When it comes to spatial relations, I’ve got absolutely no skills. Blame it on my female brain if you must, but I’ve never been able to visualize how furniture can move around in a space.  I can look at a design on a computer and tell you to the pixel how far over I want something to move (as my poor web developers can attest) but I can’t look at a wall and know it’s about 16 feet long. Just not my bag.

To get around this little issue of mine I generally draw out diagrams. This gives me a reason to buy graph paper, with it’s lovely little boxes all neat and orderly. But my graph paper plans inevitably get screwed up, which means crossed out lines and eraser marks… that totally ruin the whole orderly look I was going for in the first place. It might be time for me to get all 20th century and start doing my floorplans online.

I’ve toyed with a few different software and web applications, and right now I’m really digging “Floor Planner” (easy to remember name, eh?). Mostly because it’s easy to jump into and lets me create and save up to 5 floorplans for free. It’s also a web application, so you don’t have to download or install anything to your desktop other than the latest Flash player.

Here’s a screenshot of our living room, or something like our living room:

They could use some more furniture choices and definitely need to add area rugs to the mix, but it’s a good start. And it’s new, so I’m sure the library of “stuff” will grow. You can sign-up for a free account using your e-mail address, so go check it out. But beware, you could definitely get sucked in and spend hours pixel-pushing your couch around. Have fun :)