Published 2026-09-05 · 3 min read
How to draw a house plan online without knowing CAD
A house plan does not start with lines. It starts with three numbers: how much land you have, how many rooms you need, and what you are willing to pay per square metre. Everything else follows. Here is the order the work actually goes in, and the mistakes that get expensive if you make them early.
Start with the outline, not the rooms
The first decision is the outer rectangle. A 10 × 12 m house is 120 m² per floor; a 9 × 9 m house is 81 m². Those 39 m², at a build cost of €500–700 per m², are somewhere between €19,500 and €27,300 — before finishes.
Draw the outline at the real size of your plot minus the required setbacks. Setbacks differ by municipality, so check your local rules before you commit to a width.
- Measure the plot and subtract the setbacks — what is left is your buildable maximum.
- Orient the outline north–south so you know where the sun lands from the start.
- Do not exceed the site coverage ratio allowed in your area.
Zones first, walls second
Split the outline into three zones before you draw a single wall: day zone (living, kitchen, small bathroom), night zone (bedrooms, main bathroom) and service zone (hallway, stairs, pantry, utility).
The rule that rescues most plans: day zone south and west, bedrooms east, service spaces north. North never gets direct sun — put there whatever should not be heated by it.
Dimensions that actually work
Rooms that look fine on paper become unusable in reality, because a plan does not show furniture.
- Main bedroom: at least 3.2 × 3.6 m for a queen bed with nightstands and a wardrobe.
- Child's bedroom: at least 2.8 × 3.2 m.
- Living room: 4 × 5 m is the comfortable minimum for a sofa, a dining table and a walkway.
- Kitchen: 2.6 m wide minimum if you want cabinets on both sides with 1.2 m between them.
- Bathroom with a tub: 1.7 × 2.2 m. With a shower: 1.5 × 2 m.
- Circulation hallway: 1.1 m. Below 90 cm you cannot carry furniture through.
Check circulation before anything else
The most common flaw in amateur plans is not an ugly room — it is a bad route: walking through the living room to reach the bathroom, or doors that hit each other.
The test is simple: trace with your finger the path from the entrance to every room. If a path crosses a room other than the hallway, the plan needs more work. Every door also needs 90 cm of clear space to open fully.
Export it to scale and walk through it in 3D
A plan drawn directly in 3D has one advantage paper does not: you can step inside. Raise the walls to 2.7 m, walk at eye height, and you immediately feel whether the hallway is tight or the living room window faces your neighbour's fence.
In GrafitGo you set the house dimensions as parameters and the building assembles itself with walls, doors, windows and slabs. Then you cut at 1.2 m and export the plan as vector SVG — it opens anywhere and prints to scale, with no pixels.
- Usual scale for a house plan: 1:50 for construction, 1:100 for presentation.
- Dimensions go outside the plan on three lines: openings, axes, total.
- Number the rooms and write each area — the first thing any builder asks for.
Do I still need an architect if I drew the plan myself?
Yes, for the permit. Your own plan is an excellent design brief — the architect starts from it instead of guessing what you want, which shortens the process considerably.
What software works without installing anything?
A browser-based 3D editor such as GrafitGo: you draw the house parametrically, see it in 3D and export the 2D plan without installing anything.
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