I am not OCD, but some may challenge that fact after revealing my graph paper lake house and furniture layout. Let me assure you, however, that my level of preparedness is from experience, not compulsion. This move is the 18th one I’ve made with Jeff in 19 1/2 years of marriage; if I didn’t have it down to a well-oiled process, there would be something wrong with me.
Also? I love graph paper. It is the perfect backdrop for anything – journal entries, sermon notes, grocery lists, and for plotting out furniture for a home roughly 2.5 times smaller than the one where one currently lives.
Y’know, everyday stuff.
Moving is ALWAYS stressful on a family, and this bit of prep is a marriage saver. No man, Jeff included, wants to move the same pieces of cumbersome furniture two to three times when it can be accomplished beforehand with properly measured bits of paper.
Now, before anyone points out that there are some places that appear to be tight; I know. When I measured the house I rounded down to the nearest inch and when I measured furniture I rounded up. If there are errors they will all weigh in our favor later on.
Laying Out the Living Area
For those in the process of making a move, or wanting to know why their living room feels like it needs a few adjustments, here are a few interesting tips I found while making mental decisions about spacing.
- The distance between a coffee table and sofa should be 14 to 18 inches.(We don’t have a coffee table but intend to create a sturdy tray to place on the rolling ottoman for setting down drinks and what-not where there isn’t a side table available.)
- Side tables should be just close enough to a chair or sofa to set down a drink and no taller than the height of the arm of the sofa or chair it serves. It also should not be any lower than the seat height of the sofa or chair, which isn’t hard because we have one heck of a low sofa; which, by the way, are called “couches” {cow-chuz} in Texas.
- The distance between couches and other seating in the immediate area should be no more than 10 feet but no less than 3 feet. This set-up is not going to be possible for us in as small of a space as we have to work. I’m calling this situation one where I needed to know the rules so I could break them.
- The distance between furniture–often call the “pass-through distance” needs to be 30-36 inches.
Bwahahahaha!
Moving on…because I may need to address this at some point, but I’m not ready to get rid of everything we own just yet.
There are other rules about area rugs, height of a television, and the proper distance from the television to a couch (One-and-a-half times the diagonal measurement of the screen–do people measure this, for real?), and height of artwork on the wall. Artwork is a big one for me–why oh why do people hang things so high? Since nearly every wall of our living room is a window (as you can see from the super awesome squiggly colored boxes on the paper layout), for the most part, this is a non-issue.
And this is where those looking closely at the images may get their panties in a wad. I recommend you don’t…it’s just uncomfortable.
Yes, you are looking at an idea for a joint bedroom. There is the squiggly wall divider that sticks out 65″ or so, and then, in order to get the schoolroom table and bookshelf in the living area, Jeff and I are going to move our bed into the same area as the kids. In fact, my side of the bed will be three feet from Kenny’s bed.
But what about priiiiiiiivacy?
I can hear the mumblings…
“You might as well be co-sleeping.”
“Oh my, do you snore? Fart? Talk? Toss and turn in your sleep?”
“Do you wear pajamas?”
“How will you ever have sex again?”
And to all those questions, I say, “Breathe.” Until we build in ACTUAL privacy, this is a one-room lake house. ONE ROOM. If we placed our bed anywhere else, it’d be on the other side of that short wall. In other words, five inches to the right. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
And for the last question, yes. We need sex. We are a healthy married couple. That said, our kids DO leave home without us to be with friends and grandparents, and we are also the parents; so, we can say, “Hey, take a walk around the lake–walk slow.” And if push comes to shove, there is always the tent option.
“Hey kids, we’re sleeping in the tent tonight!” will take the place of “Hey kids, we’re going to take a nap.”
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
So, now that we are all over the sleeping arrangements (We are, right?), let’s talk about the method of sectioning off the sleeping area from the living area with a curtain.
Here are some ideas I’ve found online.
I have looked for the source for this image and cannot find it, but I like it because wire is cheap, installation is minimal, and the simplicity appeals to me. My concerns are that the wire will begin to bow from the weight, which would leave the curtains sliding in toward the middle and may be more hassle long-term than just installing a sturdy rod.
I like this curtain set-up for all the reasons I like the other one, but it does appear to be more stable on a rod rather than a wire.
I’d like this curtain to be a bit longer, but I do appreciate that it doesn’t puddle on the floor like the other two. Puddling is great for homes without children or animals, but guess where dirt and hair will gather when there are curtains that puddle on the floors between rooms?
Exactly.
This iPhone capture is of the back room of the lake house before the current owners starting clearing their belongings. They placed twin-size Mission-style chairs that turned into less-than-twin size beds for their two little ones in what we are calling the “back” room. The couple slept on a sofa bed and used a heavily lined curtain on the brass rod to divide their space from the kids’ space at night.
Our kids are older and stay up later than we do at times. If we placed our bed in the living area, they could not do that. It makes sense to have shared living areas/sleeping areas until we can build out.
The curtained space is 8 feet wide. I plan to take down the brass curtain rod and replace it with a black metal rod (dropped from the actual entryway), as opposed to keeping it positioned above and on one side like the current curtain rod.
I plan to use white muslin fabric for the curtain because it’s cheap, and will add even more light to the space. And the next project on the agenda is painting every dark wood surface, white.
White–glorious white.
It will be an awakening!
And now, I’m tired, and this post has grown to 1250 words, which means only 1/3 of you will read its entirety. For those brave few, bless you. For the others, I’m sorry.
More news later!