Floor Plan: Will it Fit?

Now that's a box! How are we going to arrange things inside?

When I first got the gumption to build I was ready to jump straight into construction. Thankfully my financial situation slowed that roll down enough to contemplate buying the minimal amount of materials and to hunt for the least expensive of each type of material I decided to use.

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So how do we know where to put the windows and doors when we're building? I made a floor plan, several actually.

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It seems to most I'm always figuring out the most difficult way to go about something so I will explain how I went about making these and the whether or not I feel it was worth the time and trouble.

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Floor plans were made using Adobe Fireworks

Rather than a CAD program that works in 3D and automates much of the process for blue printing and sizing of materials I went with the pixel counting and actual measuring of each building component I placed into each image on the screen. I used 10px (pixels) per real world inch so a 2x4 that measures 1 1/2" x 3 3/4" was 15px * 37px. After creating one of each component I could clone it whenever I needed to use another one just like picking up another 2x4 in the real world.

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Ground Floor set up for multiple daily functions

After I had measured each component for the perimeter of the structure I began to lay out where I felt each item would work best from a top down view. Moving items around the room made the areas a door or windows would work either change to a different position, bounce to a different wall, or not work at all in the space allotted.

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Once a space that looked livable began to take shape I needed to figure out where I was going to be in non-waking hours. In the van I simply laid down three seat cushions and rolled out a sleeping bag so I thought maybe I could do the same here since I was tired and it was late.

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Thank goodness for an uncomfortable nights sleep! If I was going to live here for any period of time I needed something a little better and potentially a bit more permanent and/or comfortable. Back to the PC with brainstorming and a fresh cup of coffee I went first crack of dawn. Knowing I planned on water catchment and solar panels, upcoming stories :), I knew the roof pitch angle was going to be at or around 40 degrees to allow air and water travel under the panels so I knew I had some height to work with.

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Mapping every inch of usable height for living space

The only way to contemplate where and how tall each item was to end up was for me to draw out a vertical plan of the space. Just as before I had to measure and plot each component and then I could clone one if I wanted another one of those items again elsewhere in the plan/image.

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I knew I was 5'11" and wasn't going to hit my head on any beams or joists if I set them in at a minimum bottom height of six feet from the decking. Please note it is necessary to contemplate the thickness of the floor covering and veiling drywall or plywood as those thicknesses will subtract from the intended height of that space i.e.: if I put in a floor joist at 6' I would have 1" clearance above my head when framed in but after adding hardwood floors and hanging drywall the ceiling height would only be 5' 10 5/8" and a daily headache for many reasons.

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The space for the loft need only be tall enough to sit up in bed and wide enough to sleep comfortably. After living in my van, converted in microRV (stories yet to be written), for 2 years I was capable of sleeping comfily in a 32" wide space which made the projection from the back wall towards the front door stop close enough in the roof slope to retain the ceiling height needed to traverse a mount or dismount from a ladder or stairs without awkwardly squeezing through too tight of a space to get in and out of the loft.

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Loft projection into the room is only 36"

The result of doing the floor plan this way is slightly more specific and personalized as compared to the prebuilt programs out there, at least those that I've tried over the years. Some possibilities are opened while some conveniences are lost. Some of the pre-built software solutions are preset with 2x4 for 16" or 24" centers and build around where you want doors and windows for you using coded scripts. Those are nice if you are building to code requirements for an inspection but are typically way overbuilt with way more materials than necessary and further restrict you to code approved heights, distances, spacings and square footages that don't meet the requirements you're after.

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I feel my preference leans towards the DIY aspect of creating a project from scratch. Whether it's one pixel plotted on a screen on an Apple 2e from the 80's or seeing how much solar power I could harvest in shade through indirect sunlight, use of bypassing shadowed cells with diodes, and adding multiple arrays or if it's running a human powered generator from windings spinning across a magnet (more later on those). While this method doesn't write a material list for how many 2x4s I need it also doesn't try to upsell me a loan from a bank to cover costs.

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All buildings are built one piece at a time. Count the times each item is cloned for parts. Rest assured knowing each and every item will fit as the actual item was measured then calculated from inches into pixels. Placement for openings and cuts can be figured by counting the pixels, dividing by ten and cutting the wood to that measure i.e.: 105px = 10 1/2". It's almost difficult to mess it up.

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So what do you think?

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Do you have a favorite method or technique you prefer over others you've tried?

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If so feel free to let us know in the comments below.

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