Your first floor plan in 15 minutes

By the end of this tutorial you will have a real, measured room with a door, a window and a sofa, and you will have walked around it in 3D. No CAD experience needed.

Before you start

• A free account with a verified email address. Sign up at /sign-up.
• A desktop browser, laptop or tablet. Phones work too, but a bigger screen is more comfortable for drawing.
• Optional: the real measurements of a room. If you don't have them, use 12 ft 6 in × 10 ft (3.81 m × 3.05 m).

Steps

1. Create a project. From your dashboard choose New project, give it a name such as "Living room", and pick Draw from scratch.
2. Choose your units. Use the units switch in the top bar (feet & inches or metric). You can change it at any time — stored dimensions never change, only how they're displayed.
3. Draw a room. Press R (or choose Rooms in the tool rail), then drag a rectangle on the canvas. Release to finish. Walls, corners and the room's floor area appear instantly.
4. Make it exact. With the room selected, type the width and depth in the inspector on the right, for example 12'6" and 10'. The value you type is stored exactly — 12′ 6″ stays 12′ 6″.
5. Add a door. Press D, then click on a wall. Drag along the wall to position it; the inspector shows the distance from each corner. Change the swing side or hinge from the inspector if needed.
6. Add a window. Press N and click another wall. Set the width and sill height in the inspector.
7. Place a sofa. Press F to open the furniture catalog, search for "sofa" and drag a Three-seat sofa into the room. Real-world sizes are used (84″ × 36″ for this one). Press Shift+R to rotate it 90°.
8. Look at it in 3D. Press 3 or choose View in 3D. Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom. Press 3 again to return to 2D.
9. Save a version. Your work autosaves continuously. Press Mod+S to also save a named version you can return to later.

Common problems

• The room won't close. Rooms are detected from fully enclosed walls. Make sure the last corner snaps onto the first one — a small circle appears when it will connect.
• My typed size was rejected. Check the format; see Dimensions and units for every format we accept.
• The door won't fit. Doors and windows must fit inside one wall without overlapping another opening. Shorten the opening or move it along the wall.
• 3D is blank or slow. See Browser support and performance.

What's next

• Furnish the rest of the room from the catalog.
• Invite someone to comment — guests are free (inviting needs a subscription).
• Export a PDF to scale to take to the hardware store.