Floor plans can be plenty of work for beginning homeowners, and many of them tend to hire interior designers to help them achieve the best look for their homes. Designers and consultants help tremendously in helping homeowners achieve the best look for their homes and reducing the costs of furniture and materials.
Here are some tips for homeowners in making a floor plan with their interior designers.
Dividing Each Room
Many floor plans start with a layout or drawing of an incomplete building. In the case of houses, floor plans would be the shape of the structure with nothing in its interior. Without the highlights of rooms or furniture, a floor plan is just an empty layout.
Homeowners can start working on their floor plans by deciding how many rooms they want on one floor, and how they are divided. For instance, in a square-shaped house, they could highlight the area nearest to the front door as the living room, and inside it would be couches, sofas, TVs, bookshelves, carpets, house plants and everything else they’d want in such space. They could also put a concrete wall dividing the living room from the kitchen, but this is subject to a homeowner’s preference.
The most important rooms a floor plan should contain are the basic rooms of a home — the living room, kitchen and bathroom. Homeowners can also add a bedroom to the floor plan if they prefer or in the absence of a second floor, such as the case for a one-storey house. Once the important rooms of the floor plan are completed, homeowners can then make use of the remaining spaces as storage rooms, playrooms or extra bedrooms if they choose.
The Furniture
Once the rooms have been divided and laid out, furniture and fixtures follow as they are the next important element of a floor plan. Homeowners should input the planned furniture and fixtures for every room in their floor plan in order to utilize as much space as possible. For instance, the living room could contain basic living furniture such as seating areas, couches, television sets, cabinets and drawers, air conditioning units and carpets. Kitchens should also be highlighted with the location of kitchen counters, cabinets for utensils and cooking equipment, windows for ventilation and basic dining furniture such as tables and chairs. Homeowners can also decide on lights and the location of power outlets and lamps.
Materials
Homeowners tend to choose between brick, concrete or wood for their houses. Wise homeowners tend to choose all three and distribute such materials to different parts of their houses. Brick is good firewalls, making them ideal for basements, kitchens and the walls that divide rooms. Wood is the fragile one of the three choices, but they’re mostly used for aesthetic effects and are ideal for windows, living rooms and bedrooms. However, they must be paired with concrete or brick to ensure security against impact and fire. Concrete is the most flexible among the three choices, and the nature of this material allows for creative applications. Homeowners can apply concrete pavers in their driveways or courtyards and coloured concrete on their walls. Bathrooms can also have polished concrete to achieve a clean, reflective appearance.
