The floor plan continued.

Now that you have your floor plan drawn to scale you have done all of the tedious work. Just a bit more homework and then you get to play.

Write down what the room is used for and how many people participate in those activities. This should include the possibility, for example, of having seating for 10 in the family room when the kids bring home their ‘significant others’ for Sunday dinner. ( Does anyone still do that? I hope so). Do you need one corner for reading? One corner for the computer? Write it all down. This is called the room usage list and it drives the amount of seating, and therefore the type of seating, the room will require. For example; if your dining room table normally seats 4, but you need it to seat 8 on occasion, you will need a table that expands; the space to expand it into and chairs to accommodate the extra guests.

Once you have this usage list completed, cut out some small squares that will represent 30” square. This is the ‘seat space’. If you need seating for 10, cut out 10 squares. Put your floor plan inside a plastic binder sleeve, ( you can write on this with a highlighter and it erases easily) If there are some ‘givens’ in the furniture - such as the piano- sketch these in first. Now place your ‘seats’: 3 for a sofa, 1 for a chair. In the family room, extra seating may be the extra dining room chairs, or a large ottoman, or a bench under the window but again, you need to fore-plan so the room remains functional at it’s optimum seating capacity. Orient your main group of seats toward the focal point - a 3 seater sofa, for example, toward the fireplace or window.

Play around with this, next column we’ll continue on.

An update on the Corded Blind recall and new guidelines... The American National Standards Institute and the Window Covering Manufacturers Association have published the new guidelines for the manufacture of blinds with cords. The American Window Coverings Association is ‘translating’ the document and those of us who manufacture these blinds should have clear guidelines in the near future.