Here's How Painter's Tape Can Help You Perfectly Fill Your Space

As colossally stressful as moving into a new home is, and it's normal to feel overwhelmed during a huge life change, it can also be a thrilling adventure from a design perspective. It's fun to puzzle out where the old furniture will fit in a new room with a different shape. And if you have access to your home before the moving van gets there, you can also leverage that time to strategize whether or not you'll need to replace furniture or rugs depending on the size between, say, this living room and the previous one. An elegant hack is to mark out the exact dimensions of your belongings with painter's tape to help you perfectly fill your space.

This hack will get you to start thinking like a designer; your job is to produce the best flow for each room. Loosely defined, a sense of flow is an optimal arrangement of furniture, rugs, and objects in a room to create a pleasing feeling of harmony. There should be an ease of physical movement so that you can access the sofa or table from any side and an unobstructed movement of light and air. Dimensions are part of flow, too. For instance, a larger room needs a larger rug, and a too-small rug in a larger room will make it feel cramped and smaller than it is.

You may need to begin thinking about this hack early in the moving process. If you plan on transferring all your furniture to the new space without making new purchases, keep a notebook with all their dimensions before you pack all your belongings into the moving truck. If you're scouring the land for new items to buy, the measurements are listed in person or online, so note them down and snap a pic with your phone. In either case, once you've got some measurements to work with, replicate the objects' shape and size with a clean tape outline on the floor. Switch on some tunes and enjoy experimenting with different placements. Then, once you've got a good flow, add the outlines of a new or existing rug to see how it all works together.

Not only will you create a harmonious environment, but you will significantly lower move-related stress levels if you do this before you make purchases or before the moving truck arrives. Let's face it: furniture and rugs are a huge investment. By blueprinting the layout of your rooms before you buy that unique sofa you fell head over heels in love with, you will also radically cut down on the possibility of making the wrong purchase and the headache of returning it and starting over.