Floor Planning

For several years, we have used a space planning program to create floor plans for our Customers. We have begun a shift to a new program and I have been going through the years of plans in the old program. It has been such a pleasure to see all the various floor plans various team members have created and to remember the moves for those floor plans. After hundreds of floor plans, one thing I know for sure: a floor plan makes a move go dramatically better than a move without a floor plan.

We just celebrated the beginning of our eighth year in business and when I began so many years ago, I had a magnetic board that I used to create a floor plan for the Customer. The National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers (NASMM) provides this tool to get new move managers started as floor planners. It was portable, easy to learn, and could be easily manipulated. I measured the walls in the new home, used a dry erase marker to draw the space on the magnetic board and then used little magnetic furniture pieces to lay out the furniture in the rooms on the board. I would then take a photo of the floor plan, do some additional arranging, and take another photo of the magnetic board to give the Customer a few options. The pieces that represented the furniture were not always the same size as the actual, but they were close enough to get the basic concept down. Most important was that I was able to demonstrate that the volume of furniture desired could not always fit and decisions often needed to be made.

When we found a few experts to use floor planning software, we shifted from the magnetic board to doing floor plans using software and we could more precisely lay out rooms and use actual dimensions of furniture to show how items would look in the rooms and what would be appropriate to bring to the new home. What a dramatic improvement! It was simple for our experts to make several floor plan versions for our Customers, make changes as requested, and then the final plan could be printed for our leads to use on move day. This improved the speed at which movers could place furniture in the new home and reduced moving costs.

A floor plan:

· Requires thought at the front end but no effort on a busy move day when movers can efficiently place items.

· Provides peace of mind that what is coming to the new home will fit in the space.

· Allows the downsizing process to get underway once decisions are made about what is coming to the new home and what could be let go.

· Makes the vision/dream a reality. This move is happening, and this is what it will look like.

When I meet with a Customer, I ask to see the floor plan that the community has provided as a starting point. Then I ask what furniture they would like to bring with them to the new home. I ask if they will create a floor plan or if they would like us to do it. If after doing the walk through, I learn that they want to bring more than what I feel is reasonable for the space, I suggest that we help with the floor plan. The move will get pricier if the movers must return to the current home with furniture that will not fit in the new home. A simple floor plan will ensure the furniture will fit and save time and money.