Five starters, each drawn as a real floor plan: a 30×40 cabin (2 bed / 1 bath), a 40×50 split plan (3 bed / 2 bath), a 40×60 shouse with a 20′ shop, a 40×60 open plan (4 bed / 2½ bath) and a 50×80 shouse with a 30′ shop. Use this copies one into the building — ⌘Z puts back what you had, and editing the building never changes the starter. Each one comes with escape windows in the bedrooms, a working kitchen, baths, laundry and the electrical already placed.

When a layout sells, Save this building as a template. It shows up under Your templates for everyone on the account, right next to the starters. Remove takes one off the list — and buildings already made from it are not touched.

The building has a Post frame / Barndominium switch in the header. Barndominium adds the Floor plan button and switches the framing to stud walls, the barndominium default; Post frame puts it back on posts in the ground. A wall system you picked by hand stays put, and the notice says so. Switch back to Post frame and the plan is hidden, not deleted — "Framing is now posts in the ground — the post-frame default. The floor plan is kept — switch back to Barndominium to see it." Nothing is lost on a mis-click.

Press Floor plan and the camera flies straight down, the roof disappears and a drafting sheet opens over the shell you already drew in the 3D designer — the outside walls and every window and door from the 3D model, sitting where they will be built. Tools down the left, most common first. On the right: 1,466 sq ft living, 750 sq ft shop, 2,400 sq ft footprint, with the code check under it.

Back in the 3D view, the roof stays off and the rooms stand up like a dollhouse — interior walls, the kitchen run, the shower, the shop and its overhead door. Walk takes you through the rooms at eye height.

Right-click a room, an inside wall, a door, a window, a cabinet, a fixture, a light or outlet, a note, a dimension or the empty floor — or hold a finger on it on a tablet — and the menu opens exactly where you clicked, headed with what you hit, offering only what fits it. On empty floor that is everything that can go there: a wall from the click, a room box, a door in the nearest wall, a window in the nearest outside wall, cabinets, bath fixtures, appliances, electrical, a note, a dimension, or stairs up. Every menu ends with Edit in panel and About this. A pick lands where you pointed, against the right wall and facing the room, and ⌘Z takes it back.

Type in the menu and it finds any option, two levels down included, and the trade words builders use: outlet finds the receptacles, pend the pendant, shaker the door style. ↑↓ and Enter pick one; ⌘K (Ctrl+K) opens the same search from the keyboard.

Pick Room box, choose what it is — Bedroom, bath, closet, office — and drag. The live size reads 12′-0″ × 13′-0″ as you go; let go and the walls are drawn and the room is named. A box drawn against another shares the wall, and an edge on the outside wall draws nothing, because the shell is already there.

With Wall, click to start and type the length — 12' 6 1/2", 150.5 or even 3.81m — then press Enter. Walls snap to ends, to other walls and to 45°, and the Snap step runs from 1/16″ to 1′. Pick the build first: a Plumbing wall is 2x6 and draws 6½″ thick, because a 3″ drain doesn't fit a 2x4.

Click a wall to drop a door — swing, pocket, bifold, barn slider, double or cased opening, in the sizes you order (2868, 3068…). Select one to Flip hinge or Flip swing, set its height, and mark it Fire-rated and Self-closing. The panel shows the clear width (33.5″), the rough opening (38.0″ × 82.5″) and the two rooms it joins — here, Shop · Mudroom.

Kitchen & bath opens the library: base, wall and tall cabinets, vanities, islands, plumbing fixtures and appliances. Pick one and click near a wall — it snaps to the wall and faces the room. Cabinets carry their order codes on the plan (SB36, B24, W3615), and the countertop is drawn over the base run.

Select a room and press Place code-minimum electrical. It adds the receptacles the code asks for along the walls (IRC E3901.2.1 [NEC 210.52(A)(1)]), a switched ceiling light, and the smoke alarm a bedroom needs. Bedroom 1 goes from four Fix items to nothing flagged. Place for the whole floor, at the top of the Electrical library, does every room on the floor in one step, plus what only a whole floor can place: a smoke alarm on every storey, the stair's light and a 3-way switch at each floor, and the receptacle a heating or cooling unit needs within 25′. Undo takes it all back. Select any device and Why it's here names the rule that put it there. Select a switch and tick the lights it turns on; the switch legs print on the electrical sheet. It's design intent for your electrician.

The right-hand panel checks the plan as you draw against IRC 2024, 2021 or 2018 (a new plan starts on 2024); electrical items cite the IRC section and the NEC section it came from, in the job's edition (Design › Code and site) — E3901.2.1 [NEC 2023 210.52(A)(1)] on IRC 2024, the NEC 2020 or 2017 numbers on IRC 2021 or 2018. GFCI, AFCI, foyers, porches, the receptacle beside a heating or cooling unit, an island by edition, a smoke alarm on every storey and the stair's switches are all on the list; where the code says what to place, the item's button places it. Each item is a Fix (fails as drawn), a Check (probably fails, or depends on something the plan can't see) or a Note, with the section number, a one-line fix and a marker on the plan — among them the attic access an attic 30″ tall over 30 sq ft needs (R807.1) and an attached garage's ceiling: ⅝″ Type X under rooms above, ½″ gypsum under the house's attic (R302.6). The numbers follow the edition: the smoke-alarm rule is R314.3 on IRC 2021 and R310.3 on IRC 2024. On an Oklahoma job on IRC 2024, a garage refrigerator's receptacle needs no GFCI (OAC 748:20-6-44), and the check says so with a Note. It's a builder's checklist with section numbers; your county's plan review still decides — and once it has, an admin, sales manager or project manager can Override… an item from its ⋯ with a typed reason, the same dialog and log as the building's Issues: it reads as a Note with who and when, its fix kept as a suggestion, and the sheets print it. The shell gets its own buildability check for what won't frame.

