I don't want to have to keep going into Oblivion to find the distance of objects.

How can I find this out in the CS?

What do you mean?
Like in a room?

Someone has a modder resource that is a giant "ruler" (ok ok...."scale" for the drafters out there!) that can be used in the CS render window I believe.

And that would be Phitt's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27291