architectural plan house

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Reading architectural plans takes a degree of patients and skill that is only learnt by practise. For most of us in the building industry it's now second nature, and in fact can work against us when we're talking about home designs with clients because we forget some of the basics that helped us first understand how to read plans. This next practical step will take less than a few minutes and will help make visualising your space much easier.

Cardboard Cutouts

OK so you've now been trying to visualise how your home plan will be in your mind's eye. It's time to make sure you're happy with the floor plan by taking an even more practical approach.

To see how big a room is and how you can furnish the room, take out a tape measure and measure a few pieces of furniture. Quite often a bedroom is easily done in your mind's eye so you may want to start in the main living area. This is a good idea usually as the areas are combined and you want to also consider traffic zones like hallways through an open plan living space.

Now that you've measured your lounge suite, dining table and chairs, coffee table and TV cabinet, make a scaled cut out of the shapes. Your plans are probably going to be 1:100 ratio so just using a normal ruler and cutting a 2cm wide lounge will translate to a 2.0m space on the plans. Once you've got your cut outs place them on the drawing and see how you will furnish your home.

I know if more people actually did this then there would be far less homes with angled walls selling. I don't know how many times I've seen builders displaying homes with angles and the furnishings are terrible, still people buy them!

Your cut outs should help you understand how everything will go into your house, and it probably only took you 15 minutes to get this right. Now you can probably visualise more clearly how your home will look and feel by the time it is built.