How RoomMood Lab Measures a Room

The short version: every number on our room pages comes from one test. Real furniture is placed against the walls of a measured room, moved 6 inches at a time, and every arrangement is checked for the door, the drawers and the walks. This page is the full rule book; the room pages link here instead of repeating it.

The rooms

Each room page measures one room, wall to wall at floor level, and gives its size in inches. All of them share the same door and window: one door, 30 inches wide, opening into the room with its opening 6 inches from a corner, and one window, 36 inches wide, centered on the opposite wall. If your door or window is somewhere else, the numbers change, so measure your own room before relying on them; the under-bed measurement checklist uses the same habits.

The furniture

The furniture is real, with the sizes IKEA lists on its US product pages. A frame is wider and longer than its mattress, so a guide that sizes the room from the mattress can reach a different answer.

How the furniture is placed

The bed's head goes against a wall, with the nightstands beside it. A dresser or a desk stands against a wall. Each piece is moved along every wall 6 inches at a time, and every combination that fits between the walls is one arrangement.

Usable and comfortable

A layout counts as usable when the door opens fully, every drawer pulls all the way out, each open side of the bed has at least 18 inches free, and every walk from the door (to each open side of the bed, or to its foot if neither side is open, and to the dresser and the desk) is at least 18 inches wide. The same minimum applies to the space in front of the dresser and the desk, so there is room to stand at one and pull out the chair at the other.

It counts as comfortable when nothing is tight: every walk is at least 24 inches, each open side of the bed has at least 24 inches (30 for a king), and a desk has at least 30 inches in front of it for the chair. Walks of 36 inches or more are all plenty, so the pages do not tell them apart.

Where the bed-side numbers come from

For space beside the bed, a designer quoted by Homes & Gardens recommends 24 to 30 inches on each side of a queen bed and calls 30 to 36 inches on each side of a king bed ideal. The walking and desk-chair thresholds are RoomMood's own defaults, not a published standard, and the plans show every measured number so you can apply your own.

How the numbers are rounded

Space beside the bed and in front of each piece is measured exactly and rounded down to the eighth inch. Walks are traced from the doorway on a grid, and each walk figure is rounded down far enough that the real walk is never narrower than the number shown; it can be up to 2 3/4 inches wider.

When a page says it does not fit

A table cell that says a set does not fit means none of the arrangements tested is usable. When the walls leave no room for a set at all, the page says why, and that is checked again between the 6-inch steps before it is written.

Use the plans as a shortlist

Handles, skirting boards and your own chair all change the real numbers. Mark the layout you pick on your floor with tape and walk it, as the small bedroom layout guide describes, before you move anything heavy. To see the rules at work, start with the 10x10 or 12x12 bedroom layout.

If your room is a different size or the door is somewhere else, enter your own room and bed and get every layout tested the same way: $19, within 24 hours.