How to sketch and measure your home for a floor plan

A good floor plan starts with a good sketch. You don’t need to be an architect, own special software or draw neatly. You just need a tape measure, a pencil, some paper and about an hour for a typical house.

This guide walks you through measuring and sketching your home so that whoever draws your floor plan (us, we hope) can turn it into something clear and accurate first time.

What you’ll need

• A tape measure or a laser measure. A laser measure is quicker, especially in bigger rooms, but a tape is fine.
• Paper and a pencil. Graph paper makes life easier, because you can keep rooms roughly in proportion. If you use it, note the scale on the sheet (for example, “2 squares = 1 m”).
• A phone to photograph each finished sheet.
• Optional: a second person to hold the other end of the tape.

Step 1: Draw one sheet for each floor

Use a separate sheet for every floor, including any loft room, basement or cellar you want on the plan. Label each one clearly: Ground floor, First floor, Second floor and so on.

Start with a rough outline of the floor, then add the rooms inside it. It doesn’t need to be to scale. It just needs to show which room is next to which, and roughly how they fit together.

Step 2: Name every room

Write the name in each room: Kitchen, Living room, Bedroom 1, Bathroom, En-suite, Utility, Hallway, Landing. If two rooms could be confused, number them (Bedroom 1, Bedroom 2).

Step 3: Measure every wall

This is the important bit.

• Measure wall to wall at floor level. Skirting boards and furniture get in the way at waist height, so measure along the floor where you can.
• Measure every wall, not just two. Rooms are rarely perfect rectangles. Write each measurement along the wall it belongs to.
• Don’t miss the small steps. If a wall jogs in or out, even by 20 or 30 cm, measure both parts.
• L-shaped rooms: measure both sides of the “L”, including the short return walls.
• Alcoves and chimney breasts: measure the depth and width of each one. They make a real difference to how a room looks on a plan.
• Write your units. Metres, or feet and inches, are both fine. Just say which you used, and stick to one. (Our plans show room sizes in both metric and imperial, so it doesn’t matter which you choose.)

Tip: once you’ve measured a floor, add up the rooms along one side of the house and compare the total with the overall length of that side. If they’re wildly different, something’s been missed. (Interior walls take up some space, so it won’t match exactly.)

Step 4: Mark the doors

Draw a gap where each door is, and show which way it opens with a small curve (the “swing”). Mark front and back doors, internal doors, and any sliding or folding doors.

Step 5: Mark the windows

Show where each window is with a double line on the wall. Mark French doors, patio doors and bi-folds clearly. Buyers and guests look for these.

Step 6: Show the stairs

Draw the stairs where they are, and add an arrow showing which way is up. If the stairs turn, sketch the turn.

Step 7: Add the kitchen and bathroom fittings

Mark the things people expect to see on a floor plan:

• Kitchen: worktops, sink, hob or cooker, island
• Bathrooms: bath, shower, toilet, basin
• Built-in storage: cupboards and fitted wardrobes
• Fireplaces

You don’t need to measure these. Just show roughly where they sit.

Step 8 (optional): Show which way is north

If you know which way north faces, draw an arrow and we’ll add a compass to the plan. If you’re not sure, leave it off. We’d rather leave it out than guess.

Step 9: Photograph each sheet

Take a clear, straight-on photo of each floor in good light, with the whole sheet in frame and no shadows across the numbers. A scan, a PDF or a screenshot of a drawing app is fine too.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Missing measurements. One unmeasured wall can throw out a whole room. Check every wall has a number.
• Mixing units. Don’t write some walls in feet and others in metres.
• Forgetting the landing, hallway or loft room. If you want it on the plan, sketch and measure it.
• Unreadable numbers. Write clearly, and go over pencil in pen before you photograph it.
• Guessing. If you couldn’t reach a wall, say so on the sketch rather than inventing a number.

How accurate will my floor plan be?

A floor plan drawn from your sketch can only be as accurate as the measurements you give. That’s why plans like this carry a “for illustrative purposes only” note. They’re for marketing your property, not a measured survey or a construction drawing. If you need an official floor area for building work or a legal document, use a qualified surveyor or architect.

Turn your sketch into a floor plan

When your sketch is ready, upload it on our floor plans page. We’ll draw a clean floor plan in 2D Colour, 2D Black & White or 3D Cutaway, or all three.

• £5 per property for one style, or £8 for all three, however many floors
• No VAT is charged: the price you see is the price you pay
• Delivered within 2 hours once we have everything we need, at any time of day
• One round of corrections included
• Room sizes in metric and imperial, plus the total floor area
• Optional extras: your logo as a watermark (+£1), furniture (+£4 per property)

If anything on your sketch is unclear, we’ll email you before we start, and the 2 hours starts once we have what we need.

Questions? Email craig@bricksandmedia.com or call 07730 577404 (+44 7730 577404 from outside the UK), Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm UK time.