Furniture management

Buying stuff is easy.  Considering if it fits in a space, with your lifestyle a challenge. Prioritize what is more part of who you are, clean and uncluttered spaces with a little furniture versus lots of stuff that makes your house your home.

How your furniture fits will be determined by:

Means of egress: How do you get it in and out of a space or place?

Lifestyle in the present and lifestyle of you and others in the future. 

Your personal sense of dimensions.

How do you measure up to your own expectations?

You are the ultimate measuring tape! Create your own personal sense of dimensions.  If you are buying with a partner, have them do the same. This exercise will help how each of you see space and furniture and better define what is important.

Sizes are usually defined by width, length, and height. The best way to comprehend the dimensions is to use yourself as your own sense of size.

This means measure yourself vertically and horizontally and get a sense of how much space you personally take upon a wall and on the floor.  Next start the practice of looking at places in terms of “how many of me can fit along the wall?” or “how many of me can fit in this room if I laid down from one end to the other? “

As you start developing a knack for perceiving space like this, conceptualizing space and what goes in it becomes second nature.  When you communicate with others and how they perceive stuff in a space those decisions on where and what to put in a place becomes easier.

The short list of where to begin with your Furniture and other big stuff management

This list is your pallet to paint the picture of what you want within the context of your lifestyle.

Main living spaces

• Private spaces
• Places you keep clean
• Places to put the daily stuff such as bills, winning lottery tickets, opera and jazz fest tickets.
• Places to put food and drink as you go in and out of the house.
• Fun places
• Working places
• Big boy toys – inside and outside 
• Big girl joys – inside, outside, relaxing places.

The short list of walls, stalls and window management.

With all the technology in the world, we still want expressions of ourselves and our world expressed on our walls, just like a caveman would do it.  Take time when you walk through spaces to consider, “How would that art look here?” to “How would certain curtains, blinds or other light altering means and methods make a place your own?

Walls – Look to see how, when and where natural light falls.

Windows – How does the light come in? Are these the right windows? Do the doors reflect the character of the house or does it matter at all?

Floors become a major component in how a space feels.  Floor colors, the feel, and textures will impact what you put on those floors.

Furniture choices and challenges can appear to be overwhelming sometimes.  Take time to consider your personal sense of dimensions.  How do you sense if a space feels big, small or just right?” Once you feel this sense of personal dimensions your ability to know how to place and where to place furniture becomes less of a challenge.