Measure the room
Walls, ceiling height, window sills, the swing of every door. Ten minutes now saves a return shipment later.
Measure Twice is a handbook for people decorating their own homes without a designer, a showroom budget, or any idea where to start. Plans you can follow. Numbers that hold up.
Free to read. No affiliate links in the guides.
Walls, ceiling height, window sills, the swing of every door. Ten minutes now saves a return shipment later.
Notice where you drop your keys and where the afternoon sun lands. The room tells you what it needs.
One large piece sets the scale and the palette. Everything after it is a smaller, easier decision.
Each plan has a measuring checklist, a layout drawing, and a realistic spend range.
Seating that fits, a rug that isn’t too small, and light that works after dark.
Start with the mattress. Then blackout, bedside height, and somewhere to put clothes.
How much clearance a chair really needs, and how low a pendant should hang.
Spend on the chair, not the desk. Get the monitor to eye height and the glare off the screen.
The smallest room in the house and the one that decides whether it feels tidy.
Storage you can reach wet, a mirror at the right height, and lighting that isn’t overhead only.
Put in what you have. We’ll show you where it usually needs to go, based on 400 rooms readers have sent us.
Buy the anchor piece first — it sets the scale for everything else.
Hold back about 10% of this for the things you only discover once the furniture is in: an extension lead, a doorstop, a second lamp.
Short, specific, and full of numbers you can take to a tape measure.
Including the two that catch people out: the stairwell turn and the sofa’s diagonal depth.
Why the 5×7 you’re about to order is too small, and the three layouts that actually work.
Where to put them, what colour temperature to buy, and how to wire a room with no outlets in the right place.
Peel-away paint, tension rods, removable tile, and the landlord conversation worth having first.
A mattress is new. A dining table is second-hand. A flat-pack wardrobe is neither.
Tested on a north-facing wall and a south-facing one, because the same paint is two colours.
Order the sample pots. Paint an A4 sheet, not the wall, and move it around the room for two days.
A drawing, a checklist, and what it cost. Nothing else.
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