Since we get tons of requests from our readers for floorplans of the spaces we show here on Apartment Therapy, we thought we'd share a simple and painless way to create your own floorplan drawings with Google SketchUp.
You can do amazing things with this free, downloadable, and user-friendly program. It's incredibly easy to draw any 2D shape and then extrude its surfaces into 3D. But for the purpose of creating a bird's eye view of an architectural space, or a floorplan, we will only be working in two dimensions. If you're interested in learning 3D, you can check out video tutorials here.
First thing's first. You must download SketchUp in order to play along with this post. Do so here.
Once you've got the program installed, upon opening choose Plan View - Feet and Inches to select the style of drawing that we're going to be using.
Then, be sure to go to View ---> Tool Palettes ---> Large Tool Set to have access to all the tools we will be discussing.
We recommend starting the process of drawing a floorplan by doing a rough hand-sketch of your space and then measuring the lengths of all the walls. Make sure you know where your doorways sit and how wide they are. This way, it will be easy for you to copy your information into the program. If you're measuring an entire apartment or other large space, it's not important for our purposes to include wall thicknesses and other complex details.
Here are the three tools you'll need to navigate around Sketchup:
Orbit
Click this icon and then drag your cursor in the drawing space to rotate in 3D. We won't be using this tool in our tutorial, but you should know it's there.
Zoom
Click this icon and then drag your cursor to move your view closer to or further away from the drawing space.
Pan
Click this icon and then drag your cursor across the screen to move to different areas of the drawing space.
Quadrant
To make a floorplan, use the upper right quadrant of the drawing space. Pan so it fills your screen. If you think way back to high school math, you'll remember that it is this area in the quadratic plane where all coordinates are positive numbers. If you start the lower-left corner of your drawing where the axes intersect at (0,0), it will be very easy for you to draw accurate lines.
Line
Click on the pencil icon to activate your line tool. To start drawing a line, click anywhere (we recommend at the origin). Then, move your cursor parallel to the X or Y axis. Type the desired length of your line into your keyboard (i.e. 10' 4 3/16"), and hit enter. The program will have created a line of the desired length, and your cursor will now rest at your new endpoint. Repeat the same process to create another line that begins at the endpoint of the first line.
We're going to recommend drawing shapes in this manner, although there are many other ways in SketchUp to accomplish the same goal.
Erase
We like drawing doorways in the following manner. Draw them as their own lines with endpoints, even though they will appear to be contained within your walls. Once you're finished drawing, you can go back and erase the doorway segments to signify that there is passage in those areas. Click on the erase tool, then click on the segment that is to be deleted.
For example, in the drawing of my bedroom, the door is on the upper right wall. I drew a 2' line, then a 3' line for the doorway, and finished the wall with the remaining 2'11" segment. Later, I went back and erased the 3' piece where the doorway sits.
Tips and Tricks
The program will tell you when you've reached the endpoint of another line. If you're trying to draw connected lines, make sure you click only on these called-out green endpoints when the program "snaps to" them. You can also find the midpoint of a line by hovering over that approximate location and waiting for a blue dot to appear on your screen.
If you make a mistake while drawing your shape, you don't have to start over from the beginning. Go to Edit ---> Undo Draw Line to backtrack a step. Then simply click on the point from which you wish to begin drawing again.
Dimension
Use the dimensioning tool to note the lengths of the lines you have drawn. Click on an edge, or click on the two endpoints of a line, then pull your cursor outward. The dimension line will travel until you settle on where you want it placed. Click to secure.
Text
Click on the text tool, then click where you want your text placed. A box to type into will appear. You can use this method to label the rooms in your floorplan.
Save
When you're all done, go to File ---> Export ---> 2D Graphic to save the plan as a regular image file that you can then use in Photoshop, open in any picture viewing software, or attach in an email to us at Apartment Therapy.
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I'm in the design profession (thus the user name) and I do this every time I move into a new apartment: make a model of the apartment, inventory the furniture I have and insert models of the furniture into the space so I can get an idea of how it will feel with everything in the apartment. It's really handy! You can find tons of different sizes/shapes of furniture in their 3D library, or scale the models they have to meet your needs. Or build your own! It's a pretty intuitive system to use, and fun!
That program is awesome. It even has 3d models of some of the more popular furniture pieces that you can import into your floor plan
I used it to try and recreate my new floor plan and then tweaked it in Photoshop with other images.
I think I came pretty close:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zLbrYxMNUC0/S7ECSf2AUBI/AAAAAAAAAFk/FLsnfuB1-lg/s640/comparison.jpg
thanks for this! i have been meaning to use it but having a short sweet tutorial (despite being a user friendly program) jogs me to do it, for sure.
