. An everchanging wall of awesomeness. Cheers – CT
I have been looking online at CAD for dummies. I want to try different kitchen cabinet arrangements. Any recommendations or is it all as hard as it looks? I want to try out an island, but it has to jut out into an oversize walkway. blah blah blah. You get it. I laid out some boxes on the floor but it really didn’t get it done.
Rebecca — I think for what you are talking about you should consider using Google Sketch-up. It is a free download and there are a lot of video tutorials you can watch. Then you draw your plan and extrude things up to give you a sense of the scale. Also, there are a lot of objects already created in an online “3D Warehouse” so you can import those and save from drawing time. See a post at Young House Love about 3d planning: http://www.younghouselove.com/2011/09/break-out-the-3d-glasses/
Hope this helps! Cheers – CT