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jstyles
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United States
Joined: Oct 8, 2019
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How I created my own plan blueprints and saved $1,000

I've used SweetHome for a few years, making tons of iterations of different designs to extend or reconfigure my house. I am working with a builder who will be building an extension. However, I've learned my house has no C.O., so I need to first submit for that. It requires architectural drawings - but they do not need to be sealed. I asked an architect I worked with how much, and they said $1,000. Not on my watch:)

Most of my SweetHome designs are pretty casual, I'm somewhat accurate, but I never messed around much with details like wall thickness for example. This was definitely a mistake hurting the accuracy of my designs.

One tip I picked up quickly was to use the dimension tool early. I was relying too much on just setting wall lengths, but soon realized this is entirely inaccurate - because they are measured from end points which may be beyond a corner.

And then I measured and measured. Work in drafts. Create, then print, then measure and mark up your design, and go back and edit. Also - work zoomed in, often. Its very easy to have a dimension line off by a couple of inches if you are too zoomed out.

After creating my designs I exported each as an SVG, and opened them in Inkscape. I put them all on one file so that I didnt have to scale each one. I then exported that file as a PNG. In my preferred graphic editing program I created a simple box design to create a title block, and then added my PNG to it. Forgot to mention, I started everything by finding some nice architect style fonts (one I used for most of it is called 'Architects Daughter') - just having the right type of fonts makes you feel more legit. To get everything to scale just right (for a 1/4" scale) required manual scaling the image based on a targeted pixel size (there's probably a better way to do it, but the end result actually was spot on).

I only ran into a few small limitations with SweetHome. I found a 2D symbol pack, but all that got me was some staircases and arrows, nothing else was useful. Cabinets, fridge, were done with the polygon tool. I really needed 2D toilet, sink, vanity, and circles to use for drains and hot water heater - for a proper blueprint, you should use the right symbols, not the Sweethome furniture. I ended up just pasting them into the final file in my graphic program. One other small detail was that door swing symbols in SweetHome arent perfect, they really should show the wall opening, so I did that as well in the graphic editor, I just laid white boxes over every door opening to create the gap in the wall.

The most surprising tool I used was Paint. I opened the final image file in Paint in order to print the pdf. I use CutePdf (free pdf file printer). First you go into the printer settings and choose the paper type - I used "Arch D" (24"x36"). THEN return back to the page settings and turn off margins (you cant turn it off first for some reason). Then print to file. The final pdf is uploaded to Staples, where they printed in a few hours for about $3.50.

This was just a brag post, and hopefully some of the details here help someone else.



If you notice any small alignment issues in my print, this was an earlier draft :)
[Oct 8, 2019, 2:32:04 AM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
VeroniQ
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France
Joined: Mar 3, 2015
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Re: How I created my own plan blueprints and saved $1,000

Thank you for this interesting report. Great result!
[Oct 8, 2019, 7:15:43 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
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