Banana Web

Making a Floor Plan

This procedure can be followed each time you plan a new room. For each plan, use squared or graph paper and a scale of around 2.5 cm(1 inch) to represent 1 meter(3 ft.). Mark all fixed features such as doors, windows, alcoves and fireplaces with semi-fixed items such as radiators and power points marked in a different color. It is helpful to where these are, but they should not over-influence your plans as they can be moved in most cases.

Mark on the plan which areas you are designating for different uses and different times of the day, and start thinking about the essential furniture-kitchen cupboards, beds, tables. Plan likely positions for these pieces, leaving plenty of room for walking around them, stretching legs, opening cupboards and drawers and so on. Next add smaller items whose positions can be more flexible and that can be, if necessary, be removed from the plan if space is proving limited. If you want to try out several different layouts, cut out pieces of card to represent the furniture so that you can move them around until you are happy with the plan.

Be led by the shape of the room, the light it gets, how it fits with the rest of the space and how you are going to use it. But remember that you sometimes have to waste a bit of space in order to create the impression of it-that sense of largesse, of being bale to afford to throw it away, automatically makes the place feel bigger. Leaving corners unfilled and bare areas of wall creates more of an illusion of space than cramming in as much as possible.

Utilizing the Space

Before you start to put any of your plans into actions, you will need to back up your assessment of the space that you have with some accurate dimensions. Then you can create an accurate scale plan and start work.

Measure all the relevant distances in your home, including the width of corridors, the width and height of doorways, the space between windows and each room’s ceiling height, as well as its length and width. These measurements will allow you to create a floor plan drawn to scale. Start with an overall plan of the space(or a plan for each floor if you have more than one) so that you can see how the rooms fit together and allocate areas of use, then draw up separate plans as you progress to individual rooms.

Reassessing Your Furniture:

Unless you are starting from scratch, you will have existing furniture-pieces you have accumulated from previous homes that will not necessarily suit the plans you have for this one. Try not to feel too attached to these. You may have a few favorite or valuable items that you definitely want to keep, but otherwise you should be as flexible as possible. This is the time to get rid of anything that has really outworn its looks or usefulness. Decide whether or not each item can be updated, painted, re-covered or re-cycled to match the look you have in mind, and be ruthless with anything that cannot.

Know Your Restrictions

As we have discussed in our previous post on planning about the kitchen and bathroom and listing about the factors that restrict your options, you also need to make a restrictions list for other rooms as well. Assess how big is your budget for furnishings, decorating and any restructuring work needed on top of that. You will not be able to calculate the last of these costs exactly until you have consulted builders and, if necessary, architects. However, you can take it for granted that it will be more than you expect, so bear this in mind before you set your heart on grand plans.

Be prepared to scale your ideas down and settle for a few cheaper options and improvisations.

How much of the work will you be able to tackle yourself and which jobs will need professional help? And how much upheaval can you cope with? You can not predict with any certainty whether doing the work yourself will be less disruptive than paying someone else. If you are doing it, it will take longer and you will probably hit stressful periods of panic and despair. If it is someone else, you will have to cope with sharing your house with them, so think it through and decide which route will cause you fewer sleepless nights and family rows.

All these factors-the way you live, the space you want, the raw materials you are starting with and the budget you are working within-need to be weighed up and balanced in order to establish just what is possible for you to achieve.

Radical Rethinks

Some of the decisions will make themselves for you without much difficulty; others need more thinking though. The key choices are whether or not you need to radically rethink the kitchen and bathroom. These are the rooms where plumbing, electricity and construction will be most labour-intensive and expensive, so they should become priorities if you want to make major changes.

First, are they where you want them? Does the position make sense? Is the bathroom close to the rooms that you are planning to use as bedrooms? Is the kitchen within easy reach of your dining area? Now think about their size. Is the bathroom too small? Would you rather convert one of the bedrooms into a decent-sized bathrooms and use the existing one as a utility room? Or is it unnecessarily large? Would you prefer to swap the luxurious bath for a smaller shower room and use the wasted space to create a useful office area?

Now make a list of all those factors that are likely to restrict what you can do and what you cannot do. How big is your budget for kitchen fittings and bathroom set up? Before starting with the construction work for these two rooms, you need to have a fair idea about them keeping your budget and space in mind. This will avoid in delays and future changes for their locations.