How to measure a rectangular room for a furniture layout
A five-step checklist for width, length, door offsets, furniture footprints and fixed obstacles.
Guides
Space-planning guides and worked examples
Use these guides before and during a layout project. Each one focuses on a measurement or comparison task supported by GoSpace, with explicit assumptions rather than universal layout rules.
Start here
Good measurements make every layout more reliable.
Rooms
Bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms: what fits, with the arithmetic.
A 3 × 4 m bedroom: check bed size, clearance and remaining space
Work through a 12 m² example and see why bed size, clearance and storage must be checked separately.
How much space do you need around a bed?
Test a double and a king bed in 3 × 3 m and 3.4 × 3 m rooms, with a wardrobe on the side wall.
Small kitchen layouts: galley, L-shape or island?
Compare the floor a galley, an L and an island kitchen use, with the aisles they need.
Small bathroom layouts: what fits in 2 × 2 m and up
Fixture footprints and door swing in 2.2 × 2 m, 2.4 × 2 m and 3.2 × 2.8 m bathrooms.
Gardens
Paths, patios and zones in real garden sizes.
Garden area budgeting: reserve paths before lawns and patios
See how perimeter and central paths change a 6 × 8 m garden budget before you add zones.
What size patio do you need for a table and loungers?
Size a terrace for a six-seat table, a barbecue and two loungers, with the arithmetic shown.
Planning a long, narrow garden
How paths divide a 6 × 20 m garden, and why width limits what each zone can be.
Houses
Room sizes, footprints and fitting a house on its plot.
Will a house fit my plot? Setbacks and buildable area
Work out the buildable area left by setbacks and check a footprint against it before you plan rooms.
Room sizes for a three-bedroom single-storey house
Budget a three-bedroom brief: room areas, circulation and the facade length bedrooms need.
L-shaped house layouts: wings, courtyard and circulation
How an L-shape splits into a bedroom wing and a living wing, and what the cut-out costs and gives.
Offices
Desks, chairs and walkways per person.
Office space per person: desks, chairs and walkways
Build a per-desk working module and test it against the 9 × 7 m small-office template.
Calculators
Quick calculations that pass their numbers to the planner.
Room area and furniture-fit calculator
Check area, perimeter and whether one item plus clearance fits, in either orientation.
Plot coverage and buildable area calculator
Buildable area after setbacks, whether a footprint fits, site coverage and garden depths.
Garden area and path budget calculator
Gross area, path area and what is left for lawn, patio and beds in a rectangular garden.
Office desk capacity calculator
Estimate how many desk modules fit in a rectangular office, with a walkway reserved.
Choose a planner
Put a guide into practice. No account needed.
Floor plan maker
Single-storey house plans, rectangle or L
Plot planner
Setbacks, buildable area and gardens
Room planner
Furniture layouts with real dimensions
Office layout planner
Desks, storage and circulation
Garden planner
Lawns, patios, beds and connected paths
No guides match. Try fewer words, or search the whole site.
Choose the right workflow
For furniture, start with the room planner or office layout planner. For outdoor zones and access, use the garden planner. Building room arrangements belong in the single-floor concept planner.
Keep the limits visible
A footprint calculation cannot verify circulation around several objects. A conceptual floor plan is not an engineering document. Generated candidates pass declared checks; manual changes can introduce new problems. Use the documentation to understand warnings, versions and exports.