Sketching your rooms

Sketching Your Rooms

I do a lot of my design work through sketching; it's a great way to get initial ideas down onto paper, as well as to experiment with options. Don't be put off if you're not the best at drawing - you're not aiming for perfection.

Reasons to Sketch a Room Design

• You can test out ideas and play around with positionings.
• A sketch often springboards the imagination into new ideas.
• You're able to spot anything that doesn't work quite quickly.
• Gaps and missing elements become more apparent.
• Sketches can be used to present to a client and really communicate your vision.
• It's a representation of an idea, rather than a commitment to an exact product or design.
• Putting pen to paper helps you to set an intention for the design and begin to suggest the mood of the room.
• Showing a sketch to your client can be helpful when it comes to managing expectations.
• You can avoid costly mistakes by sketching your designs out to contractors, like the layout of tiles or flooring, for example.

Tips for Sketching a Room

• If you are drawing a bird's eye view, try to get the proportions and scale as accurate as you can.
• When drawing a room overview, first sketch out the walls, floor and ceiling using the rules of perspective.
• Start with the elements that are easiest to draw - I find this is windows and doorways.
• I feel that the looser a sketch is, the better. It should be evocative rather than prescriptive.

Further Reading

A beginners guide to drawing a perspective room interior

Basic rules of perspective

Billy Baldwin

John Fowler

Nicky Haslam