Hoosier Homestead Floor Plans: First Floor

Floor Plans: Choose Your Weapon

Last time I discussed the process we took to determine what kind of structure the Hoosier Homestead would be. Now I discuss the selection process for the tool I ultimately used for our floor plans. I used a half a dozen, but settled on a single tool I think is best for designing floor plans. I’ll give you a few alternatives that I think are great options.

Tools for Floor Plans

There a dozens and dozens of floor plan and home design tools out there. One of those tools, Planner 5D, even wrote an article about their competitors, a list of the 13 best home design software tools. Feel free to check them out, but I tried them all so I’ll give you just four (and a half). All but one or two will eventually disappoint you. If you don’t want to learn a new skill or spend money, you will be definitely be disappointed.

Cedro

The layout tool in Cedro from a house I designed when I thought I could afford building the carriage house first.

I think if you pay for the full version, Cedro could be a professional grade software. In its free version it might have everything you could want, if you only need visuals. It has some fantastic rendering capabilities but falls short in complex technical and mechanical features. If you wanted to do MEP (Mechanical, Electral, & Plumbing) or HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, & Air Condition) planning within the same software, Cedro is not for you. I personally had issues getting some of my rooflines to work appropriately. But for free, it was a solid piece of software.

• Pros:
  • Free.
  • Cloud-based, which might be a con for some people.
  • Can quickly create elegant looking floor plans.
  • Render photo realistic views of the exterior and interior.
• Cons:
  • Hard to create diagonal and curved walls. Complex rooflines were tedious to execute.
  • Lack of full construction design features such as MEP, HVAC, and material estimation.
  • The strength of the program, stunning visuals, is handicapped in the free version. Much of the attractive components for great renders are behind the paywall.

The 3D explorer in Cedro for the home design above.

Sketchup

Sketchup is a great tool if you are looking for a free 3D modeling tool with a short learning curve and a decent library of community created 3D models to populate your design. The skills you gain from learning Sketchup can translate to other disciplines: woodworking, 3D printing, anything where quick 3D sketches are beneficial. Even if you are not going to use the software, many 3D programs (including Home Designer Pro, mentioned below) will import models from Sketchup’s 3D Warehouse.

• Pros:
  • Free version.
  • Intuitive interface/shallow learning curve.
  • Very fast at “sketching” 3D visualizations.
  • Expansive community library of models.
  • Usefulness beyond home design and architecture.
• Cons:
  • Performance the free version begins to drastically degrade as complexity increases.
    • If I’m paying for a tool, I’d opt for something either more robust or specialized.
  • Lack of true BIM (building information modeling), so it doesn’t produce accurate schedules/quantities of materials and 2D drawings.

Random CAD Stuff on YouTube has a very good tutorial on how to create a floor plan in Sketchup, if you are interested in using it for your project.

Rhino

Rhino is a professional 3D modeling tool. It is the NURBS-based modeling software. NURBS is an acronym for Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines, which are mathematical representations of 3D geometry that can accurately describe any shape from a simple 2D line, circle, arc, or curve to the most complex 3D organic free-form surface or solid. Because of their flexibility and accuracy, NURBS models can be used in any process, from illustration and animation to manufacturing.

Rhino sees heavy using in the marine industry with ship design and is a very popular choice for actual architects and engineers. It allows for simulations to analyze structural integrity and points of failure. Most importantly for our use case, it integrates with BIM and is able to embed itself in AutoCAD Revit, another industry standard tool for BIM.

• Pros:
  • True professional CAD and 3D modeling software that supports drafting, 3d models, animations.
  • Fully parametric design.
  • BIM integration to produce material schedules.
  • Usefulness beyond home design and architecture.
• Cons:
  • Not free (though at the time of this writing, a full, perpetual license costs less than $200, which is very cheap for what you get).
  • Steeper learning curve.

Here is another Random CAD Stuff tutorial, this time using Rhino.

Chief Architect (& Home Designer Pro)

Chief Architect is purpose built for architecture. It is right there in its name! Unlike the previous two software, where you create everything by hand (doors, windows, their placement), Chief Architect (and its little sibling, Home Designer Pro) literally allows you to drag and drop items into place. And while it might not reach the fully custom designs that could be attained from modeling in Rhino, it will do everything that a DIY residential builder will need in far less time. If you’re the next Frank Lloyd Wright, I doubt you’re reading this article.

The glaring problem with Chief Architect is its cost. $2000 for an annual subscription or $167/mo. Good news, the learning curve is pretty shallow. Better news, you can get 90% of Chief’s functionality at a fraction of the cost. Enter Chief’s little brother: Home Designer. There are different packages, each with more limited features, with the least amount of features coming in at $129 up to $595 for the Pro level. This is actually the tool I use. My biggest issue is not being able to edit some layers for floor assemblies, but you can work around it.

• Pros:
  • Purpose built for designing floor plans and constructing residential homes.
  • Easy to learn, create a simple floor plan in minutes.
  • Export professional 2D drawings
  • Simple but effective 3D renderings.
  • Imports various 3D models including those created by Sketchup.
  • Generate material schedules.
• Cons:
  • Not free.
  • Does not inherently support roof purlins, which would impact material schedules, but not design.
  • Cheaper versions limit the ability to edit the layers of floor structures.

A quickstart tutorial from Chief Architect for their Home Designer Pro level of software.

Chosen Tool For Our Floor Plans

I ended up paying for Home Designer Pro to use to create our final floor plans. The speed and ease that I can create plans and modify them and export layouts was crucial when getting approval from K and during the design phase with our metal building supplier. If I did it for a living, I might go with Chief Architect. If I designed commercial skyscrapers, I’d use Rhino. The utility of being able to import scaled models from Sketchup and visualize the garage was my favorite feature.

Hopefully one of these four (and a half) tools will get you what you need to design your own floor plans.

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