I’m moving to a new place, and it’s not very big. So I’ve been wondering how to arrange the furniture before I get there. Where should the sofa go? Would a shelf fit beside it? And if I put a table in the middle, will there still be enough room to walk around?
I wanted to try a few ideas without moving all the furniture around first. That’s how Room Plan started. It’s a furniture arrangement widget for Notion, where you can draw out one room, add furniture to scale and see how different layouts feel.
First I needed to see the space
It’s easy to imagine a room with all the things you want in it. A sofa, a desk, somewhere for books. The harder bit is remembering they all need to fit in the same room.
Room Plan starts with the room itself. You can enter its measurements, add the doors and windows, and include awkward corners or things that are fixed in place. I wanted those details in the plan because a nice empty rectangle can be a bit too optimistic.
Could the sofa go over there?
Once the room is there, you can start adding furniture. There’s a catalogue to choose from, and you can change a piece’s width and depth to match the one you have. Move a sofa against a wall, turn a table, tuck a shelf into a corner. It’s quite nice being able to try an idea and change your mind straight away.
You can also change a piece’s shape, so an L-shaped sofa or a round table doesn’t have to stay a rectangle. The little labels help when you have several similar pieces on the plan.
I wanted to keep the other idea too
Sometimes moving one thing makes the whole room feel different. I didn’t want trying a second arrangement to mean losing the first one, so Room Plan can keep up to three furniture layouts for the same room.
The walls, doors and windows stay the same across them. Only the furniture changes. You can copy your current plan with the plus button, move a few pieces, then switch back and compare. Maybe the desk belongs by the window after all.
There needs to be room for me as well
Fitting everything inside the walls is one thing. Being able to get past it is another small detail I wanted to see.
The walkway view shades the floor you can reach with your chosen walking width. If a gap is too tight, that part stays unshaded. It gives you a reason to try shifting the table a little before deciding the room is finished.
I’d still measure the actual furniture and check doors and drawers before buying anything. But having a plan to look at makes it easier to work out what needs checking.
A plan I can come back to
You can export a picture of the arrangement with a furniture list underneath. Keep the original exported picture, because Room Plan can open it again when you want to carry on.
To keep it in Notion, copy the link from the Room Plan customise page and paste it into an /embed block. I’d give this one a fairly wide space so the furniture is easy to move.
That’s what I wanted from it: somewhere to try the sofa, the shelves and the table before they all arrive in a small room together. If you’re moving too, or just wondering whether your room could work a little better, I hope it’s useful for you too.