Home Design and Architecture Guide

What tools to draw a simple floor plan?

A new homeowner would like to draw a simple floor plan to help with remodeling and decorating projects. She write this:

“I figured I could find some simple tools on the web, but all I can find is software intended for 3-D design,” she says. “Most do not make drawing to some scale or designating distance easily.”

Are there simple online tools to help draw floor plans?

High powered home design software and CAD (computer aided design) programs can do many complex tasks and will create beautiful scale drawings. Most home design programs are fairly easy to learn, but all the bells and whistles aren’t necessary if a floor plan is all you need.

Want something even less complicated? Try one of these easy online tools:
* FloorPlanner.com
* Gliffy Floor Plan Software
* SmartDraw
* Classroom Architect

Free Tools to Choose House Paint Colors

Wouldn’t it be great to preview color combinations on your house, before spending a lot of money on paint? You can, with digital painting tools. Just point and click to see rooms, furnishings, and house exteriors in many different colors. The software and online tools listed here are inexpensive, and most are FREE! Keep in mind, however, that your monitor cannot render colors precisely. Use these digital painting tools to explore possibilities, then test spot your chosen paints in a small area.
1. Benjamin Moore Personal Color Viewer
Try thousands of Benjamin Moore paint colors. Use the free online tool to view colors on sample photos showing interior and exterior views. Or, buy the $10 “>CD and try Benjamin Moore colors on photos of your own house. Available for Windows and Mac.

2. Resene EzyPaint
Use the easy, free version on EzyPaint online, or pay to download the more sophisticated version which includes a drawing and mapping tool that lets you fine tune the areas you want to color. The Ezypaint programs are available for PC or Mac, and will let you view thousands of colors manufactured by the New Zealand paint company, Resene.

3. American Traditions Virtual Painter
Select from a palette of National Trust approved American Tradition® colors from Lowes. Try your chosen colors on several online photos of interior and exterior views. Easy to use, but the selection of images is limited. Free.

4. Sherwin-Williams Painting Images Color Simulator
Select a photograph that most closely resembles the style of your house, then choose the Sherwin-William palette to experiment with color combinations. Free.

5. Bob Vila’s Paint Designer
Home repair guru Bob Vila lets you view his Signature Collection paint colors on several different house styles. You can’t import your own photos, but the free interactive Web page includes a color wheel for easy color selection and a handy estimator tool that calculates how much paint to buy.

6. CBN Selector™
Here’s a complex and powerful tool that lets you visualize the appearance of thousands of colors on a variety of surfaces including stucco and concrete. Once you’ve selected your colors, you’ll have a precise CBN Code that will let you order the color mix you want from your local dealer. You can download this software and try it out for 30 days for free.

7. Better Homes & Gardens Color-A-Home
Register for a free log-in, then use the free online tools to view different color combinations on a variety of house styles.

8. Photo-Editing Programs
Chances are, you already have a photo-editing program on your computer. While not specifically designed to work with house painting, most photo-editing programs include tools that can help you in the color selection process. This page from Microsoft Windows XP shows how to do this using Microsoft Digital Image Suite. Other programs work in similar ways.

What Is a Floor Plan?

A floor plan is a simple line drawing showing rooms as though seen from above. Walls, doorways, and windows are often drawn to scale.

When shopping for house plans or building plans, you may study the floor plans to see how rooms are arranged. However, a floor plan is not a blueprint or a construction plan. To build a house, you need a complete set of construction plans that will include floor plans, cross-section drawings, electrical plans, elevation drawings, and many other types of diagrams.

A floor plan, or floorplan, in architecture and building engineering is a diagram, usually to scale, of the relationships between rooms, spaces and other physical features at one level of a structure.

Dimensions are usually drawn between the walls to specify room sizes and wall lengths. Floor plans will also include details of fixtures like sinks, water heaters, furnaces, etc. Floor plans will include notes to specify finishes, construction methods, or symbols for electrical items.

It is also called a “plan” in architectural terms, as opposed to “elevation” which means how the object will look when seen from a side, or a “cross section” where the building is shown cut along an axis to reveal the interior.

Examples:
Although usually drawn to scale, a floor plan can be a simple diagram showing the layout of the rooms. The drawing shown here shows a floor plan from a single-family home