Here's better choice, and it's free! Floorplanner.com has a sophisticated web-based interior design program. Most every combination of furnishings, floor treatments, and fixtures are available from on-screen palates. You can change colors, fabrics, and patterns easily. Everything is object-oriented, easy to scale to size, and true to measurements. Handy features include automatic square footage calculations (even for irregularly-shaped rooms). An easy-to-use resource with tons of potential http://www.floorplanner.com .
I'm also in the design profession, and Sketch Up is a wonderful tool. It's intuitive enough that the layman can use it, but has enough levels of complexity that you can use it for more advanced stuff as well. I love it, and suggest it to everyone and anyone who wants to work on the layout of their rooms!
Does it work for spaces where there are no 90 degree angles and the exterior walls are curved?
Sketchup is easy to use and free. There are even tutorials on YouTube so you can get up to speed.
Even if you don't use it, its really important to do a floor plan to scale so you can be sure your furniture will fit before you move into a new place or buy new pieces. Trust me, what looks to be the right size when you're shopping often is too big when you get it home! And don't forget to be sure you can get the item up the stairs if you need to, but that's probably for another post.
Bepsf, it does work for odd angles as well as curves.
LOVE this post. Thank you so much....!!!
Your steps made this really easy. Now my question: is there a way to represent furniture that I can click and drag around the floorplan? My workaround was to create rectangles for the bed, the desk, etc. and just cut them out and move them around the floorplan. Old school, but at least I know everything is to scale!
SketchUp has its own tutorials built in as well if you want to learn more about it, and as Idcinlb pointed out, there are tons of tutorials on youtube. I work in the design profession as well and use SketchUp all the time for 3d models.
@ yazzmatazz - if you make your shape for your piece of furniture, you can then select all the lines&surfaces that make up your shape, right click, and select 'make group'. then those objects stick together and you can move them around without disturbing the rest of your drawing. I would recommend making your walls a group as well, then everything is it's own entity.
@bepsf - you can really make just about any shape in sketchup - checkout the 3d warehouse just for examples.
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=furniture&styp=m&btnG=Search
Have fun! I'm planning on modeling my apartment w/the new furniture I want very soon!
The architecture and design industry has long used AutoCAD for this, and now Autodesk has a great free product that is actually compatible with AutoCAD - meaning your architect or designer could actually incorporate your work!
http://bit.ly/d1atPI
I just Graduate from college with a Degree in Interior Design, and we used SketchUp all the time. Of course, we also used the more professional programs like Revit and AutoCAD. But I would often import my files into SketchUp for rendering purposes (Although you can Render with Revit and AutoCAD, SketchUp is a little easier).
Irender can be downloaded, at renderplus.com, and gives SketchUp images a photo realistic look to them. It's fairly expensive (like $500), but you can download a free 30 day trail if you just want to use it for fun.
There is also 3D Warehouse (just Google it) where you can download free objects and materials so that you aren't limited to the selections that come standard with google sketch up.
I would upload a few of the photorealistic renderings I did using SketchUp, except, I have no idea how.
But it is a lot of fun to use, especially if you're not being graded! I like to use it and space plan imaginary apartments that I will never be able to afford.
I've been using the Icovia Roomful Express online flash room planner to help figure out how to rearrange our furniture.
http://roomfulexpress.icovia.com/
This isn't exactly on topic, but I've used this app on my iPhone and found it really handy when picking out furniture for my small place. It is a little fiddly to get the main layout but worth it once one.
http://appshopper.com/productivity/mark-on-call
Well timed posting for me, I have been looking for free programs to use since I'm no longer a student and a switch from PC to Mac left me without rendering software. The tips on other programs and free 3-D programs are super helpful! Thanks.
So... this seems to be in preparation for the small cool contest, am I right? If so... how about an old school, hand-drafted, hand-coloured floor plan?
I'm weird like that
I haven't tried the program, but I think you have your zoom and pan icons switched.
In most programs, zoom is represented by a magnifying glass, and panning by a hand... which is more logical, too. That's why I'm guessing you have them backwards.
Non-right-angled rooms are tricky. You can measure the lengths of four walls but without a known angle you can't be sure of the shape!
Do what surveyors do - triangles! If you know all three side lengths of a triangle then you've got a fixed shape, so for skewy rooms, measure across the diagonal. Create two triangles in SketchUp and put them together. This also works for non-four-sided rooms. Break it up into triangles.
Or just eyeball it! It might be close enough!
I don't think there's one right angle or two parallel walls in my house!
I have used Sketchup for many of my client's plans. Once you learn the basics, it is easy to use on simple plans or for more complicated ones as well. And it's free!
The Designer Insider
Orthograph has been really handy for me to make on-site sketches. I take them back to my PC and open them in SketchUp, and make them 3D. It's made my life alot easier! http://orthograph.net/ortho-eng_product.php?cmd=6