You've signed the lease, the movers are scheduled and you've purged belongings that didn't make the "move cut." If you're anything like us, this is when you really start to plan and map out your new home.
- Take pictures When we signed the lease on our apartment, we requested to meet at the new pad. We wanted to take pics so we could share them with family and friends (and more importantly-- it helped us to remember what features are where).
- Take measurements Before our "lease signing" appointment, we made sure to measure our larger furniture so we would know what would fit and what was better to sell at the yard sale. While we were at the new place, we also took the measurements of each room which will allow us to create a floor plan to figure out furniture placement ahead of time.
- Take note of storage areas Count closets, cabinets and built-in storage space. If your new home has less storage space, edit belongings before you move. Because our new apartment has extra drawer space in the hallway, our bedroom dresser will definitely be repurposed for DVD storage in the office.
- Get inspired Now is the time to flip through your binder full of home design tear sheets or start bookmarking favorite elements from Apartment Therapy House Tours. We're also making a list of decorating projects that we'd like to accomplish in the first month--with a hard deadline. Accountability is key so you're not still living out of moving boxes six months down the road.
Apartment Therapy readers, in the few weeks leading up to a move, how do you prep for the big change? Do you take pictures and plan out rooms ahead of time or do you wing it and let home design happen organically?
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Comments (16)
We'll hopefully be moving to a new place within the next few months...might actually move into an apartment currently inhabited by a family friend. I prefer to wing it a little bit when it comes to the smaller details, but as for the larger ones [such as furniture placement, color scheme] I'm already planning/daydreaming.
I had a major moment of 'gasp!' just looking at that photo- I want to see the rest of the house! I expect it to be beautiful.
Raymour & Flanigan has a great tool for planning out rooms and whatnot (I promise I don't work for R&F).
http://www.raymourflanigan.com/room_planner/
While it's easy if you're buying their furniture, because you can plug them into the dimensions that you've created, you can also put in "generic" furniture set to certain sizes (for your current furniture).
It basically starts you with a square, and then you can add waypoints to adjust the walls for non-square rooms. It really helped in planning out our new apartment before we moved in. We'll most likely use this moving forward, even though we're probably done buying R&F furniture.
I'll be moving in 3 weeks at most and I'm so glad that I did every item in the list above. :) It really helps to draw a plan of each room with exact shape and details like where the plugs are.
The Ikea room planner is great and really easy for doing 3D representations of rooms. And you can "furnish" it with their furniture to see what it will look like in various configurations. If your furniture is not Ikea then you can kind of fake it either by using pieces of their furniture that are the same size or by putting in a fridge or combination of fridges (which it allows you to specify as quite a lot of sizes, so you can use them to represent other things).
A better, but more laborious, way to do it is with Google Sketchup.
In one of my previous moves, the night I signed the lease, I went in there to measure the living room and bedroom. I then drafted out the room outline in a grid diagram in illustrator and made coloured blocks to represent my furniture pieces. I shifted the blocks around for different layouts and picked the best one.
I managed to get the key two days before the lease start and official move-in date, so I went in there two evenings in a row to scrub the floor and all the windows and paint the living room and bedroom. I stretched the work over two nights, and doing it in an empty apartment just made it so much easier.
measurements are key. once i took them in our new place, i draw sort of a mock floor plan- one room on each page-in 1/4" scale, then plot the furniture. this has helped immensely. i took pictures immediately after we closed too. and i did mood boards for myself, cause i'm a dork like that. it was good fun.
One of the last places I lived was a small three bedroom house which I shared with a friend. The largest bedroom was to be our shared office space and needed to include 2 desks with 2 computers, 2 48" drafting tables and a sofa bed for guests. Both bedrooms were tiny (I mean 6'-6" wide tiny!!!). We flipped a coin for the slightly longer on the two and I lost...oh well!
In order to accommodate all of our furniture, I measured the house to the 1/8th of an inch and all the furniture as well. I use a CAD system for my work, so I had the tools needed to play with layout until it all fit!
I wouldn't have been able to get it all in had I not pre-planned it! Now I do it for every place and it really makes the moves easier!
I am just 2 weeks away from moving into my own house from a rental flat, Exciting! And i've gone as far as 3D CAD and rendering the whole place as well.
Basically i re-create the floor plan in illustrator based on the measurements and original blueprint of the house, and then build it up in CAD software, and render the place in Hypershot(my background is industrial design so it comes with the job). It works really well i must say, as i can try several layout and furniture arrangement options, as well as colour selections for walls etc.
Also as i am planning for some extension/home improvement the combination of the 2D/3D tools makes alot of different, again for options and explorations!
And it's definately fun to play around with crazy colours :)
If that's the apt you're moving into, great find! The floor to ceiling windows with the trees outside will be like living in a tree house. The floors, the moldings and the built ins are also major pluses. I would love to live there.
That does look like a beautiful apartment! I LOVE those floors...wow...and the windows! Beauty all around!
I'm totally 'organic' when it comes to creating a beautiful place to live. My husband is an engineer and he would rather plan, but I'm the artist and I need to let it happen over time (hopefully not too much time though...). It really takes time to shift into a comfortable position, as it were, in your new home. I totally go by my own gut, and I have very little idea of what is 'proper design.' However, I always get lots of compliments about the way our little apartment is decorated, so I must be doing something right, or at least having the right people over for company. ;)
hey guys--thanks for all the super helpful ideas (it's really neat to hear how other folks navigate a move). and yes, that is the new home that my beau and i have found and i'm sooooo excited to document its transformation!
I've done the first 3 prior to my last 3 moves...makes moving much less stressful. Also gives you plenty of time to think of what stuff you can sell/donate that you won't need in your new place so you don't have to get rid of as much after the hassle of moving.
"If your new home has less storage space, edit belongings before you move. "
I vote for thinking about how to make more storage. Yes, some people do have possessions they can shed, but not all of us. Paring down just because you're moving might involve some hard choices that you'll regret. I'm a big believer in moving it all and then sorting. Cuz you'll never know what works in a new space.
Love the view from what I hope is the master bedroom! How about a few subtle outdoor up-lights into the bamboo!!! Amazing!
I love doing the planning on paper, to the point of obsession, but I also find I have to live with the arrangement awhile and adjust where necessary.
When I was making this latest move, from CA back to NYC, I did not have time to find the new apartment before leaving the old. So, to save money on the move, I downsized quite a lot beforehand and have not regretted it, even though my new place is much larger. It's nice to have a chance to start relatively fresh and work to keep things simpler.