What’s the best way to lay out a house? Think spatially! Space is what’s leftover after everything else is in place. Space is what you live in and use everyday. Walls, ceilings and floors are important, but ultimately it’s the space they form that determines your satisfaction with any house plan. Space may seem like an intangible entity prior to construction, but once the house is built, it becomes the main priority. Visualizing a layout ahead of time, and seeing it graphically detailed on paper, ensures space for everything in a new house.

The organization of space is the primary concern of architectural design. Walls are not put in place only to hold up the roof or keep out the rain, they define space. A given floor area can be laid out in any number of ways. Rooms can vary in size, shape and height. Elements within a room, such as fixtures, appliances and furniture, can be arranged to suit any preference.

There are good and bad ways to lay out space. Everyone has been in a room that’s difficult to use. A room may be too narrow, too short, or an irregular shape. A door may be in an awkward location, or swing the wrong way. Furnishings may not fit comfortably. Kitchen countertop space may be inadequate. In bedrooms, there may not be enough space between beds and closet doors. A room can even be too big, and more furniture may have to be bought just to fill up the room!

A large scale drawing of the furnishings layout, done in conjunction with the floor plan, prevents the unfortunate experience of building cramped, unusable space. While a furnishings layout is not used for the actual construction, it ensures that the dimensions shown on the construction drawings, for locating walls and other permanent items, allow adequate clearances for good circulation.

A furnishings layout allows you to study the options for each room. The living room is a space many people like to re-arrange from time to time. Can the sofa be located in two or three places, yet still allow a good view of the fireplace, or out the main window? Where will the TV and the stereo be located? Is there enough room for the coffee and end tables? A piano may need space somewhere.

Bedrooms are frequently undersized spaces. Don’t assume just because a room is labelled “Bedroom” that everything will automatically fit neatly in the available area. A blow-up plan of a bedroom, showing the bed, dresser, night table and closet doors, will easily show if there is enough space to walk around in the room after the furniture is in place.

A furnishings layout offers other advantages in planning a house. The relationship of furniture to the windows can be checked. Electrical outlets and light switches can be installed at the most convenient locations. Ceiling or wall mounted light fixtures can be placed to best suit the furniture. If there is a desk or reading chair, lamps can be located nearby to provide good lighting. A chandelier can be centered over the dining room table, which may not necessarily be the center of the dining room ceiling. Ample space can be provided around the dining room table to ensure comfortable seating for all members of the family at one sitting.

To produce good room layouts, the actual dimensions of the furniture should be measured and used in developing the floor plan. It may initially seem like an unnecessary chore, but it’s the surest way to determine how much space is needed in each room. If you are using a standard plan, rather than a custom design, have the furnishings superimposed on a copy of the plan to make sure everything fits. A plan may look good on paper, but does it really work?

Don’t leave the spaces you will live in to chance. See your house and furnishings on paper ahead of time. Ensure there’s room for everything in your new house!

ARCHITECTURAL SCALE

An architectural scale is a design instrument used by architects to produce measured drawings of buildings for construction. Unlike an ordinary ruler, which has only one measuring system, an architectural scale can have up to twelve measuring systems.

The measuring systems on an architectural scale are used to draw buildings, or parts or buildings, at various proportions of true size to drawn size. These proportions are also called scales, meaning the scale at which something is shown on a drawing.

For example, a scale of 1:1 means that something is drawn at actual size, and this is the “scale” of an ordinary ruler. A scale of 1:2 means that a line drawn one inch in length represents two inches of actual length. Similarly, an object drawn at 1:10 scale is shown at a tenth of its true size.

Floor plans for houses are commonly drawn at 1:50 scale. Depending on the level of detail required for the builder, blow-up plans of specific areas are drawn at scales of 1:20, 1:10 or 1:5.