Drafting software has tools for viewing basement floor plans in 3-D.
Basements are the interior spaces of a house's structural foundations. They anchor the house to the earth and so tend to have some of the soil's dampness and coolness. This makes them ideal refuges from hot weather or good exercise rooms. Making basement floor plans doesn't require a degree in interior design. You're drawing the view you'd see if you hovered above the basement with its ceiling removed. This viewpoint eliminates the need to draw height information for the basement's furniture and other items. Basement floor plans increase your home's efficiency by specifying use the basement's space.
Instructions
1. List on paper the things you want to include in the basement. For example, you may write, "Home theater," "Play area for kids," "Exercise room" or "spare bedroom." You can generally list any area that doesn't require much light from the outside. However, some items may not take well to the basement's dampness.
2. Measure with a measuring tape the space you have available for the basement. Write down the dimensions you measured, along with scaled-down dimensions that will fit on regular paper. For example, if the basement measures 15-by-30 feet, write those dimensions down, along with 15-by-30 inches or centimeters.
3. Draw with a ruler on a new piece of paper a rectangle measuring the same as the second pair of numbers you wrote in the previous step.
4. Draw lines to represent interior walls, if any item on your Step 1 list calls for these. Each line stands for the top view, also called the plan view, of a wall.
5. Draw quarter circles in the wall lines you drew in the previous step. These shapes indicate doors.
6. Draw bathtubs, toilets and sinks as ovals. Draw block-shaped furniture such as bars, beds and dressers as rectangles that fit within the wall lines you drew previously. You don't have to be precise in the proportions of these non-structural items. But label each rectangle and other shape so you know what it refers to. For example, write "dresser" inside rectangles representing dressers. If your plans require precision, measure the dimensions of the tops of objects in your house, such as the dresser.
7. Take a break of at least 15 minutes from your plan to enable a more objective mindset to form. Return to look at your plan from a distance of several paces and write notes on areas that have inaccessible spaces. Also, look for related items that seem too distant from each other. For example, kitchens should have no more than 9 feet between the refrigerator and sink.
8. Label each wall line you drew with its length to complete the basement floor plan.
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