Are you ready to start designing your dream home, but have no idea how to get all the thoughts and ideas you have floating in your head down on paper?
If you’ve been thinking about your house design for a while, and have been saving Pinterest images and making inspiration boards, you have any idea of what you want, but you may be feeling lost on how you turn those ideas into a floor plan.
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If so, I’m going to walk you through 5 steps to get all the ideas out of your head and into a floor plan in this podcast episode.
It is soooo important to spend a lot of time working on the plans for your home renovation or a new build.
Even if you plan to hire an architect, I recommend spending time up front on your own working through your ideas and trying out some floor plan layout options. This will allow you to have more meaningful and detailed conversations with your architect.
Listen and Subscribe here:
What You'll Discover:
- 5 key steps to get your home design right
- The most important thing to figure out for your new home or renovation
- How to create a program of spaces
- What a bubble diagram is and why this needs to be done before creating a floor plan
- The best tools for sketching floor plans
Helpful Links:
Step 1: Goals and Intentions:
Podcast Episode 19: Figuring out your goals and intentions
Free Workshop: Building Your Ideal Home
Step 2: Create A Program:
Step 2.5 Site Analysis:
Podcast Episode 37: How to do an Site Analysis (and why you need to do one)
Step 3: Sustainable Design Methods
Podcast Episode 13: 10 Steps to an Energy Efficient Home
Podcast Episode 48: 10 Crucial Sustainable Design Strategies
Step 4: Bubble Diagrams

This bubble diagram was done is Canva. It's a great way to show a cleaned-up version to others. But I recommend doing them by hand first.

Bubble diagrams don't need to be pretty. Mine usually look like this. You don't even need color. Just a pencil and paper will do.
Drawing Tools:
Some links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
My favorite tools for hand drawing:
Computer modeling and 3D design:
I recommend SketchUp for homeowners that want to venture into computer drawing and exploring 3D views of their home on their own.
There is definitely a learning curve, but I find SketchUp to be one of the easiest 3D modeling tools to learn.
I also highly recommend using this amazing Sketchup course by The Little Design Corner if you want to learn SketchUp as quickly and efficiently as possible. The course is called 'SketchUp For Interior Design - Beginner's Course'.
And now...
Introducing the brand new DESIGNED FOR WELLNESS Course!
This guided course walks you through the entire design process and teaches you how to design your own sustainable, health and wellness-focused home.
We’ll do everything from going room-by-room with functional, healthy and eco-friendly design ideas to the ins and outs of the design and construction process so rather than feeling clueless and out of your element when you’re building your reno or new home, you’ll feel confident, in-charge, and freaking excited.
(You'll be the first to be notified when the course opens for enrollment.)