Monday, June 23

Best Laid Plans.

An inquiring sfgirl reader asked last week if I could put together a floor plan of the apartment in its latest incarnation, as to see it from a better perspective, so here I am gladly obliging.

I actually love doing floor plans - the fun, grid-lined paper and rulers, colored pencils and sharpies all make my heart sing a little bit, and remind me of my days in design school, oh so way back when. So, here is a little sketch of Chez Victoria as it stands today, not entirely, perfectly to scale, but you get the idea.

There are lots of tools out there to assist you with your own floor plans, if you're not one for drawing them yourself. There are life size furniture cutouts you can purchase at Design Yourself Interiors if you need help literally visualizing the room with the furniture in it. You can find a Peel 'n Stick Home Quick Planner at Home Plans. Or, if you like to change things as much as I do, you can sign up for the Icovia Space Planner Design Editor, an online drag-and-drop program with tons of furniture icons you can customize to create virtual rooms right on your computer screen. Or, you can just rough it the old-fashioned route, like me with pen and paper. No matter which you choose, I think it's always a great visualizing tool to put it to 'paper' one way or another to help determine if it's all going to work or not. But then, sometimes I just start pushing furniture around and get a lot of exercise. Either way, it's always a fun and expensive way to change it all up without spending a bunch of money.

Life size cutouts from Design Yourself Interiors.


Online Interactive space planning from Icovia.

12 comments:

mermer said...

This is random, but I love that little yellow creamer you're using to hold your colored pencils. Hope you don't mind me including that picture in my post about a similar turquoise creamer today!

sfgirlbybay said...

of course! you are most welcome to! :)

Cindy said...

i love seeing your floor plan. i usually do a lot of dragging, dropping, and imagining. this looks better. i'm sure my husband would agree, too ;).

la.mi said...

glad your back. did you study interior or architecture designs? i'm thinking about getting a second bachelor in architecture and was wondering if you had any recommendations as to which school is good.

sfgirlbybay said...

thanks guys!

i did study interior design and got an A/A degree from the Designer's Guild in Los Angeles....many, many years ago! i don't really know of schools up here, but perhaps Academy of Art college has courses?

Tracey said...

I have an online version from Better Homes and Garden, but am really a paper and pen girl myself. I also like to physically move furniture- I get a workout in then!

la la Lovely said...

That is so impressive and great tools.. thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

I also love to make them, but I usually make little cut-out furniture so I can move it around on paper (and in my mind).

Anonymous said...

You did it! Thank you! (I am the inquiring reader...!) I had a feeling you might be a person who likes drawing floor plans, occasionally.. and I was sure other readers would enjoy seeing it.

Now I'll have to go back and look at the photos to see how they correspond..!

:-) Melissa

Anonymous said...

I love your plan but really it's just making me crazy jealous over your sq footage!

Unknown said...

It was wonderful to see your apt plan!
are you feeling better?

Anonymous said...

wonderful place you got there!! if you don't mind me asking, what is the square footage of your apt?? i'm about to move into an studio in sf, & im just wondering how i can work with it.