Room Planning

There are various room planning tools available for free on the internet, some from design shops and others from our competitors.  At Fine Oak Things, we do not have a room planning tool available on our web site for two reasons.  The first is that, unlike our competitors, we can custom size our furniture to get our customers a piece that perfectly fits into their home or business, thus adding a “standard size” piece from our product catalog onto a room planner doesn’t make sense.  The second reason is that room planners can show you whether a piece fits into a room, but what they don’t give you is the feel of the room once the furniture is in it.  Interior designers have years of experience using room planners and are experts at knowing how cramped or open a room will feel when it is full of the furniture.  However, not all of our customers have that background, and can end up purchasing a piece that is too big or too small for the room as a result.

I advise all of my customers to use masking tape on the floor to map out a room before making a purchase.  This allows people without design backgrounds to get a sense of what it is like to walk around a formal dining room table if they also get a sideboard.  They can also put chairs around it so you can feel how easy it is to walk around the table when people are sitting around it.  Similar planning can be used for bedrooms, as you might have the space for a king bed, but then your bedroom might feel cramped if the bed takes up too much room.  Remember when you are planning to account for any drawers that need to be accessed or outlets that the furniture could block.  The same technique can also be used for planning for outdoor furniture on a patio, balcony or deck.

The two most important things to remember when buying solid wood furniture are: a) it’s going to last for a long time so you need to love it and b) it needs to be sized properly to give you the right feel that you are creating for the room.  I would love for you to buy our furniture, but I have told customers that come in with floor plans of their new house to hold off on deciding on a size until they actually move in.  It’s the best way to plan for people without experience using design or room planning software and will help ensure that you get the feel that you are trying to achieve.