How to Draw Your Floor Plan.

If you don’t have an accurate floor plan that reflects the exact proportions of your house,
you’ll need to obtain one or make one. You can hire a local draftsman or drafting student, if
you don’t feel confident in making one yourself. Several computer programs are available
for making floor plans and a few even offer FREE 30-day trial periods, such as Smart Draw®
at http://www.smartdraw.com/. However, if you can draw a box with a ruler, you can
probably make a basic floor plan. The Illustrations in these pages are all drawn by
hand… to show you how simple it is to make your floor plan.

Supplies:
Measuring tape – I prefer a metal, carpenter’s type measuring tape
‘4 X 4’ Graph paper
Architect’s ruler
Pencil with eraser

Begin by making a rough outline of your entire house. Then measure the
width and depth of each room, and write those measurements on your rough outline. Add
up the width of all the rooms from side to side and allow for the width of the walls, to
determine the entire width of the house. Next add up the depth of all the rooms from front
to back, also allowing for the size of any walls, to find the entire depth of the house. If it’s a
small space, it’s possible to measure the entire width and depth with an extra long
measuring tape. I work with a 30 to 35 foot metal carpenter’s measuring tape, which is
available at most hardware stores.

Once you have established the maximum width and depth of the entire house, you can
ascertain if your floor plan can be drawn at ¼ inch scale and still fit on one sheet of
standard 8½ inch by 11 inch graph paper… or if you’ll need to draw your floor plan using
1/8 inch equals 1 foot. I usually draw my floor plans with the Sitting side at the bottom of
the page, so in the lower right corner of the page I indicate if the scale of the floor plan is ¼
inch = 1 foot or 1/8 inch = 1 foot.

1
 When using ‘4 x 4’ graph paper, you can count each box as ¼ inch equals 1
square foot. If your house is too large to fit on a single page using a ¼ inch scale, then you
can count each box as 1/8 inch. In which case, each square would represent 2 square foot.
However, when using this method it’s challenging to ensure accuracy when dealing with
fractions.

Using a three-sided architect’s ruler is easier, because you can use either in 1/4 or 1/8 inch
portions side of the ruler… plus it has fractions marked on the other side of the zero of
each scale. For instance, to draw a wall that is 9 foot 6 inches, you’d start at the 9 on either
the ¼ or 1/8 inch scale and then draw back PAST the zero point until you come to the 6
inch fraction point. With a little practice you’ll find this quicker and more accurate than
counting boxes on the graph paper.

The first thing you’ll draw is a single box that equals the maximum width
and depth of the entire house. You’ll want to do your best to center this box on the
page and allow room around edge of the floor plan, for directional markings later.

Next, start at one corner that doesn’t have any missing or extra pieces and begin to fill in
the large box with little boxes that represent the rooms…as in illustration 1A (below)

When there’s missing or extra pieces save those parts for last as dimensions of the other
rooms will help define where those rooms begin and end. You’ll also want to wait to add
the doors and windows until you’re certain your overall floor plan is correct.

2
As you add on each box that represents a room, be sure to allow space for the size of the
walls, which are usually 4 to 6 inches deep. Keep in mind that walls can be deeper than 6
inches, especially if they are load bearing walls or decorative archways. See illustration 1B
(below)

Once you’ve finished drawing the boxes for all the rooms of the house, walk through the
house and make sure you haven’t missed anything.

Illustration 1C

3
 Now you’re ready to add the doors, windows and any other details, by going
from room to room and measuring the position and size of each. There is no need to mark
which way the door opens, simply make a mark on both sides of the doorway and erase the
part in the between. For windows I make a mark on both ends of the window and connect
the outer ends of those marks with a solid line. That makes a very, very narrow box to
represent a window. You can draw an atrium or sliding glass door the same way as a
window and erase the part of the door that opens. For fireplaces, I measure either the
mantel or hearth if there is one… or at least the opening of the actual fireplace. Pictured in
illustration 1D (below)

Before moving on to the next step, I suggest you make a few copies of your floor plan. That
way you’ll have the original clean, in case you want to use it for anything else in the future.
An accurate floor plan comes in handy for flooring and remodeling estimates.

4
 How to Grid your Floor Plan.

What you’re doing in this step is dividing the width by 3 and the depth by 3 to make a 9
part grid… like a tic-tac-toe grid on your floor plan. In Chinese this is called a ‘Ba Gua’ grid,
because there are 8 outer parts or directions to the grid. ‘Ba Gua’ translates 8 sections or
portions. For instance, there is ‘Ba Gua’ Tai Chi, which has 8 movements. There is nothing
magical about a ‘Ba Gua’ symbol, mirror or anything that has 8 sides.

