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A Well Considered Floor Plan Is An Essential Part Of Successful Baby Nursery Design

Learning how to draw floor plans is much less tiring, not to mention time-consuming, than moving heavy furniture around from one side of the room to the other...

and back again...

and back again...

And I should know. When I created my first baby nursery design plan, it did not even occur to me that a floor plan should be the first step in planning the room.

My poor husband was finished by the time I made up my mind which furniture arrangement looked best. (And I still wasn't sure - but I didn't have the heart to ask him to move anything else!)

Save yourself the trouble of an aching back, and grumpy hubby, by following our guidelines for drawing a nursery floor plan. You'll be able to check out as many baby nursery furniture arrangements as you like, and when you're done, you can go and show your well-rested hubby your finished nursery design...







The first step is to develop a preliminary floor plan including all the essential items of baby nursery furniture, identified during the creation of your baby nursery storage plan.

These furniture items will include a baby crib, changing table, night stand and rocker or glider chair that you like. Make sure you have written down their dimensions. You will need them to draw your floor plans.


Before starting your floor plan Click here for nursery interior design tips to help you with placement of your nursery furniture.


Basically there are two ways to approach the preparation of your baby nursery design floor plan:

• The easy way OR
• The hard way...

Let's check out the easy way first.


I want to share with you a great FREE tool I've found.

It's called The Virtual Room Creator by Huggies.

It makes baby nursery design so much easier. You'll still need your tape measure, but no more hunting for paper and ruler; sharpening pencils; cutting out; sticking and resticking...

The Virtual Room Creator does it all for you.



Step 1: Grab your tape measure and a friend and measure up your baby's room.

Write these measurements down on a small card and keep it in your wallet. You may need them when you go shopping for furniture, paint and wallpaper.

See below for a diagram of the dimensions you will need...




A = Length of room
B = Width of room
C = Width of window
D = Distance from window edge to closest corner
E = Distance from door frame to closest corner
F = Width of closet
G = Distance from closet edge to closest corner

You will also need to note the following:

• Whether doors slide, or open in or out.

• The placement of any permanent fixtures such as a fireplace. (Not likely in a baby nursery, but you never know!)
• The placement of heaters or air conditioners.
• The placement of any shelving that you intend to keep.
• The location of electrical outlets.
• The location of lighting, (switches and fixtures).
• Any other factors that may affect furniture placement. For example:
  • The location of wall vents.
  • The distance from the floor to the bottom of the windows.
  • The height of any wall moldings.
  • The positioning of any wall murals you intend to include in your decor.

Step 2: Measure the dimensions of the essential baby nursery furniture items you have chosen. (You can get the dimensions online if you haven't bought your baby furniture yet.)


Step 3: Click here to go to The Huggies Virtual Room Creator.


Step 4: See the green 'floor plan' box? - Click on 'Create'. (We will come back to the red box later.)


Step 5: Click on the left hand blue button - 'Need help getting started?'

Here you will find all the instructions you need to start creating your preliminary floor plan.


Step 6: Saving your floor plan.
When you click 'save this room' a new window will open asking you to login or signup. Click on 'signup', fill in your details and save as many different plans as you like.


Step 7: Print out your favorites - and there you have your first step towards successful baby nursery design - A preliminary floor plan.


Step 8: Complete your floor plan by adding any other baby nursery furniture items you have space and budget for.

Click here to review your baby nursery furniture options.


Below is an example of how your Virtual Room Creator floor plan might look:

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Step 1 and 2 are the same as when using the virtual room creator above.

Step 3: Draw your baby nursery room on a piece of 1/4" graph paper, using a scale of one block is equal to one foot. (That is, if you have a wall that is 10 feet long, your line will be 10 blocks long on your graph paper.) Include the placement of the following:

• Windows
• Doors
• Closets
• Shelving
• Electrical outlets and light switches and fittings
• Heating and air conditioning panels
• Other permanent fixtures

Note the scale of your drawing in the bottom right-hand corner: 1 block = 1 foot.

Click here for FREE graph paper. (Please note that this is a PDF file and will, therefore, take longer to download than a regular web page. You will need Adobe Reader to read this file - see below for download link.)

Step 4: Draw your furniture items to the same scale on a second sheet of graph paper. Label them and cut them out.

If your best "art class" skills are not measuring up, and you prefer not to draw by hand, click here for a FREE room planner with graph paper and templates. Use the template pieces closest in size to your baby nursery furniture items. (Please note that this is a PDF file and will, therefore, take longer to download than a regular web page. You will need Adobe Reader to read this file - see below for download link.)

Step 5: Move the furniture pieces around on the drawing until you find a baby nursery design that you like. To keep your pieces in place on the grid, use double sided removable tape.

Step 6: When you have found an arrangement you are happy with, this will be your preliminary nursery floor plan. If you have space and budget, you can add additional furniture items to this to complete your plan.

Click here to review your baby nursery furniture options.


















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