Measuring furniture and room space for easy interior decorating

Dreaming up a new interior design setup for a room in your home is full of fun elements — from selecting the overall vibe (mid-century modern? boho-chic? cottagecore?) to choosing the perfect furniture, accessories, flooring and wallpaper, and more. 

One aspect of creating your new room decor that’s usually not so much fun is measuring furniture and floor space to make sure your new pieces fit in the room. However, it’s an absolutely essential task. Imagine picking out your dream sofa and then finding out it won’t fit into your sitting room — worse still if you purchase it before making the unfortunate discovery. 

Read on for our quick and simple guide to measuring furniture and ensuring it is appropriately sized for your home. 

Measuring your home

Before you even think about measuring furniture, you’ll want to measure your room. When you take the measurements, save them somewhere like Dropbox or your phone’s cloud storage so you’ll always have them on hand when you’re looking at new furniture. 

The floor dimensions itself are an obvious place to start. In addition to the length and width of the room, if you’re measuring furniture plans for tall pieces like bookcases and wardrobes, make sure to measure the height as well. Also measure windows, fireplaces, and other fixtures that will need to be subtracted from your available space. 

After the room, just as crucial are your entryways. There’s no point having a sofa that fits in your room if you can’t get it through the door! When you’re measuring doorways or stairwells, measure not only the height, width, and diagonal, but also the clearance area if you’ll have to turn the furniture as you enter. 

If there are any light fixtures, radiators, or other items that can’t be temporarily removed to bring your furniture in, make note of these as well and calculate how it impacts your available space. And remember that you or the delivery people will have to fit through the door or hallway as well. Don’t buy a piece that takes up every available centimetre of space or you won’t have room to carry it in. 

Don’t forget that measuring furniture and your room isn’t only about fit! Just because you can cram all your intended furniture into a space doesn’t mean it’ll be a comfortable and inviting space. To keep things from feeling cramped, come up with a plan for where you’ll put each piece and make sure the measurements suit the layout. 

Measuring furniture

Once you have your home’s measurements and a floorplan for your furniture in mind, it’s time for measuring furniture. You’ll want to measure the length, height, and depth of your furniture, as well as the diagonal depth (the measurement from the top back to the bottom front of the piece). 

While beds and some other furniture types have standard sizes you can use as rough guidelines, bear in mind that any features the furniture may have like a headboard will change the dimensions of your specific chosen piece. Many of our furniture pieces such as beds and wardrobes come flat-packed, which makes them simple to get into your house, but you’ll still want to make sure that the size is suited for your room. If you have any questions about the measurements of our furniture, get in touch and our team will be happy to provide them for you.

When you’re measuring furniture, keep in mind that you’ll need space to move around it once it’s in place — add an area in front, behind, and/or to the side in your calculations so you can walk past it once it’s in place. Additionally, add extra space for pieces that need to move, such as dining chairs that will be pushed in and out from the table, sofas and chairs with recliners, or wardrobe doors that swing open. 

Once you’re done measuring furniture for yourself or obtaining the measurements, a great way to ensure it’s well suited for your home is to map it out on your floor with tape or newspaper. This will help you visualise how the size of it will look in your space. Planning your furniture layout for a small room? Read our blog post on tips for space-saving furniture and small room styling! 

Whether you’re shopping online or buying in store, knowing your room measurements, measuring furniture that you’re considering, and having an idea of how you want your space to look are all important in creating a room that is cosy but not cluttered. 

And when you shop at Corcoran’s, our team is always on hand to help you choose the best pieces for every room of your home. So grab that measuring tape and start browsing for the furniture that will make the perfect fit!