Discover the efficient method of managing furniture schedules using AutoCAD, from creating and tagging models to maintaining a user-friendly numbering convention. Learn how to insert and merge cells, add model details, and write specific instructions to ensure the accurate ordering of furniture pieces.
Key Insights
- The article demonstrates the use of a distinct numbering convention in AutoCAD for furniture schedules, allowing easy addition of new items without disrupting the overall order. Chairs, desks, and tables are each assigned a unique starting number.
- Adding to the furniture schedule involves inserting rows, merging cells for section dividers, and adding the appropriate tags and model details such as dimensions, location, finish, and manufacturer. This detailed information ensures the correct furniture pieces are ordered.
- AutoCAD's capabilities extend to allowing users to specify important notes for each item, such as the need for wall anchoring for bookcases, enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of furniture installation.
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This is really exciting. We're now ready to move on to our final page, I-501. Open up 501 and zoom into this furniture schedule.
I'm going to click on it and click on that first cell. Let's take a look at what this schedule means to us. We've already created a furniture plan and I'm going to click back to it for just a moment.
Here it is, I-103. I'll notice that all of my furniture has a tag and that tag relates back to that schedule. For example, this chair is F-02.
Back here in my schedule, F-02 is a basic office chair and I have all the information about an F-02 chair. I have this schedule broken up into sections. I've got chairs, desks, and tables.
You'll notice I'm using kind of a weird numbering convention, F-01, F-02, and so on for chairs. All the chairs start with a zero and then all the desks start with a one, like F-10,11,12, and then all the tables start with twos. Why do I do that? That's so that if I need to add, for example, another chair, I can simply add a row here and I can call it F-06, F-06.
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Notice what happens? It doesn't mess up my numbering order for the rest of the schedule. Back on my plan, all I have to do is add a new F-06. Imagine, though, that if I messed up this order and had to renumber these, I'd have to also renumber all of the furniture in the plan and that could be a huge messy job.
I don't want to do that and that's why I come up with this numbering convention in AutoCAD to get this to work out. If I'm doing a really huge project, I might even have triple digits to make sure that I have kind of a numbering system that works. Let's go ahead and add to this table.
Let's click here on the first cell of row 16 and let's go ahead and add two rows below. In the rows area of my table options, I'm going to go to insert below, click it once, twice, and a third time. I want three rows here.
Now how do I create these section dividers? What I do is I select an entire row, all of the cells, all the way across. Once I have them all selected, I look back in my table cell options and I have a button called merge cells. I want to select either merge all or merge by row.
Let's do merge by row and that row is now merged. Now I can double click there and give it a title and this is bookcase. Go ahead and do that.
Add that title bookcase and we'll click away. Now I can also come click the blue dot down below and stretch it so it matches all of these other headings. Now let's add in the tags.
In this case, we'll start here. It's F-30 for the first one, F-31 for the second one. These are the bookcases that we have in that document room.
Now the type. The first one will be bookcase and it's the narrower one. It's a 15 × 60 and the second one is a bookcase also, but it's the wide one.
It's the 15 × 96. Where do these belong? In the document room. We'll type that out.
I'll highlight it, control c on my keyboard, and I'll to describe the finish and material. These are a black metal frame with, I'll abbreviate with, just w slash, wood shelves. It's the same for both, so I'll copy paste that into the cell below and move on to the manufacturer.
The manufacturer in this case is Gus Modern and it's the same manufacturer for both. The model number that we want is called Atwood, the Atwood bookcase. Why do we put all this information? It's so that when we go to order everything or the contractor orders all this furniture for us, that they get the exact correct model number and the right color and everything that we were hoping it would be.
And then we put in some notes. These are bookcases. We don't want them to fall over, so we're going to add something like wall anchoring required.
Select it, copy it, and paste it. And with that, our furniture schedule is complete.
