You’ve probably heard the saying, “Work smarter, not harder.” When it comes to moving, that’s absolutely a valuable axiom to follow. Whether you’re going to be doing everything yourselves or you plan on hiring professional movers to handle the packing, loading, and hauling, moving is hard work. Given the amount of time, organization, and labor involved, it’s important to do what you can to make the moving process easier on yourselves in any ways you can. A big way to do so is by implementing some interior design work. No, we aren’t suggesting you need to make poster-sized idea boards to map out an overhaul of your new home’s decor — not unless you really want to. What we are suggesting, however, is that you take some time to figure out where and how all of your current furniture will fit into your new home.

Space Planning Basics

Space planning is a pretty straightforward process, at least as far as the basic steps go. You’ll need the dimensions of each room, a tape measure, and some paper or a digital program to map out your new home’s spaces. Sites like LivingSpaces.com offer free, customizable furniture planning programs that make this process impressively straightforward. Provide the dimensions for each room, and the program will generate outlines. They even offer an assortment of common room shapes for the rooms outside of the traditional rectangle. If you don’t want to use a digital program, we suggest using graph paper or chart paper — something with equal-sized squares — so you can map out each room. Make each square represent a foot in length so you can scale your rooms appropriately.

Once you have scaled-down representations of each room in the new house, you’ll need to take measurements of your furniture. Measure from the widest points of each piece, not just from the base, so you can be sure each piece will fit in your home the way it does in your mock-up. Most of those online furniture planning programs will have preset furniture options that you can drag and drop into the room outline, but you should also be able to enter dimensions of your own pieces for better accuracy. Or, for those working on paper, make sure you scale down your furniture representations to the same scale of one-foot-per-square.

As you add different pieces of furniture to the digital rooms, arrange them in a way that makes sense based on the room and your family’s habits. For example, in the master bedroom, you’ll probably want to account for walking space on both sides of the bed. In a child’s bedroom, on the other hand, it won’t matter as much if the bed is pushed up against the wall. In the shared living spaces, consider things like expanding your dining table at holiday times or adding extra seating to the living room when you have a party. Keep going until you have all of the rooms in your new home mapped out.

But Why Bother?

This might seem like a lot of finicky hassle to go through, especially with so many other things to worry about during an upcoming move. But it’s absolutely worthwhile if you can find the time to do so! Mapping out your furniture like this will give you a great idea about which pieces of furniture will work well in your new home and which pieces might not fit. In an ideal world, all of your furniture will fit nicely into your new home without problems. But if they aren’t going to work, don’t you want to know that before you haul that heavy sleeper sofa up three flights stairs with tight turns?

Furniture mapping is great because it will save you a lot of hassle with some of the most hassle-inducing parts of a move. Mapping out the rooms of your new house will give you a great idea of whether or not pieces will fit. That way, if you need to get rid of any furniture, you’ll have the chance to sell or donate those items before trying to haul them into your new home and realizing they don’t fit. It will also give you a chance to find replacement furniture if you need to.

The other big plus is one your furniture movers will thank you for — whether you’re hiring professionals or relying on the benevolence of friends. Once you’ve mapped out the rooms with your furniture, save your diagrams! Color code each room, mark each piece of furniture (with safe materials), and have those diagrams posted in each room on move-in day. That way, your furniture movers can grab each piece and haul it to the correct spot in the right room without a lot of shifting or confusion.

Furniture Moving Help

The thought of hauling a lot of furniture probably has all of your friends groaning in annoyance. No matter who is doing the heavy lifting, help them and help make your move go smoothly. Start by mocking up thorough furniture diagrams and getting rid of furniture accordingly. If you have questions about preparing for your move, packing, hauling heavy items, or anything else moving related, connect with the professional packers and movers at Skyline Moving Company. We serve Northern Colorado with fully customizable moving services, which range from full-service packing and moving to just loading or unloading. Give us a call to get started with a moving quote!