How to Design a Furniture Shop

Use moving walls as backdrops to maximize shop space.

How can a shop owner fit rooms of furniture into a finite amount of space? She must think smart, stock wisely and use a little smoke and lots of mirrors to offer a wide selection and good service. Design the layout of a furniture shop with these tips and discover how audio/visual aides, wall space and creativity can be more effective than endless space. Trust your vision. Try new ideas and realize that it's about design and hospitality, not space.

Things You'll Need

• Retail store
• Design layout (hand-drawn or CAD-generated)
• Movable wall sections for backgrounds
• Mirrors
• Shelves
• Pedestals
• Monitors with DVD players
• Literature holders
• Table and chairs
• Samples of wallpaper, fabrics and paint

Instructions

1. Understand how pre-planned traffic patterns, aisles and back-to-back display rooms can maximize small spaces. Make smart design your priority. Graceful paths and a combination of straight aisles and mazes can take shoppers through settings with ease. If you don't have the space to set up multiple rooms, design one setting and switch it regularly. Display other items in galleries and rows.

2. Conceive a formal layout plan to start the design process. A rudimentary sketch can help an interior designer or contractor get started. If you take the measurements to an interior design student at a local college and let them use a computer-aided design (CAD) program to allocate floor space, you will get the benefit of expertise while the student can claim credit for at least part of the store layout. Whether you end up with a common traffic pattern - a central corridor opening to aisles set at right angles every few feet -- or a creative maze, the idea should be suited to the amount of space available.

3. Plan for at least six design stations. These pedestals with color monitors and DVD players allow shoppers to see items that the shop might not be large enough to display. Devote one each to the bedroom, living room, dining room, children's rooms, outdoor living and dens/family rooms. Fill dispensers with manufacturer's brochures and literature, and keep DVDs showing current inventory on a continual loop. Your design stations will show customers what they can order from the store.

4. Employ prefabricated display walls and large furniture pieces as room separators. For example, put two breakfronts back to back and design two dining rooms facing away from each piece. Traffic aisles will allow shoppers to move around both in a smaller amount of space than a similar arrangement in which they're placed across the aisle from each other. Eight-by-12 display walls make good room dividers. (Fasten drywall sections to an interior wood frame. Then paint or put up wallpaper to complement furniture groupings.) Add wheels so setups can be switched quickly.

5. Use each inch of wall space. Design walls to hold vertical collections of framed art, sculpture, lightweight chairs, lamps and decorative items on pre-installed shelves that stretch to the ceiling. Start the wall shelving at a height that allows you to display furniture beneath it so you can maximize space.

6. Create the illusion of expansiveness by using mirrors. When mirrors are used behind beds, tables, couches and other furniture, they create the illusion of depth and make the shop look larger. Also, mirrors reflect light so when lamps are on, you will get light refraction. Use lamps to draw attention to room setups and away from the surrounding furniture.

7. Devote a small area to fabric, paint, wall coverings and window treatment samples. This allows shop owners to show customers a couch in one fabric and see the piece with other furniture. Manufacturers might supply fabric and wallpaper swatches, paint samples and other materials.

8. Think outside the box rather than inside the checkbook. Look at other furniture shops to get display and organizational ideas. Read DDi, a trade magazine devoted to showing retail store designers and owners how to spruce up, redesign, realign and redo stores to get more bang for their buck. Ask vendors to send you a continual supply of digital photos, so design stations show the latest styles and seasonal design debuts.

9. Glorify the front window, especially if the store is in a strip mall or a satellite, separated by a parking lot from other shops. Don't use dark fabric (the sun will bleach the fabric). Get drama by placing a dark faux wall behind the window. Then dress the window with rotating groups of light-colored furniture to create a contrast that will drive people to your shop.

References

• Desplay and Design Ideas
• Trio Display
• All Business