Hopefully, this will become a series of posts about drafting and design under an overarching Rough Draft title. Several days ago, I wrote about two problems: the decline of starter homes and retirement homes on the market, and the needed to plan for accessibility. I said I should use my training as a draftsman to address this problem, and here is the beginning.
This floor plan is based on memories of the small Midwestern town where I spent my early childhood. One elderly couple in particular adopted us in as extended family. I asked the Mother Thing if she still had their old addresses somewhere, and she did! I was able to find their house on a real estate site with info from whenever it was last on the market. Their house was built (according to the real estate site, anyway) in 1947. The footprint is just a rectangle, about 20'x30' (or about 6m x 9m) with a simple gable roof with a basic attic/loft/garret used only for storage on top and a full basement below.
Architectural Tangent:
This design could be called a Cape Cod, if one felt generous. The front facade is symmetrical, with an entrance in the center and a large shuttered window to either side. The stereotypical Cape Cod is a "1-1/2 story" house with a livable attic space inside the roof rafters and dormer windows to allow more light inside, although this is not strictly necessary. I refuse to follow the McMansion trend of purely ornamental "dormers" tacked on top. Form should follow function, and artificial pretense is detrimental to good design. [/rant]
My design assumes a simple slab-on-grade foundation. Basements are almost a necessity when the foundation needs to extend below the frost line for a bitter Minnesota winter, and it doubles as a shelter during the tornado season in summer. Before air conditioning became commonplace, it also offered a shelter from heat because the earth maintains a steady cool temperature well below grade, and heat rises. Here in my part of the Pacific Northwest, frost depth is only 18-24" down, so crawlspaces and slabs are common. We also don't tend to have tornadoes, and this plan assumed a modern heat pump for climate control.
Since I am not using AutoCAD, I've had to poke around to find several settings in the software suite I'm using now. They are there somewhere, just not where I expect them to be. This led to some delays, to say the least, but I now have accomplished the basics for laying out a drawing to print to scale.
This is an incomplete work-in-progress floor plan. Most of the dimensions are in place. I included some blocks for furniture just as a reference, but these would be omitted in a proper set of prints. I also have 60" circles where I needed to guarantee wheelchair turning space, but those would also not typically be shown in residential drawings. In short, this is absolutely not ready for use as building plans yet.
Notes on Dimensioning
A plan is typically dimensioned so everything is read from either the bottom or right side of the page. Each feature should be located only once to prevent ambiguity, and this was especially important when plans were hand-drawn and added potential for minor errors in the drawing process to add errors to the dimensions. Plans usually include a note not to use a scale on the drawing, and instead contact the architect in case of ambiguity or error.
You can also see how tolerances can stack even in a floor plan, so features are dimensioned from either end of the wall with some wiggle room allowed at a points I selected. Some measurements are critical, and those should be clearly shown.
I also dimensioned to either side of windows and doors. Note that this method defines those features by their rough openings, with the intent of installing pre-manufactured units. Many drawings instead just measure to the centers, and leave it to the framers to account for the rough openings. This is a matter of architect and contractor preferences nowadays with more standardized options available.
Areas to improve?
- I'm not entirely happy with the kitchen layout and laundry room placement, but for now, this is dictated by minimal plumbing considerations.
- That empty void by the bathtub should be put to use somehow, once I decide how to rearrange the room.
- The small bedroom really should have two windows, so I may switch the closet access from the large master bedroom to this room instead. Note it is also not fully wheelchair accessible, even with a 36" door.
- Closets could be sliders instead of bifold doors.
- I didn't really design this to have a good place for a living room TV.
This is definitely a rough draft, so input is welcome.
Next Steps
Once I've finished adjusting the floor plan, the design is still far from finished. A full set of blueprints will typically include the following pages:
- Cover page with general notes and site plan showing the overall lot, setbacks, easements, existing structures, and utilities. For large projects, the site plan may require its own sheet.
- Elevation drawings of each exterior side of the house.
- Foundation plan with notes for load-bearing points, often from an outside engineering firm with soil analysis and site preparation instructions.
- One page per floor with floor plan, dimensions, and notes.
- Section drawing and detail drawings for foundation, wall construction, etc.
- Door and window schedules listing the quantity, sizes, and hinge side of each door; and window sizes and types.
- Interior elevation drawings, especially for kitchen and bath. This is particularly important when designing for accessibility, since that adds more requirements.
- Electrical drawing with locations for receptacles, switches, wired lighting, and breaker panel.
- Floor/roof framing drawings, although this is such a simple plan, that may not be necessary. A truss roof means the truss builder provides their own engineering and layout drawings as a supplement.
In other words, the floor plan I've been refining off and on for almost two weeks now isn't complete, and even when it is, it is just the start. There is much to draw yet, and I should have another installment showing more of the process before too long. Once I've got a full set of drawings and I'm happy with the design, I'd like to upload a PDF. Any suggestions? I can always use MEGA, but I'm also open to IPFS and other hosts or decentralized file sharing options. Chime in with your ideas!
If you're not on Hive yet, I invite you to join through InLeo or PeakD. If you use either of my referral links, I'll even try to delegate some Hive Power to help you get started.