Hi, I’m Angelina — the person behind Room Waves

How Room Waves Started

I didn’t set out to become the friend everyone calls before buying furniture. It started in the spring of 2019, when my roommate moved out with three weeks’ notice and took most of our shared furniture with her. I had a new roommate arriving in six weeks and an apartment that looked like it belonged to two people who’d never met. I didn’t have a big budget or a design background — just a tape measure, a legal pad, and a deadline.

What I did have was time to obsess over details most people skip. I started photographing rooms before and after I rearranged them, comparing what actually worked against what just looked fine in a listing photo. Over the next few years, that turned into a running spreadsheet — rug dimensions against bed sizes, lamp heights against nightstand widths, the kind of numbers nobody puts in a blog post because they’re tedious to collect. I’ve logged more than 30 rooms this way, and the patterns hold up a lot better than “go with your gut.”

The Rug That Changed Everything

The moment that changed how I approach this work happened in 2021. I bought an 8×10 rug for my first house’s primary bedroom, sized it off the room’s square footage instead of the bed itself, and it arrived a few inches too narrow to clear either nightstand. I ate a restocking fee I still remember the exact amount of, and I decided right there that I’d never publish a size recommendation again without measuring the actual furniture it’s supposed to sit next to.

Word got around after that. Friends started texting me photos of empty rooms asking what rug size or lamp height would actually work, and I found myself doing the same measuring exercise for their spaces that I’d done for my own. One friend told me she’d almost ordered a rug that wouldn’t have cleared her bed frame — I caught it in time and saved her a $200 restocking fee. That’s when I realized the spreadsheet in my notes app should probably be a website instead.

What This Site Is Really About

Room Waves exists because most home decor advice tells you to “go bigger” or “trust your eye” without ever showing you the numbers behind that advice. I write for people who want to know that a queen bed needs a rug extending at least 18 inches past both sides, not just that bigger “feels better.” Every guide here — indoor or outdoor — comes from measurements I’ve taken myself or cross-checked against real rooms, not just what looks nice in a stock photo.

Outside of measuring rooms for a living, here’s the rest of my life around Room Waves:

• Weekend thrift-store runs, mostly hunting for mid-century side tables I can refinish
• A small collection of pothos and snake plants that have survived my mistakes better than I deserve
• Board game nights with neighbors, usually in a living room I’ve rearranged at least four times
• A part-time gig staging rental turnovers for a property manager two towns over

Thanks for stopping by Room Waves — I hope the numbers here save you a return shipping label or two. — Angelina