A Floor Plan Has Two Readers
Marketing plans and construction drawings have different jobs. Here is what to take out, what to add, and what a marketing plan should not imply.
Mikita Dasiukou Founder, Untrue Studio · 5 min read
Somewhere in most presale projects, a buyer has been sent a PDF of a construction drawing with the title block cropped off.
It is accurate and it is free, because the drawing already exists. It is also almost useless to the person receiving it. They see dimension strings, wall tags, grid lines and door symbols. What they want to know is whether their bed fits with room to walk around it.
The drawing was not made for them. A construction drawing and a marketing floor plan look alike, but they have different readers and different jobs.
Two readers, two jobs
| Construction drawing | Marketing floor plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Reader | Contractor, consultant, plan checker | Buyer, agent, a family at a kitchen table |
| Question | What exactly do we build? | Can I picture living here? |
| Precision | Exact, and legally meaningful | Clear and honest, with stated limits |
| Language | Tags, notes, symbols, references | Plain words a person would use |
| Read on | A large sheet, usually in full | A phone, for about as long as it holds their interest |
Neither one can do the other’s job. Handing a buyer the construction set gets you confusion. Handing a contractor the marketing plan would be a serious mistake.
What to take out
Start from a current drawing and remove everything that only a builder needs.
- Dimension strings, grid lines and column marks
- Keynotes, wall types, door and window tags
- Reference bubbles, section marks and detail callouts
- Structural and mechanical information that does not change how the home is used
- Sheet borders, stamps, consultants’ names and revision clouds
What remains should be walls, windows, doors, stairs and fixtures, drawn clearly enough to read at the size of a phone screen. If it cannot be read on a phone, it is not finished.
What to add
A buyer needs things the construction drawing never had to include.
Furniture at true scale. This is the most useful addition and the easiest to get wrong. Draw a real queen or king bed, a real dining table for the number of people the room claims to seat, and a sofa someone would actually buy. Furniture is how a person reads the size of a room.
Plain room names. “Primary bedroom,” not “BR-1.” “Storage,” not a code. If a room could be an office or a nursery, say so.
Approximate room sizes. Give the buyer a number to compare against the room they sit in now. Label it as approximate, and be consistent about how you measure.
Orientation. A north arrow, and ideally a note about which way the main windows face. Light is one of the first things a buyer asks about, and they cannot work it out from a plan without north.
Where this home sits. A small key plan showing the home’s position in the building or row. An end unit and a middle unit may share a plan, but they are different homes to live in.
The townhouse problem
Townhouses are harder than flats, and they are the plans most often drawn badly for buyers. Three or four levels on one page can be close to unreadable.
- Lay the levels out in the order a person moves through them, starting with the entry.
- Keep every level at the same scale, and line them up, so the stairs can be followed from one to the next.
- Label each level by what happens there, not only by number: “Entry and garage,” “Living,” “Bedrooms,” “Roof deck.”
- Show the car. Whether the garage takes one car or two, and how you get from it into the home, are real questions.
- Mark which way the stairs go up. It sounds small, and it is how someone works out the route from the groceries to the kitchen.
On a phone, one level per screen is usually better than all of them shrunk onto one image.
What a marketing plan should not imply
Clearing away the technical detail does not clear away the responsibility. A buyer may rely on a plan, so it should not suggest more than the home delivers. These are the common ways that happens.
- Undersized furniture. A narrow bed or a tiny sofa makes a room look bigger than it is. It also tends to disappoint someone later.
- Options drawn as standard. If the island, the extra door or the built-in is an upgrade, label it as an upgrade or leave it out.
- False precision. A number with too much confidence suggests a guarantee. Say that sizes are approximate, and state how they are measured.
- Outdated plans. The design changed, and the plan on the website did not. This is the most common failure and the easiest to prevent.
- Inconsistent area figures. If the plan, the price list and the website each give a different number, the buyer will notice, and so might a lawyer.
Standard wording belongs on every plan, including that sizes and layouts are approximate and subject to change. That wording does not replace accuracy, and the exact language is a question for your own counsel. What a rendering is allowed to promise covers this ground in more detail.
Before you publish a plan
Run through this list every time, and especially when a plan comes back from revision.
- Has it been compared with the current drawing set, by someone who knows which set is current?
- Does each plan carry a plan name and a version or date you can trace?
- Is the furniture a real size?
- Are upgrades either labeled or absent?
- Do the area figures match the price list and the website?
- Can it be read on a phone without pinching and hunting?
- Is there one person who updates every copy when the design changes?
Plans are not glamorous, so they are often left until late and given whatever budget is left. That is backward. In the ten-question test, they answer more of the buyer’s questions than any rendering does. A buyer may look at your hero image for a few seconds. They may study the floor plan of the home they want for much longer, and they may print it and show it to someone.
