An interior layout plan is a scale drawing, most often at 1:50, that shows a room as it is (walls, openings, sockets, radiators) and as it will be furnished: every piece of furniture at its real size, the passageways, the zones of use. It is not a construction plan: it does not touch load-bearing walls or the structure. Its quality depends almost entirely on the information it starts from.
What a layout plan shows
- Existing walls and partitions, with their thickness and their flaws (a wall is rarely perfectly straight).
- Openings: doors and the direction they open, windows, sill height, French doors.
- Services: sockets, switches, light points, radiators, water supply and drainage points.
- Furniture to scale, existing and to come, with its dimensions.
- Circulation: where you walk, where you sit, where you open a drawer.
- The measurements that matter for making or ordering a piece of furniture.
Taking the measurements of your room
A tape measure is enough; a laser measure is quicker for long distances. First make a freehand sketch of the room, seen from above, then note each measurement on it, in centimetres.
- Measure each wall at two heights, at floor level and at about 1 m: the difference reveals a wall that is not straight.
- Measure both diagonals of the room: if they differ, the room is not square, and the plan must show it.
- Record the ceiling height at several points, and how far cornices and beams drop below the ceiling.
- For each door and window: width, height, sill height and distance to the nearest corner.
- Mark the sockets, switches and radiators: distance to the corner and height from the floor.
- Note the skirting boards, thresholds, steps and anything that projects from the wall.
The photos that really help
A photo is only useful if it shows the whole wall. Stand in the opposite corner, phone held horizontally, at chest height, in daylight. Take one photo per wall, then the details: sockets, mouldings, parquet, fireplace, radiators. A photo with the tape measure unrolled along the wall is worth more than a long explanation.
The constraints to list before drawing
- What does not move: walls, ducts, radiators, meters, water supply. We draw around them, with no building work.
- What you are keeping: a family sideboard, a recent sofa, a bookcase.
- How the room is used: who lives there, who entertains, who works from home, how much storage is really needed.
- The light: orientation, hours of sun, whether you are overlooked.
- The building's rules for heavy pieces or ceiling fixings.
Circulation: simple benchmarks
A plan is judged by how easily you move around in it. A few rules of thumb, to adapt to each room: a comfortable main passage of around 90 cm, a secondary passage of at least 60 cm, and enough room behind a dining chair to pull it out without hitting a wall or a piece of furniture. Think of doors and drawers too: their swing is part of the space they take up.
Doing it yourself or handing it over
For a simple room, a plan on graph paper at 1:50 (1 cm on the paper for 50 cm in the room) or a free floor-planning programme is enough to try out layouts. The plan becomes more demanding when it is used to have furniture made to your measurements: every centimetre counts, and a measuring error is paid for on delivery.
That is what we do in our e-design: from your measurements and your photos, we draw the plan and prepare a sheet for each piece to be made. If you have furniture made with us, we then check every measurement with you on a video call. You sign this approval for production before the workshop starts.