Essential Factors to Keep in Mind When Designing Your Home’s Layout

Being in a situation where you’re able to redesign (or design from scratch) your entire home is somewhat of a double-edged sword. It’s obviously fantastic that you’re able to create something utterly unique to your own personal style, but it’s also an incredibly complex challenge that, if done incrementally, can cost you more than you bargained for and still end up with a layout that doesn’t quite click.

However, there are some general rules of thumb that you can follow that should ensure the outcome lands on the more optimistic end of the spectrum, many of which we’re going to follow throughout this post. 

Take Accurate Measurements To Ensure Furniture Fits Well

Measure twice and cut once is often the mantra banded about by those in the construction industry, as it promotes the proper practice of making sure that you’ve accurately measured a material before you cut it. This is to reduce waste and save time.

While this saying is typically used in the trade industries, it remains pertinent in all aspects of life, particularly anything that requires the need for measurement and the desire to reduce waste. When it comes to the layout of your home, accurate measurements are crucial to ensure that once building work begins, the contractors have a proper plan from which to work and that once everything has been completed, your furniture and other belongings will fit in place just so.

The best way to approach this task is to use a 3D Floor Planner that gives you the ability to generate digital simulacra of your various rooms, which you can then populate with a version of everything you own in real life.

This sort of software gives you the power to move things about on the fly and gives you an overview of how it might look, enabling you to take whatever image you have in your head and create a visual recreation of it.

Consult With Interior Designers For Expert Advice

If you’re new to this process and are unsure how things ought to be done, you can always fall back on the tried and tested technique, which is to enlist the help of a pro.

When it comes to room layout, you are going to need an interior designer who has the requisite knowledge of how to create designs that aren’t only appealing in software but also serve a practical purpose and can actually be recreated in the real world.

If you do choose this route, make sure that you choose a designer whose style somewhat matches your own and one with whom you’re able to develop a genuine rapport. This will ensure a smooth experience and make it more likely that any design you come up with is in sync with your own.

Make Sure Each Space Serves Its Intended Purpose

It might sound pretty obvious when you’re just reading it, but a bedroom needs to be a place where you sleep, the bathroom where you wash, and the kitchen where you cook and possibly also eat. Attempting to blend different uses into highly specific rooms will only end in disaster and must only really be attempted if your space is severely limited and you have no other choice.

If you do have the space, though, then creating each place to service its intended purpose will give the entire house a much airier vibe that gives it meaning.

Ensure Smooth Transitions Between Rooms To Enhance Movement And Accessibility

Regardless of whether you’re a fan of Feng Shui or not, the fact of the matter is that “flow” is a very real concept in the design world. Creating a space that flows freely will make the entire space feel more open and less constricted.

Homes that fail to observe this rule tend to end up feeling claustrophobic and eerily still. There is also another component to ensuring proper flow, which is that it allows the air to move more freely, keeping the place cooler and fresher.

Incorporate Windows And Openings To Invite Sunlight

If you’re reading this post because you’re currently in the process of, or about to begin, a home redesign, then you’ve likely already trawled through hundreds of design publications already. And if we were to guess, you have probably heard the term “natural light” more than you might like to admit, perhaps so much so that it’s lost all meaning.

Nevertheless, planning for natural light is essential if you want to develop a space that incorporates the sort of illumination that is conducive to good health rather than always having to rely on the more artificial side of things.

Design Layouts That Cater To Your Daily Activities And Family Dynamics

It’s always fun to think of pie-in-the-sky ideas and how you might incorporate them into your home, but the reality is that your home is…well, exactly, your home. The place where you live and bring up your family. As such, you should treat any approach to its design as a lesson in developing both aesthetically pleasing and highly functional spaces that serve your family’s needs rather than the other way around.

This can be achieved by considering the age of your family, the number of people, and whether you often have other family members or friends come to visit and stay for a few days. This will be different for everyone, but when you add these variables to the mix, you will come out with a design better suited to the realities of your life rather than something that looks amazing as a 3D image but serves no practical purpose. 

Incorporate Clever Storage Options To Maintain An Organized Living Space

It always seems like there’s never enough storage to meet our ever-increasing demand for new stuff, paired with our inability to give older items away. Planning for this will help you to keep your home clean and tidy (and therefore ensure a feeling of spaciousness).

You can incorporate in-built storage solutions such as cupboards and closets or simply plan for specific locations where you’ll store most of your stuff in a way that is easily accessible but keeps it from cluttering up the place. 

Designing a home is a pretty involved task, but one that, when done well, can generate an incredible feeling of satisfaction. Following these tips will give you a head start, but as long as you keep things functional, you can really do whatever works best for you.