How to Create a Space Plan Using Homestyler
Planning room layouts is one of my favorite parts of the design process. It may sound pretty nerdy, but it’s the truth! It’s one of the very first things I tackle when I dive into a room design, so if you want to “do as the designers do,” a great place to start is by creating your floor plan. It help you get a sense for the scale of the pieces you’ll be looking for and their placement in that space. Getting those two right is important for both the look and the function of the room. Taking time to map things out will actually make designing your home a more enjoyable experience and help you feel confident about your purchases.
You want to make sure you have “good flow,” which means that you can easily walk from one room to the next, navigate the furniture in a space, and pass by others without any awkward interaction (no shimmying!). The goal is to make it natural to move through and within a space.
Now, if the idea of mapping out a room feels intimidating, don’t worry. Learning how to create a space plan can be super simple and we’re going to walk through how to do it using a digital software called Homestyler (P.S. it’s free to use!).
Get ready to create your space plan:
Designing a room that functions well and has good flow requires a little bit of technical know-how and a little bit of trusting your instincts. In order to create a space plan, you’ll want to have these things at the ready:
A hand drawn floor plan of the room that shows the measurements of everything in the space: wall lengths, window measurements, door/wall opening measurements, ceiling height, and any other pertinent architectural details. (Need a guide for how to how to do it? Here’s the room measurement guide I send to my e-design clients.)
A Budget and Item Tracker spreadsheet (grab a copy of a template I created just for y’all over in this post) that lists out the furniture you’ll want to purchase as well as a list of any existing pieces you’ll be using. Be sure to note the measurements of those existing pieces in the notes section so you can add them to the space plan.
A browser window open to Homestyler.
How to create a space plan for your room using Homestyler:
Once you have everything ready, it’s time to create your digital floor plan so you can play around with furniture arrangements.
Going digital with a tool like Homestyler allows you to easily create a plan with to-scale pieces of furniture and decor. When you can input the exact measurements of your existing pieces and/or new ones you’re sourcing, you’ll be able to see exactly what it will look like when it’s set up, make changes as needed, and play around with different options. How cool is that? Below you’ll find a video introduction to this great software that’ll get you up and running.
When you first open Homestyler, it can seem a little intimidating, but once you learn where the tools are and how to find what you need, you’ll be set! Be sure to create an account (it’s free) so you can save your designs and go back to them later, and then once you’re “in,” you can create a new design.
Once you’re at the home screen of a new design, hit play on the video to watch a tutorial to get you started:
Introduction to Homestyler
As you’ll see in the video, Homestyler has both 2D and 3D options for space planning. I find that starting with the 2D overhead view is most helpful, and then you can toggle back and forth to see how it’s looking in 3D as well. The 3D views can give you good perspective on how pieces of furniture and decor relate to each other (scale) as well as see how wall decor looks as you view it “standing” in the room.
Once you’ve watched the introduction, take a look at the short video below that shows you a couple of other tips and tricks including how to measure the amount of space between pieces as well as more information on how to look at the room from a 3D perspective. Those two tools are the icing on the cake for this software and don’t require any fancy skills!
Have fun designing your room and playing around with different furniture arrangements! Figuring out what works best now will save you a lot of time, money, and energy down the road as you source actual pieces. Sticking to the dimensions of items in your space plan will help ensure your room will have the right scale and proportions as you put it together in real life!
Have questions about Homestyler? Contact me here or send me a DM on Instagram!
