Room Planning at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

How you incorporate Lighting into your room scheme will probably depend on when and how that area is most used. A bedroom, for example, is usually the easiest room to plan, since it will be used in artificial light for the greater part of the year. A dining room is also reasonably straightforward. This room is most often used for evening meals, in which case it is the evening light that you need to consider when planning a scheme.

To further aid room planning, Davis Remignanti, lead design consultant for furniture.com, suggests visiting Web sites including his company's, which offer virtual room planners with movable images of furniture.

The real task of the planning board therefore should be—and is, in those communities where planning is taken seriously—to serve as a research arm to the executive. "Pure" planning, planning according to theory, is a practical impossibility, for every executive decision is weighted by many factors of politics, expediency, finance, and local pressure. A conscientious executive and legislative body, nevertheless, can be assisted greatly in making decisions, if presented with the full implications, city-wide, of the alternatives.