Last week, I opened a box of old office supplies from my mother-in-law (part of
her downsizing has been passing the extras on to us). Along with more partially used notepads than you can imagine, I found an architect's scale ruler and a plastic sheet of 'furniture' outlines used for room-planning. I gave them to my almost-10-year-old for fun. A week later, I am finding page after page of room plans, with labels like My Dream Room, Ann Ross' bedroom, Jordan's new room. Boy
did that bring back memories...
When I was about 10, I became fascinated with room plans. My grandmother had been a student of architecture and had designed her home and those of friends and family. I was intrigued. I spent many a lazy summer afternoon with my ruler, sharp pencil, and blank paper designing house after house after house. How the rooms led from one to the other, the flow, where the windows would be, how the stair landing would work... it was all fun.
Fast-forward to high school, when I seriously considered going to school for architecture. When I realized that meant engineering, too, I quickly changed my mind, ... but I still loved the concept.
I was the roommate who would rearrange the furniture while everyone was out - a source of much frustration for Michelle and Elizabeth who never knew how they would find the apartment.
Later, when the opportunity arose to renovate and remodel a home in Richmond with my husband, I jumped at it. Three stone fireplaces and a wide view of the James River made us fall in love. The fact that the foundation of the house dated to the 1910's and 1920's and knowing that the house had not been really renovated since 1963 when it was rebuilt after a fire did not dissuade us. We dove in head-first.
Out came the architect's scale and graph paper and the fun began. The previous owner had been, um, height-challenged. Only one room in the house had ceilings at 8' or higher. There were hallways and doors where, at 5'8" tall, I had to duck to go through. We set out to change that.
Being in the 'furniture biz,' as we planned the physical space, we talked about how the rooms would flow with furniture. What would the layout be? Where would the TV live? How would we group the living room so that we could enjoy the fireplace AND the view of the river? It was FUN.
Since I was not a 'trained' architect or designer, I did not have any knowledge of formal CAD software. I really wished, however, that I had some sort of 'easy' program that I could use to design our spaces.
Two years after we were finished, moved in, and furnished, we were introduced to this really cool, EASY, software called
ICOVIA room planner. How I
wished we'd had this back when we were designing the house!
Even though I didn't have Icovia THEN, I have it now... and so do YOU! You can access ICOVIA's easy, very cool room planning software right from www.ladiff.com at the 'room planning' tab. You can plan, rearrange, dream, and imagine. Remember to set up an account so that you can save your works in progress! Using this will let you know if you really can fit a 9 foot sofa in 'that space in the living room.' Then, when you visit
LaDiff in person, you can pull up your drawings right then, and we'll ALL know just what will fit.
Room planning lets you (and us) know exactly where the windows & doors are, where the major traffic patterns flow, where the fireplace, TV, piano, view, etc. come into play. If you want US to do it FOR you, come on in and set up a design appointment. We can help!
Feeling inspired to start yourself? Here... you can
CLICK HERE and get planning!
