Drafting a floor framing plan sounds intimidating, but the preliminary version — the one you produce before engineering review — follows a short, repeatable sequence. This walkthrough takes you from a blank footprint to an exported drawing in eight steps, using Framing Plan as the tool. The same logic applies whatever you draft in.

If the terms here are unfamiliar, the companion reads are what a floor framing plan is and framing plan symbols explained. For the complete reference, see the floor framing plan guide.

1. Shape the footprint

Start with the outline of the floor. Begin from a rectangle, a preset shape, or a template, then set the overall width and depth and drag the vertices to match the room. For anything beyond a simple rectangle — an L-shape, a bay — edit the wall lengths directly so the footprint is accurate before you frame it. Getting the outline right first means every later step lands in the correct place.

2. Set the joist span direction

Decide which way the joists run. The guiding principle: span the joists across the shorter dimension, so each individual joist covers less distance and bears on the longer pair of walls. Shorter spans are easier to satisfy and usually let you use smaller members. If you are unsure, let the tool suggest a direction, then sanity-check it against the room.

3. Set the on-centre spacing

Choose the on-centre spacing — the centre-to-centre distance between joists. Tighter spacing produces a stiffer floor for a given span; wider spacing uses fewer members. As you change the spacing, watch the span status update live: it is a quick preliminary signal of whether the layout is in a sensible range, not an engineering calculation.

4. Mark the load-bearing walls

Confirm which walls actually carry the floor. In Framing Plan the bearing walls default to the walls the joists span onto and are drawn in red, so the load path is visible at a glance. Override the defaults where the design demands — for example, when an interior wall needs to pick up load. Getting bearing right early prevents awkward surprises when the plan is reviewed.

5. Add openings and header beams

Place the openings: doors and windows in the walls, plus any floor penetrations such as a stair well. For each, set the wall, type, offset, and width. Openings interrupt the joist field, so they need headers to carry the joists that stop at the edge of the hole. On export, openings sit on their own layer, keeping the drawing clean.

6. Add the structural grid and columns

For larger or multi-bay layouts, turn on the structural grid to set out column lines, and place columns at the intersections where loads come down. Set the grid spacing to suit the structure. On a small single-room plan you can skip this step.

7. Place symbols and dimension the plan

Bring in the detail. Drag structural symbols, loads, and annotations from the palette onto the plan, and add dimensions for the distances that matter — overall sizes, bay widths, opening offsets. Select any element to move, rotate, scale, or nudge it with the arrow keys. This is where the drawing becomes communicative rather than just geometric.

8. Export the drawing

Finally, export. Choose the format for the job:

  • PDF or PNG — clean, presentation-ready drawings with a title block, ideal for review and sharing.
  • DXF — CAD-ready geometry on named layers (Walls, Bearing, Joists, Beams, Grid, Columns, Openings, Elements), in millimetres, for continuing in CAD.

If you plan to hand the drawing to a CAD user or engineer, the DXF route preserves the layer structure they expect.

What happens next

A preliminary plan is a starting point, not a finished structural document. The next step is engineering review: a qualified engineer checks spans, sizes the members, and confirms the floor works for the loads and the local code. The cleaner and more considered your preliminary layout, the faster and cheaper that review tends to be.

Ready to try it? Open the framing studio and work through these eight steps on your own footprint — it runs entirely in your browser, and your work autosaves as you go.