Objective: To Identify the Furnishings Which Must Be Included in Your Truehome
We all have special furnishings which follow us through our lives. Your Truehome needs to be designed to include these special things. You won’t be happy if your great-aunt’s grand piano ends up edging into a doorway or if the kitchen has no room for your antique pie safe.
If you plan to include any existing furnishings in your new space, your design professional will need to know the size, preferred location, and style of any such pieces.
You should start sorting your possessions into various categories now while you are working on this exercise. After all, you will have to do it when you move into your new home. You might as well decide now what goes and what stays.
Categorize your current possessions into four separate lists:
- Things I love and will bring to my new home
- Useful things I own and might bring to my new home, but are not special
- Things I am going to buy
- Things that I ought to give away or throw away
Suppose conflicts between living spaces and furnishings arise during the design process. In that case, this will allow you to evaluate a particular piece of furniture as compared to the cost of enlarging that room. You must have a plan and a place for everything. Such decisions should be made before the designer begins the design.
If you plan to purchase special or non-standard furnishings for your home, list them and name the room you want them to inhabit. If any of your furnishings have profound emotional history or important stories associated with them, note those special relationships also.
Download the Heirlooms and White Elephants worksheet (PDF)
Some examples are:
“Grandma’s sideboard – reminds me of her – stained oak – 42 inches wide, 16 inches deep, 6 the ft. tall – needs to be in dining area.”
“We have a wardrobe that we love with Renaissance paintings on the doors depicting a place in France we visited on our honeymoon – master bedroom – 72 inches wide by 84 inches tall, 24 inches deep.”
“I have a set of doors from Mexico that I want to use in the house. They are 2 inches thick, 8 feet high, and 3 feet wide.”
“I have a huge headboard for a king-size bed. It is 8 feet tall and 7 feet wide. It needs to go into an upstairs bedroom, so it must go up the stairs.”
“We own a large painting with a very ornate frame. It’s formal, 86 inches wide, and 55 inches tall. It sticks out from the wall about 4 inches. We want it over the fireplace.”
“I have selected a commercial stove and vent hood. It is 60 inches wide, 36 inches tall, and 30 inches deep. It gets hot, so the adjacent surfaces need to be fire retardant.”
“We have a pool table. It is 30 inches tall, 8 ft. long, and 5 ft. wide. It goes in the game room, and we want enough room around it so the cue sticks don’t hit the wall.”
