MEASURE

The most important step and where to begin. Measure your space. Whether it's the kitchen, pantry, laundry, wardrobe, bathroom, home office or potting shed.

A good outcome is based on proper measuring. Here, a break down on how to get it done.

1

Let's begin.

Start with a large sheet of paper to create a floorplan. Sketch the shape of your room, taking into consideration all the 'ins and outs'. This is just a survey so the lengths of the lines don't have to be totally accurate but it does have to be topographically - 'birds eye view correct' ie all the 'ins and outs' have to be noted.

Don't forget to mark the doors and windows along with the architraves around them (these often get overlooked and are important information).

2

Time to refine.

Measure each section of wall in millimetres and write it on the corresponding piece of wall on your sketch plan. Make sure that you mark the drawing in some way so that you know where the measurement starts and ends.

3

Next step. Elevate.

On a new piece of paper, sketch any elevations/walls that are going to have cupboards on them. Include the windows, window sills, doors and the architraves.

4

Let's get into the details.

On your elevation, measure the heights of the windows, from the floor to the sill, the thickness of the sill, the height + width of the window and include the architraves around them. Do the same for each door. Finally make a note of the ceiling height and any beams plus the heights of old chimney recesses etc that you may want to utilise or allow for.

5

Hook ups.

The services in the room; gas and electricity mains/meters, incoming water mains and pipes that can't be moved. Sketch them on your floorplan and elevations and make a note of the dimension of their position.

6

Resolve the plan.

It's important that your 'in and out' measurement adds up to the overall dimension of the wall. It's a good time to do a double check. We call this resolving. Often a room isn't square 'two walls meeting at a perfect 90°'. In the end, the Cupboards can sit square in the room and will be dealt with during fitting.

7

Ready to go?

Once you have these dimensions you are ready to start designing.