Room Plan Scale Drawing

This tutorial was written for Paint Shop Pro version 7.
Tutorial is offered here free of charge for personal use only ... please read terms of use (TOU/FAQ).

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Before starting, please read this popup preface...notes about tutorial format, etc.

This scale drawing can be made using either raster tools or vector tools, whichever you are most comfortable with.

Items needed:

» Paint Shop Pro
Any recent version of PSP may be used, however, instructions are written for PSP v.7.

» The dimensions of your room.
Dimensions can be rounded off to the nearest half-foot (6").

» A list of your furniture and the measurements.

You can estimate dimensions for this practice, but to make best use of this floor plan....get out a measuring tape and spend some time measuring every single item in your room. Measure the width & length of the room, the width of each window & door, their distance from the corners of room and the location of any built-ins. Note the location of phone outlets & wall plugs, so you can plug those lamps in! Also write down the dimensions for all pieces of furniture that will be in the room ...don't forget the footstools and plant stands!.

Note: This tutorial is written using measurements of inches and feet. My apologies to those that use centimeters! If you need some help converting the measurements, there's a nifty little program that will do it for you. It is called 'Convert', it's free, and may be downloaded from dti.net.

Let's get started with Step 1. Don't forget to SAVE at each step along the way!!

1. Determine the scale you will use...

Scale: Decide on how large you want to draw this room as this will determine the scale used for the grid. You will probably want to print the final drawing on a standard size piece of paper (8.5"x11"). For this example I will make a room that measures 14 feet x 14 feet. If the common scale of 1 inch=1 foot is used, my 14" wide drawing won't fit on the paper for printing!!! But, if I use 1/2 inch=one foot, then my drawing will only be 7 inches wide....that will fit on paper without resizing!!

Now, how do we take that scale and convert it to pixels? Let's let PSP do it for us.

Open new image with these settings:

New Image Dialog Box

For the Image Dimensions, switch the box that says "pixels" to "inches" (or centimeters).

Width & height: For a canvas size that is an inch larger than your room dimensions, enter the dimensions of your room (reduced to the scale you calculated in previous step) PLUS an inch. For example, my 14x14 room at 1/2 inch scale will measure 7x7. If I add an inch to this 7x7 measurement, I'll create an 8x8 canvas size to give me some margin space. If necessary, that extra margin space can be cropped before printing.

Background color = white

Resolution = 72 pixels/inch (or pixels/cm). Sometimes I'll use a resolution of 100 for scale drawings....just because it makes some of the math easier!! ;-)

Don't forget to switch these settings back when your done with this drawing!!

2. Prepare the grid and outside walls...

Paint Shop Pro includes a grid tool that you can turn on and off to assist with aligning objects, however, in this case we want to make a grid that also print out. After all, sometimes we might want to draw on actual "paper". LOL For our floorplan, we will make our own 'custom' grid!

Grid: Open another new image...0.5 x 0.5 (that's 1/2" x 1/2") with a transparent background.

Set your stroke color to a light blue and your fill color to Ø null.
Zoom in very, very, very close. Using the Line Draw tool, draw a one pixel line along the entire top edge of the image and another line along the entire left edge. That's all, just a line along the top and left sides...nothing else. Minimize this image, it will be grid pattern.

grid

New layer: Return to your large image and create a new layer. Name it GRID.

Flood fill the GRID layer with the light blue grid pattern you just created.

Double check your scale....count the squares. You should have a square for every foot of actual room dimension!

Create new layer. Name it WALLS.
Settings:
Line color (stroke): black
Fill color: null Line width: 10
Antialias: off
Vector: on or off....your choice*.

align walls

Using the rectangle PreSet Shape, draw your walls along the grid. Start with any size rectangle, then pull the height and width until it is just OUTSIDE the lines that represent the INTERIOR dimensions of your room.

*If you choose not to use the vector tools, use Deformation Tool to stretch and resize your raster shape.

