Floor plan guides
Practical, no-fluff guides to drawing plans that builders can actually use.
The complete step-by-step method: measuring your space, drawing walls to exact dimensions, placing doors and windows, adding stairs and floors, and printing to scale.
The buyer's and renter's skill: what the dashed lines mean, which way doors swing, working out real room sizes, plan abbreviations, and the red flags to spot before a viewing.
The cheat sheet: minimum room sizes and widths, door and corridor dimensions, kitchen and bathroom clearances, standard furniture sizes, and the daylight rule of thumb.
The five layouts compared in real millimetres: the fridge-sink-stove work order, the 2.7 m work-triangle rule, the 1050 mm aisle, when a room earns an island — and the four mistakes that break any of them.
Widths and heights in mm and feet-inches: 900 × 2100 internal doors, 800 mm bathrooms, 36″ × 6'-8″ US doors, doubles and garages — and the opening vs leaf vs clear-width distinction that decides what fits through.
What thickness to draw walls, in millimetres: 400 mm external, 250 mm load-bearing, 120 mm partition — the layer-by-layer build-ups behind those numbers, and the floor area a thin-line plan overstates.
How big a deck needs to be for a table or a sofa, how far below the floor it sits, the riser and going of its steps, railing height and openings, and board spacing — with the arithmetic shown.
A visual reference for reading plans: how walls, door swings, windows, stairs, fixtures, furniture and dimensions are drawn — and what each symbol means.
Hinged, double, sliding, bypass, pocket, bifold, cased opening and garage — each drawn twice, as the convention states it and as a CAD editor renders it, plus how to read the hinge side and the swing clearance.
The three-line symbol, coupled pairs and bays — and why a casement, a fixed pane and a sash are all the same drawing in plan, with the difference showing on the elevation instead.
Treads, the walk line and its arrow, UP and DN read from the floor you are on, that diagonal break line, and straight, L-shaped, U-shaped and winder flights.
The classic squared-paper method — picking a scale, counting squares, marking openings — and when a snap-to-grid editor is the better tool.
A patio sits on the ground, a terrace is raised above it — plus porch, veranda, balcony, pergola and alfresco, told apart in one table, and how each is drawn on a plan.
Jamb, mullion, riser and going, ridge, soffit, FFL, net area — the words on residential drawings and in builder conversations, explained by part of the house.
Stop reading. Start drawing.
Every guide here describes something the editor already does. Open it and try the first wall.