From Minimal to Executive: Placing Office Furniture with Precision in Your CAD Project

Let's have some fun and add some furniture to our project. Let's begin by going to our furniture plan sheet, which is I-103. In this view, let's double-click to activate the viewport, and with that viewport active, let's type in layer, and we want to change our current layer.

Let's change it to I Fern Loose. Double-click on that layer, and double-check that it is the current layer. Close the layers down, and let's zoom into our two offices here.

We'll begin right here. First, we will type in Insert to insert a block. This brings up our little block window, and we want to go to the Current Drawing tab.

These are blocks that are already part of this current drawing. Then we want to scroll down, and we're looking for one called Desk Junior. Click on it one time, and then move your cursor out to bring that desk into this office number 108.

Click to place it right in the center. With that, we can zoom in, and let's move it. We want to put it in a precise location, and to do that, we have to anchor it somewhere.

Learn AutoCAD

• Nationally accredited
• Create your own portfolio
• Free student software
• Learn at your convenience
• Authorized Autodesk training center

Learn More

So let's type in the Move command, M for Move. I'm going to anchor the top right corner of this desk to the top right inside corner of this office. So there it is, it's anchored.

Obviously, I don't want the desk right here in the corner, but now if I move the desk, I will know that I'm moving it a certain dimension away from that corner. So let's select it, and do M for Move. First, I want to pull it away from the right wall.

So let's click one time and move to the left. And let's pull it out, let's say two inches. Enter.

Now from here, we will select it and move it down. How far do we move it down? A good rule of thumb for a door is 60 inches away from that door on the pole side, or the side that the door swings into. It's more than just a good rule of thumb, it's ADA requirements in a lot of places, so we'll move it down 60 inches.

Now behind the desk, we typically want at least 36 inches. The absolute minimum is 30 inches. And let's see where we're at.

Let's do DI for Distance. From here to our existing wall, we have 34 inches. So it's pretty minimal, but it's probably okay, especially considering DI for Distance.

We can go to like the glass of this window. We've got 3'1", so it won't feel super cramped just because we have that window there. But it is tight.

This is a junior office, so we're kind of going to absolute minimums with this office layout. Alright, they might be a junior, but they still need a chair. So let's go ahead and go to our blocks again.

And we're looking for the block Chair underscore Executive. Select it, move your cursor in to bring it in. Now let's try a funny trick.

I'm going to place it on the midpoint of the wrong side of the desk. But go ahead and do it. Click there, and it's placed.

Now select it again and type in the mirror command. M-I-R-R-O-R. Enter.

And we'll go midpoint to midpoint across the desk. And do we want to erase the source objects? In this case, yes. And it's gone.

And now we have that chair. And you can now visually see this is a pretty tight space, but we wanted to take a look at what does a very minimal office look like. Let's just pull it back 2".

Again, giving that kind of spacing between and around objects. So it would work. You can pull out, swivel, and get out.

But it's absolute minimums here. Now we need the guest chair. And for that chair, we want our side chair.

So in our blocks, we'll scroll down to S, side chair. We want the one that is side chair underscore round. And it has a rounded back.

So select that one, and we'll bring it out. And we'll use the same trick. Snap to the midpoint of the front of the desk.

Click one time. Grab it. Use the M for move.

And we'll move it back 2". And there it is. Now we have a floating guest chair.

All right. We've seen a very minimalistic office. Now let's go to the opposite end of the spectrum and look at an ample office.

Here's an executive office. Now we want to add a desk that's an executive desk. So scroll around in our blocks to D for desk.

And we want this time the one that is desk dash executive. So click that one, and we'll bring it in. Now this time, we know we have more than 60 inches in front of the door.

So it's no longer a constraint. We can select this desk, M for move, and we will anchor it this time to the bottom right corner. And we'll focus on the creature comfort of the person behind the desk.

We'll select it, M for move. And what would be optimal would be 5 feet behind the desk. We'll type in 5 feet, enter, or 60 inches.

And that looks really good. Now we can go ahead. We already have an executive chair.

Let's just copy it over. CO to copy. And we'll grab the bottom midpoint of this junior desk and click to the bottom midpoint of the executive desk.

See how much more room they have back here. Now we'll grab this chair, CO to copy it, and we'll grab that midpoint of the desk and go to the midpoint of this desk. Click, and we're good.

We'll hit escape. They have so much room they can have two guest chairs. So let's grab one and we'll move it to the right.

Let's go 1 foot 6,1 foot 6, enter. And then we'll copy it, CO to copy, double the 1 foot 6, so 3 feet, 3 feet, enter, and escape. So they've got two guest chairs.

Now one thing to keep in mind, we still have to match the ADA clearances. We have to have 18 inches on the pole side of this door that's clear. We'll type in a line.

We can click right here and go down. And this is loose furniture, but we can see that there is still the 18 inches, which is nice. It's a good way to go.

Loose furniture isn't quite the same as a desk, but it's still good to do what we can. All right, now I'm noticing one other thing we need to do. This desk is still right against the wall, and these chairs are in relationship to the desk.

So let's select everything and move it away from the wall. The two guest chairs, the executive desk, the executive chair, M for move, and with ortho turned on, let's move it away from that side wall by 2 inches. And that is looking really good.