An easy technique to find three equal sections from side to side and front to
back on your floor plan is to angle your ruler with ZERO on one outer wall and any
number evenly divisible by 3 (such as 18, 21, 24, etc) on the opposite outer wall. Then mark
where the two dividing lines will be drawn. For instance, if you have zero on one side and
18 on the other, you’d make a small guiding mark at 6 and 12. Next move the ruler to a
similar position using the same two sides, to make a second set of guiding marks. Now,
using those two sets of guiding marks you’ll draw two lines that evenly divide the space
between those two sides into 3 even sections. Follow the same steps to make the other set
2 lines to complete your 9 part grid. See illustration 2A (below)

5
 When your floor plan isn’t exactly even, then you’ll have either some missing or
extra parts… or a little of both. Basically, the grid rule states you want “less missing,
than extra." If a room of the house extending from the main square or rectangle of the
house (other than a garage without rooms above it) is less than half the length of that side
then it would be considered EXTRA to the entire house grid. Occasionally, an extended
part is exactly half the length of a side of the house. In the later case, count the extended
part as part of the whole house grid. Determining what is missing and what is extra does
take practice. In fact, many houses have some missing and some extra portions, as seen in
illustration 2B (below)

In this example there’s extra in the kitchen and missing next to the back bedroom, below
the bath.

Garages are only included when they are intrinsic to the entire structure, such as when a
garage has rooms built above it, because the rooms above couldn’t exist if the garage wasn’t
also part of the house. However, when the garage juts out as an extra section, without
rooms above it… it won’t be included in the grid. Neither would it be included if there
wasn’t an entrance into the house directly from the garage.

6
 When you have completed the 9 section grid on your floor plan use the
corners of the center part of the grid to locate the exact center. You can do this
by lining-up your ruler with opposite corners of the center box of the grid and making a
small mark at the exact center of the grid. Do the exact same thing from using the other
corners of the center box and there you have it… ‘X’ marks the spot, or in this case the
magnetic center of your house. See the example in illustrations 2C (below) and 2D (on
the next page)

7
Illustration 2D

When gridding a 2 story single family dwelling… each floor has its own size
grid and magnetic center. In many cases, one floor’s grid is larger and one is
smaller.

8
 Which Way is Your House ‘Sitting & Facing’?

House’s are just like our bodies, they have a Sitting and a Facing side. We greet other
people by facing them, eye to eye, so the Facing side of our bodies is the formal side. Our
facing side is also where light enters our bodies and we have more openings on our face
than anywhere else on our bodies. The same goes for your house; the side where the
majority of the light enters and where the rooms are more open is your house’s Facing
side. Formal living rooms are usually on the Facing side. If your house is oriented toward a
beautiful view… then the house is looking at the view, so that’s the Facing side.

Most people would agree that our body’s Sitting side is private, fuller and heavier. In most
cases, the Sitting side of your house is directly opposite its Facing side, just like on our
bodies. No light enters your body from the Sitting side, so it follows that less light enters
your house from the Sitting side. More of the private rooms like bedrooms and family
rooms are on the Sitting side. Most often the heavier rooms like kitchens, bathrooms and
laundry rooms are on the Sitting side. However, in some homes the kitchen is on the
Facing side because it’s included in a great room that’s overlooking a view…especially when
there isn’t a formal living room.

The Sitting side of the house determines its Trigram, so that direction can
activate or trigger one of your ‘Personal Directions.’ Many do-it-yourself books say that
the entrance determines the direction of the house, but sadly they are incorrect. Think of a
women’s blouse… it has a front and a back side, just like your body and your house. A
blouse can button up the front or the side, or even zip-up the back. Those are the opening
(doors) of the blouse, but they don’t determine which side is the front or the back of the
blouse. If you decided to re-work the blouse and change it from buttoning up the front to
zipping-up the back, it would still have the same front and back.

The same goes for your house, no matter where the entrances are they don’t affect the
Sitting and the Facing side of the house. For instance, my current house has a side and a
back entrance, but no entrance on the actual Facing. My last apartment only had an
entrance on the Sitting side. The apartment I lived in before that… had the main entrance
where I entered off an interior hallway on the Sitting side and had a sliding glass door to the
balcony on the actual Facing side.

9
 When determining the Sitting & Facing of a 2 story single family dwelling…
focus on the main living floor, with the Living room, Kitchen and Dining room.

Illustration 3A (below) is an example of an average home with the kitchen and bath at the
Sitting side of the building.

10