Note: Antialias should be OFF for everything you do in this floor plan. Crisp lines are wanted! The only exception would be round shapes for tables, etc.

If your room is not a rectangle:
Start with a rectangle for the largest dimension and add more shapes to represent the other walls. Add each shape on a new layer ....it'll make the next step (cutting) easier!

Example: This demo room is not square. There is an inset, or cutout, in one corner for the entry. To create this, I added another layer, made a rectangle in the lower left corner and aligned these new walls with the original rectangle. If you are creating a vector drawing, use Object Selector to align new shape with original walls on layer below. If you are creating a raster drawing, use Deformation Tool to align new shape as shown in this screenshot.

cut out the shape

Next I removed the lines (walls) that are not needed using the selection tool. Drag a rectangle selection (antialias OFF) around the area to be removed and "cut" the walls from the corner.

Add new layers and new shapes until you have a correct drawing of your own room.

This is my new room shape.

After you are done building your walls, HIDE both the white background and the GRID layers and "Merge Visible" to put all wall lines on one merged layer. Right click & rename the merged layer WALLS. Turn visibility back on for background and GRID.

3. Add windows and doors ...

On the WALLS layer, with the pre-set shapes tool, draw some rectangles in the walls to represent the location of windows and doors.

Settings:
Stroke Color: Black for the outline (stroke) color
Fill Color: White
Line Width: 2, Anti-alias OFF

In the demo room, I placed a 6 foot wide French doors along one wall (3 squares each to represent a 6 foot opening) and a 2 1/2 foot wide window (2 1/2 squares) along another wall.

cut door opening

For the door opening in the lower left corner, I used the rectangle selection tool to select a 3 foot wide doorway and 'cut' an opening in the wall.

In the demo room, the door opens into the room. I'll need to know how far into room the door will swing, so I've drawn a 3 foot door in an open position along the doorway cutout. I used line width 3 to draw door.

add door

I've also used the ellipse preset shape to represent the door swing (see screenshot). I drew the circle on a new layer to make it easier to position and easier to erase the parts of shape not needed. I also changed the line style to a dashed line before drawing the circle.

4. Add details on a new layer...

Now's the time to add the location of any built-ins, fireplaces or other unmoveable objects. You can also indicate the position of wall plugs. I drew the electrical symbol (a small circle with 2 lines drawn thru.) using green, line width 1, antialias ON.

Tip: Draw one plug symbol in the margins and use the selection tool to copy. Then paste the symbol in position along the walls repeatedly, as needed. When done, select the original plug drawn in margins and delete it.

At this point you can "Merge Visible" all parts of the floorplan EXCEPT GRID. Turn off visibility for GRID layer before merging. Keeping the grid on it's own layer will allow you to switch visibility off and on for the grid, as needed.

5. Add furniture...new layer for each piece of furniture!!

Using the pre-set shapes you can represent just about any shape furniture, including plants (use star shapes). Use the grid to keep furniture to scale! If you place each piece of furniture on a layer of its own, it will be very easy to re-arrange! You won't have to bother with Selection Tool!

Place any room size rugs in the room or fill the space with color of wall-to-wall carpet.

Create each shape with a 1 pixel black outline filled with the color of the furniture/object.

Draw rectangles for couch, tables, beds, sidechairs.

Draw circles and ovals for lamps, tables, etc.

Use a half-circle to make a small side chair. Draw a circle or rectangle, then cut it in half with Selection Tool. Use a 2-3 line width with anti-alias on and fill null.

Add another layer to add words describing each object, if desired.

Your pretty much on your own from here on. Just remember to place each object on a new layer and to use the grid to create objects that fit the scale of the room! With each piece of furniture on a layer of its own, you can arrange and re-arrange to your hearts content!!!

When done, crop the image close to the outside walls and print out the floor plan.
Next.....hog-tie someone to help you re-arrange the furniture according to your new plan!!

Here's the finished demo floor plan, reduced in size!!

Room Plan Scale Drawing

Happy Trails! Arizona Kate

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