How to place doors and windows in a floor plan

An opening belongs to a room edge

The rule that makes floor plans readable is that a door is a gap in a wall, and a wall belongs to a room. So an opening here is never a loose symbol dropped on the drawing. It is attached to one edge of one room, and it stays attached when you move that room.

Placement takes two seconds. Choose the Door tool with D, click the edge of the room the door serves, and the opening is created at that point with a default width. If your click missed every edge, the builder asks you to click the edge of a room instead of leaving a stray symbol behind.

The edge matters as much as the point. A door on the south edge stays on that wall when you resize the room from the north, and moving it to the other end of the same wall is a drag along the edge rather than a redraw.

• Openings attach to one edge of one room, never to the canvas
• Door tool (D) and Window tool (G), then click the edge
• A click that misses every edge produces a helpful message
• Moving a room carries its openings along with it

Note: An opening cannot exist without a wall, and the builder will not let one float free on the plan.

Place a door and set its width

A door arrives 800 mm wide, which is a standard internal door, and that default is right more often than it is wrong. Change the width when you have a reason: a wide opening for a wheelchair, a narrow one for a cupboard, or a wide opening where a living room joins a dining area.

Set the width in the inspector, in millimeters, rather than by dragging. If you ask for a door wider than the edge it sits on, the builder refuses the change and warns you instead of quietly making the room smaller.

Doors also carry an Edge and a Position along wall (mm). The edge picks the wall, and the position slides the door along it, measured from the start of that wall. Both values are useful when you are aligning a door with a door on the opposite side of the plan.

• Doors default to 800 mm wide
• Type the width in millimeters rather than dragging the leaf
• A width wider than the wall is rejected with a warning
• Edge and Position along wall control exactly where it sits

Note: Minimum opening width in the builder is 100 mm, and the maximum is bounded by the wall the opening sits on, not by a fixed number.

Choose which way the door swings

A door that opens into a narrow passage is the fault people notice on the first morning in a new place. The Swing control in the inspector offers Left and Right, and one click redraws the leaf and its arc.

Choose the swing by asking where the door should not block. A door into a room should open against a wall or into the corner, a bathroom door should open outwards, and a door between two rooms should open into the quieter of them. Where two doors meet at right angles, one has to change.

The same reasoning applies to the furniture. A door that swings into the space where a table will sit will be blocked on the first busy evening. Draw the door first, then place the furniture, so the swing is a constraint rather than a surprise.

• Swing is set in the inspector as Left or Right
• Open against a wall or into the corner where you can
• Check two doors that meet at right angles in a corridor
• Place furniture after the doors so the swing is not blocked

Note: A swing that looks tidy on paper can hit a cupboard in the room. Check what stands against that wall before you commit to a direction.

Put windows where the light actually comes from

Windows are placed the same way, with the Window tool and a click on a room edge, and they arrive 1200 mm wide. A window is the one opening where position matters more than size, because it decides which wall a room gets its light from.

Put windows on outside walls. An opening on an internal wall brings in no daylight and no view, and a plan that shows one will be read as if it did. When a room has two outside walls, place a window on each if the room needs it, and keep internal walls for doors.

Give each window the width the wall can carry. A 1200 mm window on a 1500 mm wall is fine; the same window on a 1000 mm wall is rejected by the builder. Where a room needs more light than one window gives, the honest answer on a plan is two smaller windows on two walls.

• Windows arrive 1200 mm wide
• Only outside walls carry windows in a sensible plan
• Two smaller windows beat one oversized opening
• The builder rejects an opening that does not fit its wall

Handle the awkward cases

Three situations cause most of the trouble. A room narrower than the opening you want, such as a 900 mm closet with a standard door. A door in a corner, where the leaf cannot open fully. A room with two doors, where both swings fight over the same corner.

For the narrow room, use a smaller opening or accept that the door hits the wall when it opens, which is a decision to record in a note rather than a fault to hide. For the corner, set the position along the wall so the leaf has room, or move the door one bay along the edge. For the two doors, change one swing, and the builder draws the result immediately.

Dragging an opening past the end of its wall clamps it back inside, so a door cannot end up hanging in space. If an opening ends up in the wrong place, delete it and place it again in the correct edge, which is quicker than fighting the clamp.

• Narrow rooms need a smaller opening, not a bigger ambition
• Corner doors need a position that leaves room to swing
• When two doors fight, change one of the swings
• Delete and replace an opening rather than fighting the clamp

Note: The small apartment guide shows how door swings and routes interact in the tightest plans.

Walk the whole plan before you stop

Doors and windows are only worth anything when you read them together as a route. Walk the plan once with the Select tool and follow the path a person would take: in through the front door, to the kitchen, to the toilet, to the window. Every swing arc you pass is a place where somebody has to step aside.

Then read the plan as somebody arriving for the first time. Can they tell which door leads where? A plan with unlabeled doors and no room names is a puzzle, and the room names in the inspector are what turn it back into a description. The pillar guide covers the full order of work from the first rectangle to the exported file.

Finally, export one copy and look at it away from the builder. The exported image shows only what a reader will see, including any opening hidden behind a label. Openings that vanish in the export are openings you will have to redraw, and the complete Canvasola guide covers the export set in full.

• Follow the arrival route through every opening
• Name every room so the doors make sense to a stranger
• Check that no swing arc crosses the only path
• Export a copy and check what the reader will actually see

A checklist you can reuse

• Every opening is attached to a room edge, not to the canvas
• Door and window widths were set in millimeters
• The swing of every door was chosen deliberately
• Windows sit on outside walls only
• No opening is wider than the wall it belongs to
• Two doors meeting in a corridor were resolved
• The arrival route was walked through the finished plan

Common mistakes to avoid

• Drawing doors as loose symbols. An opening that belongs to no edge reads as a sticker on the drawing and tells nobody which room it serves. Click the edge and let the builder attach it.
• Leaving the swing at the default. The default swing is a reasonable starting point, not a decision. Set Left or Right for every door and check the arcs against the routes.
• Putting a window on an internal wall. An opening on an internal wall brings neither light nor a view, and on a plan it looks like it does. Keep internal walls for doors.
• Forcing a wide door into a narrow room. If the opening does not fit, the builder refuses it and warns you. Take the warning as information about the room, not as an obstacle to work around.
• Adding openings last. Doors and windows decide how a room is used, so placing them after the furniture guarantees a conflict. Openings first, furniture second.

Frequently asked questions

Why does an opening have to sit on a room edge?

Because that is what makes a plan a plan rather than a set of boxes. An opening attached to an edge tells a reader which wall it is in, moves with the room when the room moves, and can be resized only as far as the wall allows.

Can I move a door to a different wall?

Set the Edge field in the inspector to North, East, South or West and the opening moves to that wall, keeping its position along it. If it no longer fits the new wall, the builder clamps it back inside the edge rather than leaving the opening hanging in space.

Does the builder show a door swing arc?

Yes. A door is drawn with its leaf and its swing arc, and changing the Swing control redraws it. The arc is a planning indicator of the space the door needs, not a hardware specification, and it does not model handles, hinges or closers.

What is the difference between a door, a window and a cased opening?

A door has a leaf and a swing, a window is drawn with a sill line, and a cased opening is a gap in a wall with neither. You can change any of them in the inspector with the Type field, so a window can become a door when the plan changes.

This guide is part of the floor plan guides collection. For the wider product tour, read the complete Canvasola guide, and keep the keyboard shortcut cheat sheet open while you work.