How to Make a Blueprint with the right tools?

Designing your own home can be a great way to make sure you have all the features you want while staying within your budget, because builders can’t predict the exact needs of their future buyers, so they build for the best fit they can. When you make your design your own, though, you can define the rooms more thoroughly than a builder would to get exactly the layout you want from your new home. Not everyone who makes their own blueprints is making a new design, though. Planning home expansions or renovations that change the structure and square footage of your house starts with making a plan, especially if you are trying to communicate clearly to a contractor what you want.

Starting Steps: Get the Right Tools

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Learning how to make a blueprint starts with knowing what you need for basic tools:

Drafting pencils and erasers
An architect’s scale
Rulers, measuring triangles, protractors, and other drawing and measuring aids
Drafting paper
Blueprint paper for the final printing
Optionally, home design software for digital blueprinting
Drafting tape
A suitable surface for a drafting table with all your supplies in easy reach

Most of the time, getting the right results is a matter of combining hand-drawing and digital plans. It takes a long time to learn how to get everything you want from software, and even many professionals use a combined method to work faster when they have an idea to put down on paper.

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Make Precise Scale Plans

The key to making blueprints that work for your project is understanding how to draw to scale, which allows those reading the plans to determine precise real-world measurements from your blueprint.

Measure each line
Use a consistent reference scale for the entire set of plans
Start work from the exterior walls in
Be conscientious about wall placement and room overlap in multi-floor plans
Include clear labels as you go

Interior walls should be drawn with a thickness to represent the space they will realistically take in the construction process, and the same is true of stairwells and doors. Remember, this plan needs to communicate all the details of the measurements of every building feature, including scaling the wall thickness to real life goals. Blueprint storage usually requires specialized containers that prevent the blueprint from folding with a hard crease. If you are designing work and you are not a professional architect, it’s a very good idea to have one review your design before you go ahead, to make sure it is feasible. This also gives you a round of revision that will correct out any beginner’s mistakes. To get your starting supplies, check out the selection on EngineerSupply.