This free calculator checks whether a bed, sofa or dining table fits your room with enough space to walk around it, and draws the layout to scale. The key rules: leave at least 30 in beside a bed (36 in is comfortable), a 36 in main walkway, 32–36 in behind dining chairs (44 in if people walk past), and 14–18 in between a sofa and its coffee table.
Check your room
Enter your room size, pick your furniture and press “Check the fit”.
The clearance rules we use
“Fits” means the free space reaches the size in the Fits column. “Tight” means it is in the Tight range. “Doesn’t fit” means it is below that range, or a piece overlaps another or sticks out of the room.
Where
Fits
Tight
Source
Beside a bed (each open side)
30 in (76 cm) or more; 36 in (91 cm) is comfortable
24–30 in (61–76 cm)
Dimensions.com: “minimum clearances of 30″ … and comfortable clearances of 36″” around a queen bed. Older context: Virginia Cooperative Extension gave “space for making bed 1′6″ to 2′”
We take the room’s width and length as you enter them — see how to read room sizes on a plan and mark the doors and windows first.
We turn every size into inches. Bed presets are U.S. mattress sizes (twin 38 × 75, full 54 × 75, queen 60 × 80, king 76 × 80 in); a frame or headboard adds a few inches, so edit the size to match your bed.
We put the bed’s headboard or the back of the sofa against a wall. A dining table goes in the middle of the room. We try it against both walls and keep the layout that works better.
Nightstands go beside the bed head, a dresser goes on the wall facing the foot of the bed or on a side wall, a coffee table goes 16 in in front of the sofa, armchairs face its ends, and a TV console or sideboard goes against a wall.
We measure the free space at each spot in the table above and compare it with the Fits and Tight sizes. Dimensions.com gives its bed clearances for a queen bed; we use the same numbers for every bed size. Pieces that overlap or stick out of the room do not fit.
The room’s answer is its worst single check: one “doesn’t fit” makes the room “doesn’t fit”.
What it does not know: where your doors, windows, closets, radiators and vents are, or a room that is not a rectangle. Treat the answer as a first check, then measure on site before you buy.
Dimensions.com recommends at least 30 inches on each open side of a queen bed and 36 inches for comfort. The calculator uses that for every bed size: 30 inches or more fits, 24 to 30 inches is tight, and under 24 inches does not fit. An older Virginia Cooperative Extension guide allowed 18 to 24 inches just to make the bed.
How far should a coffee table be from the sofa?
Dimensions.com gives 14 to 18 inches between a seat and a coffee table, and interior designers quoted by Homes & Gardens use 16 to 18 inches. These are design rules of thumb, not a standard, so the calculator places the table 16 inches from the seat and only calls a table closer than 14 inches tight.
How much room do you need behind dining chairs?
The NKBA Kitchen Planning Guidelines ask for 32 inches from the table edge to a wall when nobody passes behind a seated diner, 36 inches for someone to edge past and 44 inches to walk past. They also give each diner 24 inches of table edge.
How wide should the main walkway through a room be?
36 inches is comfortable: it is the NKBA walkway width and the minimum clear width of a walking surface in the 2010 ADA Standards. The Virginia Cooperative Extension guide lists 26 inches for a minor traffic path, so the calculator calls 26 to 36 inches tight.
Does the calculator check doors, windows and closets?
No. It only knows the room's width and length and places furniture against the walls. Before you buy, check that doors can swing open, closet doors and drawers have room, and windows stay reachable.
See your rooms furnished
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