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What Is a Floor Plan?

By Jackie Craven, About.com

Floor plan from "The 1900 House," PBS

This very simple floor plan is from the PBS television show, "The 1900 House"

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Definition:

A floor plan is a simple line drawing showing rooms as though seen from above. Walls, doorways, and windows are often drawn to scale.

When shopping for house plans or building plans, you may study the floor plans to see how rooms are arranged. However, a floor plan is not a blueprint or a construction plan. To build a house, you need a complete set of construction plans that will include floor plans, cross-section drawings, electrical plans, elevation drawings, and many other types of diagrams.

More: Can you build a house using just a floor plan and a picture?

Alternate Spellings:

floor-plan

Common Misspellings:

floorplan

Examples:

Although usually drawn to scale, a floor plan can be a simple diagram showing the layout of the rooms. The drawing shown here shows a floor plan from the turn-of-the-century home featured in the PBS television series, The 1900 House

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