figuring out a floor plan

I'm taking a break from my usual Tuesday update on Jane's Playroom/Workroom (frankly, we need the break to actually get some things done on the room) to talk about my favorite way to figure out a floor plan.  When I was eight years old, my family moved into a new house.  I had a very small room and to help me figure out where to put things, my mom showed me this handy method (man, she is smart).  I still have the kit from that first bedroom of my own and I've made many more since (Jane's Playroom/Workroom included).  If you have an existing space and a lot of existing furniture and want to know how it all could be put together (seriously, it can be a puzzle sometimes), then try this out.  You'll love playing with the pieces but I'll warn you: this may lead to obsessive furniture moving (guilty as charged). 

We started by gathering our supplies:

grid paper

construction paper

a tape measure

a ruler or architectural scale

scissors

and a pencil  

We then measured the bedroom and all it's contents (furniture), making note of all the windows, doors, the closet, and any other distinguishing features that might be important to locate.  You can see that I indicated where my heating/cooling supply vent was.  I'm pretty sure this was also my first attempt to represent a door swing (go me!).  We My mom chose the scale we were going to draw the plan at.  I handily noted it on the back of the envelope: 1'-0" = 1/2".   Using the grid paper and a ruler we translated the measurements into the 1/2" scale and drew the plan.  We then drew the furniture pieces (using the same 1/2" scale) onto the construction paper, labeled them, and cut them out.  Now we had a scaled room outline and a pile of furniture pieces to move around within it.  I moved my room around often because of this kit.  I kept it in the top drawer of my desk and would pull it out whenever I got bored to see what other arrangements I could come up with.