Turn on Clearances and every fixture shows the clear floor it needs as a dashed zone. Slide a toilet too close to the vanity wall and the check says exactly why: it needs 15″ from its centre to the side and 21″ clear in front.

Five switches along the top of the drawing: Dims, Electrical, Code, Clearances and Grid. Turn electrical off to talk layout with the customer; turn dims and code back on to check it yourself.

Dimension measures between any two points — snapped to wall ends and wall faces — and the line stays on the plan. Here it checks the primary bedroom corner to corner: 18′-1 7/8″. Every outside wall already carries its dimension strings: the overall length, then the window and door positions. Lengths print to 1/16″.

+ Add level adds a Second floor or a Loft, and tabs over the plan pick the level you are drawing. The level below shows as a dashed outline, so walls go over walls; the stair shows UP below and DN with its hole above; a loft's open edge is marked. Heights shows the stack top down — the eave, each floor's ceiling, each floor system, the top of the slab — and picking 8′, 9′ or 10′ for a ceiling moves the walls in the same step. Each level prints as its own floor-plan sheet. More on two-story barndominiums.

With an upper level on screen, the Floor system section sets what carries it: open-web floor trusses, I-joists or 2x joists, the depth, the spacing, the subfloor, Glued and fastened, and the stair — says how the floor ties to the wall (on the stud walls' top plate, a ledger on the studs, or a ledger bolted to the posts) — and shows the floor's materials and its labor with the arithmetic beside it. A span past what the joists carry lands on a beam and columns for an engineer to size — with the built-up girder IRC Table R602.7(2) allows named on the beam's line up to a 36′ width — and a second floor in a post-frame shell is flagged engineer required. The floor prices start as placeholders you replace with your supplier's.

Takeoff counts the inside of the building from what you drew — framing, insulation, drywall, doors & trim, flooring, tile, cabinets & tops, paint, electrical, plumbing and appliances: 134 lines on the Ostrander plan, from 162 precut 2x4 studs for the interior walls to 54 twelve-foot sheets of ½″ drywall. Every line says how it was counted — and on a stud-wall shell the outside walls are framed once, by the shell, not again by the plan — and Download CSV hands the list to your supplier or spreadsheet. The same window shows the Priced interior at your own assembly prices; Add interior to estimate on the estimate puts it on, and nothing is added by itself — priced interior assemblies has the whole of it. The shell has its own material takeoff.

On the estimate, Interior from the floor plan prices what you drew at your own assembly prices — drywall by the square foot, plumbing by the bath, cabinets by the foot of cabinet placed — each line saying how it was counted, with its materials and labor shown. Styles picked on the plan — interior doors, faucets and lights, cabinet doors and countertops, tiled showers — price as upgrades over builder grade. Add interior to estimate puts it on as one group of lines tagged with their trades. How each assembly and option is priced is on priced interior assemblies.

Print sheets makes a permit drawing set with a title block on every sheet, on Full size 24×36 (where a new set starts), Half size 12×18 or Tabloid 11×17 — one select in the toolbar. The title block and border grow with the paper and every drawing re-picks its scale: the 40×60's floor plan prints at ⅛″ = 1′-0″ on 11×17 and ¼″ = 1′-0″ on 24×36, and the half-size set labels the scale that paper actually measures. A0 cover and sheet index, A1 site plan, A2 floor plan — one page per level on a two-story house — A3 slab and plumbing penetrations, A4 roof plan, A5 exterior elevations, A6 interior elevations, A7 schedules, A8 notes and the code check, E1 electrical with switch legs and T1 the takeoff. Take a sheet out and the rest keep their numbers. The foundation notes follow the wall system — on this stud-wall shouse the cover reads Stud walls on a thickened-edge slab. Every scaled view carries a bar scale, so a tape on the paper reads a real measurement at any print size. Every sheet says what it is: design intent, not an engineered or sealed drawing. The whole set is on the permit drawing set.

Sheet set details takes the lot, its setbacks and where the building sits, and the A1 site plan draws it — the distance from the wall to every lot line, and a setback table that says OK or CHECK. Put the 40×60 5′ from the left line on a lot with 15′ side setbacks and the distance turns red. For a lot that isn't square, Enter property lines from the survey — bearings as the plat reads them, turns or azimuths — and the closure is checked as you type, with a one-click fix for a line entered backwards. Enter the angle between plan north and true north and the site plan is drawn true-north-up with true bearings on the lot lines, while every construction sheet stays square to the building with an arrow showing both. The rest of the permit sheets are on the permit drawing set.