Our New “Room Plan” Tool Filled and Rearranged this Office in Minutes — Here’s How It Works

If you’re indecisive like me, setting up a new space can feel like a weirdly stressful chess game. “If I put the couch here, then where will the gallery wall go? Will the room feel too small with that shelving in it?” Every potential choice prompts more choices and eliminates others, until you’re just standing in an empty room, lost in thought but doing nothing. (No, I’m not speaking from experience, why do you ask?)

Apartment Therapy’s new Room Plan tool, presented in partnership with Walmart, makes it easy to arrange, rearrange, and re-rearrange your layout until you find the right one — no heavy lifting required. It even works with rooms that already have stuff in them! Here’s how it works:

1. Upload your own photo or use one of our default room photos.
2. Let Room Plan magically erase its contents so you can start designing from scratch.
3. Choose from the latest on-trend furnishings from Walmart, from rugs to tableware, and create the look you love.
4. Shop your new design!

Room Plan understands scale, shadow, and perspective, so you get an accurate rendering of your space. Here’s how I put it to work for an office space.

I started with the building blocks of the room: essentials and decor to make this office functional and inviting. I was drawn to the honey wood tone of this writing desk, and I appreciated that it had a spacious work surface but a slim footprint. This lovely petal desk lamp put a romantic spin on task lighting.

Finding a cute office chair is no small feat, but this beauty stood out with its velvety plushness and warm golden hue. To prevent chair scuff marks and give the room more depth, I added a Persian area rug in earthy shades of mauve, gray, and ivory. For plenty of stylish storage, I chose a lovely rounded wood bookshelf and a tall gold-finished Etagere. The contrast of shapes and materials adds visual interest, and the slim designs keep the space feeling light and airy.

Then it was time for finishing touches: art to inspire, a gilded mirror to reflect light, a faux eucalyptus tree to add a pop of greenery, and a modern wall clock in a calming sage green. (Gotta watch those deadlines!)

This layout puts the views front and center, with the desk right in front of the window. I created height around it, with the Etagere in one corner for easy access to needed items and the eucalyptus in the other, where it joins the abstract painting to add a burst of color. On the east wall, I created a style vignette with the wood bookshelf, gilded mirror, and more artwork.

Next I tried placing the desk against east wall, where you can still get the views without being in direct sunlight. I also thought this east-to-west orientation, which the rug follows too, might make the room feel more open as you walk in. Storage is placed throughout the room in a way that creates visual balance.

Finally, I tried the desk against the west wall with the rug oriented north-to-south. I think the rug positioning helped the room feel longer, especially since the desk and wood bookshelf sat parallel to the length of the rug. The Etagere feels made for that northwest corner, where it nestles in perfectly. I love the triptych above the wood bookshelf, but moved the mirror closer to the window to reflect more light.

These changes are the sort of thing that I’d get halfway through and then abandon IRL. I love how easy Room Plan made it to cycle through a bunch of different layouts quickly. Plus, because the tool is so good at perspective and scale, I like knowing that I could work (and shop!) by this rendering and know exactly what I was getting. I definitely can’t always say that for my pencil-and-paper sketches.

What would you do? Visit the Room Tool yourself and design your next space!