Short lessons on how buildings actually work — each one ends with you drawing something real.
No account. Nothing to install. Works on a school Chromebook.
The lessons build on each other. This is the one that makes the rest make sense.
A floor plan isn't a drawing of a house from above. It's a slice through one. Once you know where the cut happens, every symbol on the page starts making sense.
The conventions every drawing uses — start here.
Line weight — and how to spot which walls hold the house up.
SoonThe arc is a warning label. Most bad rooms are a door in the wrong place.
SoonHow to read plan symbols, starting with the one a five-year-old rejected.
SoonHow a whole house fits on one page, and how to read the little ruler printed on the plan.
SoonInterior doors are 30 inches. Exterior are 36. Once you know the standard sizes, plans get much easier to read.
SoonThe most-planned room in any house.
Tables, chairs, and the space around them.
Six for dinner needs a room about 9 by 12 feet. Here's where that number comes from.
SoonChairs need 20 inches to slide out, people need 36 to walk past, and doorways need 44. Almost every clearance is one of these.
SoonTwelve inches from the wall, and far enough under the table that chairs stay on it when pulled out.
SoonSofas, sightlines, and how people sit together.
In a 12-foot room the sofa wants to be about 8 feet. Two thirds furniture, one third open floor.
SoonCloser than 3½ feet is crowded, further than 10 and you're shouting. Conversation has a measurable size.
Soon30 to 36 inches between the big furniture, or people start walking around your living room the long way.
SoonQuiet, light, and the space a bed actually needs.
Real dimensions, real clearances, and the space a bed needs around it.
SoonChallenge 01. No measuring. Then go check what you got wrong.
SoonQuiet is a design decision. Closets get used as sound walls, and the noisy rooms get pushed to the other end.
SoonBoth sides reachable, and the bed pulled off the wall. The single most common bedroom mistake.
SoonTwin, full, queen, king — each one has a rug that fits, and 24 inches showing on three sides.
SoonWithin 5 inches of the mattress top, and the lamp shade at chin height when you're sitting up reading.
SoonSplit the space above the window into thirds, hang from the top third, and go 10 inches wider than the glass.
SoonSmall rooms with the most rules.
Never straight off the kitchen or the dining room. Where a bathroom door opens is a rule, not an accident.
SoonStack the plumbing. Bathrooms that share a wall are cheaper, quieter, and easier to fix — real houses are planned around this.
SoonToilets and sinks each need standing room. It's why a tiny bathroom can still feel fine, or a big one can't.
SoonOffices, laundry, and the drop zone by the door.
A home office needs 50 to 70 square feet, a 4-foot desk, and 3 feet to push the chair back. Test it.
SoonIt has to vent. That one requirement decides where the laundry room can go in the entire house.
SoonHooks, cubbies, and a 21-inch bench — the mudroom is the one room designed entirely around a bad morning.
SoonCars, patios, and the parts of a house without a roof.
A single door is 8 or 9 feet, a double is 16 — plus 3 feet around the car so the doors can open.
SoonA patio is a room whose walls are hedges and whose ceiling is a pergola. Plan it like one.
SoonGetting to the next level, and stacking it properly.
Building up — and making sure the stairs land somewhere real.
SoonFour ways to get to the next floor, and how much floor each one eats on both levels.
SoonHow the rooms add up to a building.
Circulation — how people move through a house without thinking about it.
SoonDrag the sun, watch the shadows move, and learn why windows face where they do.
SoonA house with five things wrong with it. Find them, then repair it.
SoonStanding pages for teachers, families, and librarians.
For teachers: printable, no accounts, works on the oldest device in the room.
SoonFor librarians: a shelf card, a challenge sheet, and a QR code.
SoonDifferent door, same lessons. Each of these is one page, and it answers the question you actually have.
One printable 40-minute plan mapped to area, perimeter, and scale drawing. Free, no student accounts, no data collected — nothing to send to your district for approval.
SoonIf your kid builds in Minecraft, they're already thinking like an architect. This hands them real tools — and gives you something to do together on a rainy Saturday.
Start with your kid →A challenge sheet, a shelf card, and a QR code. A kid starts on a library computer and finishes at home — no install, no login, no setup on your end.
SoonTiny Architects started on paper — scaled drawings, furniture layouts, and plans to trace over. The lessons here follow the same path. Some of it genuinely lands better with a pencil.