In the sticky post I give a tip about drawing a floor plan before you start purchasing furniture for your apartment. But, what if I show you a way where no drawing is needed? Not all of us are van Gogh you know. When planning to furnish our first apartment, my wife and I were eating lunch . I took a small napkin and started drawing out our apartments floor plan. When I got home I started measuring walls, windows and doors to make sure I knew the exact specs of our apartment. Again, having such a small area to work with I knew that having the right measurements was critical when heading to the furnishing store.

Using an online floor planning tool can be for those of you moving into a new apartment where space is limited or maybe your just wanting to give yourself a visual of how a particular piece of furniture will look in your specific setting. Whatever the case, a furniture planning tool will be beneficial in optimizing space and saving you money in your small home or apartment.

Now, think about having the ability to arrange and map out a 3D image of your apartment and choose specific furniture pieces to place within your specific setting. Pretty amazing…huh? Well you do have that ability and best of all…IT’S FREE! The website that I have used on several occasions is called Floorplanner.com. They do have an upgrade option, but I have never upgraded. Their free tool works just fine for planning out and arranging your apartments furniture setting. There are hundreds of other furniture arranging tools online and many of them you will be able to find with some of the online furniture stores.

To name a few:

There are also several types of room design programs that you can buy if your do to so, but for the frugal planners…stick with the free ones.

When I first started writing this post I envisioned writing a step by step tutorial on using floorplanner’s.com interface but they have a video that is perfect for guiding you through the process. Using any of the online furniture planning tools will take some time getting use too, but once you understand the in’s and out’s of adding and subtracting furniture, doors, walls and windows it’s a must have when shopping for apartment furniture. Not to mention once you have your floor plan made up, you can save it and keep reverting back to it anytime you want.

Below I mocked up a floor plan of my first apartment. Please forgive me for the 12ft couch in the living room, but I’m sure you get the idea of how powerful a room planner can be in planning your next furniture purchase or move.

 

2D Image Of Our First Apartment:

 

3D Image Of The Same Apartment:

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