Whether you’re building in a new estate, have your eye on a house and land package, are considering a knockdown rebuild, or like the look of a completed home, understanding how to read and decipher a floorplan is a key to selecting the home that is right for you.
If you’re a new home builder, looking at multiple floorplans to find 'the one' can be overwhelming but once you know how to read a floor plan, you will feel more confident and will be able to imagine how daily life will flow in your home.
Below, we go through the basics from outlining what a floorplan is, what the symbols mean and how to assess furniture placement.
What is a floor plan?
A floor plan is a set of detailed two-dimensional drawings to scale that provides a visual representation of your proposed house or building as the finished result. It gives you the home’s perspective from above, as a birds-eye view.
With a floor plan, you can expect to discover every aspect of the home, including the framed room dimensions, as well as walls, windows, doors, wardrobes, appliances, cabinetry, and other fixtures. You’ll also see the garage space and the alfresco area.
A floor plan is drawn in two different formats: catalogue and technical. The catalogue format is the initial, simplified version which can be revised and developed later. This initial plan is used for marketing purposes, such as on websites and in brochures before the home is purchased or chosen from a range of designs.
Then when it’s time for the nitty-gritty detail, you will review a technical floor plan. This provides as much detail as possible so you can expect to learn the proposed home’s orientation and scale, while the title block information contains the project name and builder details, date, and revision references. This information protects the accuracy of the plan and helps to keep your design as unique as possible.
How to select the right floor plan
The best floor plan is the one that you can imagine living in and enjoying! Try to put yourself in the picture – imagine how life will flow from one room to the next, what your weekdays look like, how your weekend works and what spaces an.
Does the layout help to support busy family life?
Is there ample space for entertaining friends and family?
Are there zones for the kids and a retreat for the adults too?
Does the kitchen connect with functional areas for preparation and entertaining?
Is there enough storage?
Is there ample natural light and flow from indoors to out?
These are all considerations you may find important to address and solve when choosing your desired floorplan.
This is also the time to open the conversation with your builder about any structural changes you’d like to make. You may need to consider customising your floorplan to suit your needs. With Henley, there are over 80 home designs to choose from and more than 2,000 ways to customise our homes, with all plans pre-drawn and ready to quote.
What do all the symbols represent?
Walls
The wall lines are quite obvious even to the untrained eye, however, they do have a few flourishes you’ll need to know.
The walls are drawn as parallel lines and set the partitions in the house to determine the size and shape of each room and entry way in the house.
When the wall lines have breaks, that indicates an opening – whether a door or a window.
When the wall lines are drawn as thicker black lines, this signifies an outdoor wall to distinguish the wall’s greater width.
You will see all details in the final drawings with your builder.
Internal Doors
Internal doors are shown as a break in the wall line and are denoted by a perpendicular straight line. Some floor plans will also show an arc to indicate the direction the door opens, however, not all drawings provide this extra arc detail.
When it comes to design touches like sliding doors, stacker doors and bi-folds, they will be signified by double broken parallel lines, and you will often see them opening onto an alfresco area.
Windows
Like doors, windows are also shown as breaks in the wall typically connected by three or more parallel lines depending on the casement.
Stairs
In Australia, stairs are designed to regulations that apply nationally. Visit the Australian Standard AS1657 to learn more about the rules for stairs relating to angles, clearances, landings and more. On a floor plan drawing, the stairs will be represented by consecutive parallel lines with arrows showing up or down. Remember that stairs take up a lot of head space and floor space!
Floors
The symbols and shading for floors on a floor plan drawing will vary, depending on the finish, texture or purpose of your flooring choices. For example, the bathroom floors and toilet flooring may be shaded in grey to illustrate wet areas. You can ask your builder to clarify the flooring symbols as you require (on marketing plans only).
Furniture, fittings, and fixtures
Depending on the type of floor plan, you will notice that certain fixtures and furniture pieces are specified with illustrations.
For example, you will be able to see the location of the oven, stove, cabinetry, sinks, showerheads plus couches and beds. This helps you to comprehend the size estimates, and whether your fittings, fixtures and appliances work seamlessly with the space allotted to them (or not!). You don’t want to find out later that your dream fridge does not fit the space it’s destined for, so it’s best to familiarise yourself with your floor plan before making purchases.