Short answer: measure every room inside, wall to wall, draw the rooms one by one and push them together, then put the doors and windows on their walls. A free planner such as the RoomCalcs floor plan creator then shows the home in 3D, lets you walk through it, and works out the tiles, flooring, paint and skirting for every room. No account, no download: it runs in your browser and keeps the plan there.
Step 1: measure the rooms
Measure each room at floor level, from wall to wall on the inside, the longest way and the widest way. Walls are rarely perfectly straight, so measure in two places and use the bigger figure. Also note:
- the ceiling height (one figure for the home is fine unless a room differs);
- every door and window: its width, its height, the distance from the nearest corner, and for windows the height of the sill above the floor.
Inside sizes are what you will cover with flooring, paint or tiles, so the planner draws rooms by them. The walls are the gaps between the rooms.
Step 2: draw the rooms
Add a room by its type (living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, hall) and its width and length. Each new room appears beside the others; drag it into place and it snaps to the next room with one wall's thickness between them (10 cm by default). Then shape it:
- drag a wall to make the room bigger or smaller, or type the length of any wall;
- drag a corner, or double-click a wall (or press its +) to add a corner for an angled wall;
- Make it L-shaped turns a rectangle into an L in one click.
Step 3: add doors and windows
Pick a wall and add a door or a window; drag it along the wall or type its distance from the corner. A door in a wall two rooms share counts for both, so neither room gets the wall area or skirting where the doorway is.
Step 4: more floors, stairs and a roof
Add a floor and the new floor starts as a copy of the rooms, windows and inside doors of the one you are on; the floor below shows faintly underneath so the walls line up. Put stairs on the lower floor and they cut a hole the size of the flight in the floor above. Choose a flat, gable or hip roof with its pitch and overhang.
Step 5: furniture
There are 32 pieces at their real size: sofas, beds, wardrobes, dining sets, kitchen units, a sink unit, cooker and fridge, toilet, basin, bath and shower, a desk and bookcase, and stairs. Drag them in, turn them, change their colours, and you can see straight away whether the bed and the wardrobe both fit.
Step 6: see it in 3D and walk through
The 3D view shows every floor in its finishes, with the walls lowered so you can look in from above (or at full height with the roof on). Walk through puts you inside at eye height: drag to look round, walk with the arrow keys or the arrows on screen, go through doors and up and down the stairs.
Step 7: the materials for the whole home
Make each finish once (floor tiles, laminate, carpet, paint, wall tiles to a height, wallpaper) and give it to as many rooms as use it. The planner adds the rooms up and uses the same maths as the separate calculators. For the five-room example flat it finds:
| Room | Floor | Walls less doors and windows |
|---|---|---|
| Living room | 18 m² | 39.17 m² |
| Kitchen | 13.5 m² | 34.17 m² |
| Hall | 8.52 m² | 32.05 m² |
| Bedroom | 14 m² | 34.17 m² |
| Bathroom | 8.4 m² | 27.61 m² |
and from that: 20 packs of laminate, 23 boxes of 60 × 60 cm floor tiles with adhesive and grout, 21 boxes of wall tiles for the bathroom, 12 tins of wall paint, 5 of ceiling white and 20 lengths of skirting. Add prices to get a total.
If you are building rather than finishing, the Build the house section works out the bricks or blocks, cement, sand, stone and steel; our guide on bricks, cement and steel for a house explains how.
Step 8: save, print and share
The plan stays in your browser. Download a PDF with a drawing of every floor, the shopping list and every room's sizes, or a spreadsheet, or copy a link that opens the same plan on another device. Send rooms to My renovation puts each room in your project space, so every calculator and the quote maker can use its sizes.
What a free planner won't do
It is not an architect's drawing for a permit, and it does not check structure. Paid planners also have far bigger furniture catalogues and photo-like renders. For seeing whether a layout works and knowing what to buy, the free plan is enough.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free floor plan creator without sign-up?
Yes. The RoomCalcs floor plan creator needs no account, has no watermark and keeps up to 60 rooms on up to 6 floors in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you share the link.
Can I draw a whole house with stairs and a roof?
Yes. Add floors, put stairs on the lower floor (they cut the hole in the floor above), and choose a flat, gable or hip roof. In the walk-through you can go up and down the stairs.
Can I use feet and inches?
Yes. Switch to imperial and choose feet and inches for room sizes; doors, windows and tiles are then in inches.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes: drag with one finger, pinch to zoom, and type sizes in the panel. Drawing a whole house is easiest on a computer.
How exact are the materials?
They use the same formulas as the RoomCalcs calculators, with the spare you set for each finish. Check the sizes on site and buy tiles and wallpaper from one batch.
Calculators in this guide
Enter your own sizes for an exact answer.
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