Do You Have A Problem?

1. Locate and measure property lines, easements and restrictions (if any), house and any other buildings, driveway and bordering street(s). If this information is not known, it can usually be found at the local Registry of Deeds. An inquiry at the local City or Town Hall is sometimes enough to help. This information should be accurate because it is the foundation of your plan.
2. Using a compass or road map, find and label north, south, east and west.
3. Lightly sketch in the following:
a) Public or entrance areas: your home's public or welcoming face.
b) Private living or recreation areas: the places in which you relax and entertain, or the children play. You don't want the neighbors or the general public to see these areas.
c) Garden or planted areas: vegetable or flower gardens, or perhaps fruit trees.
d) Service areas: compost pile, clothes drying lines, dog house and run, or trash cans.

2. Pick a relaxed and relatively free weekend to begin your plan. Roughly sketch all the collected measurements and information onto one large sheet of graph paper available in most art, craft and perhaps office supply stores. This is your rough or preliminary map, sometimes called a Base Plan, and will be refined when all your information is collected. Don't worry about size and scale. We'll look at those in coming articles.

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