Guides
Practical answers for people planning an Australian home, comparing finishes, sizing rooms, and working out what to hand a draftsperson. Written from the same standards Draftie's plan checks use.
Practical answers for people planning an Australian home, comparing finishes, sizing rooms, and working out what to hand a draftsperson. Written from the same standards Draftie's plan checks use.
The practical route from a drawing on the back of an envelope to a scaled, dimensioned plan you can hand to a draftsperson or builder, including how to get the scale right, which is where most attempts fall over.
What the arcs, the hatched blocks, the paired lines and the numbers on an architectural floor plan actually mean, so you can check a builder's drawing instead of nodding at it.
Minimum and comfortable dimensions for bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and living areas in Australian houses, and, more usefully, where each number comes from, so you can tell which ones you can shave and which you can't.
The door leaf and window sizes Australian homes are actually built to, why 870mm has quietly replaced 820mm as the sensible default, and the clear-width rule that catches people out.
What actually changes when the block gets narrow, where the garage goes, how the corridor works, and the arithmetic that tells you how many bedrooms will fit before you pay anyone to draw it.
The defining room of a modern Australian plan. How deep it needs to be to hold a table, why 4m matters in Queensland, and how the eave decides whether you use it.
The separate toilet is bigger than most people think it is: the Livable Housing Design Standard wants 1,200mm of clear space forward of the pan, which puts the floor at roughly 900 × 1,900mm.
How big a family bathroom needs to be, why 1,800mm is the floor, and the fixture arithmetic that decides whether a bath, a shower and a vanity all fit.
The minimum and comfortable bedroom dimensions for an Australian home, the bed-and-clearance arithmetic they come from, and the robe mistake that makes a compliant bedroom unusable.
Table sizes by seat count, the 900mm chair clearance everyone cuts and regrets, and how much room a dining area actually needs at each size.
The minimum and comfortable ensuite dimensions, built up from a 900mm hobless shower and a vanity beside it, plus what changes when you add a double vanity.
Internal clear dimensions for single, double and tandem garages, why 3,000mm is not a single garage, and the door heights that catch out anyone with a 4WD.
The one dimension that decides whether a kitchen works is the walkway between opposing benches, plus bench depths, island clearances, and the sizes behind galley, L, U and island layouts.
The NCC requires space for a washing machine and a washtub in the same room. Here is what that means dimensionally, and what separates a laundry from a cupboard with a machine in it.
How big a living room needs to be, worked back from a sofa facing a screen with a walkway behind it, and why the open-plan version needs more than the sum of its parts.
How much room a working desk actually needs, what a study has to have to be usable full-time, and when a nook beats a room.
A reach-in pantry is 900mm. A walk-in wants 1,600mm. A butler’s pantry is a different thing again: here is what each actually needs and which one is worth the floor area.
Hanging depth is 600mm and an aisle is 900mm, which sets every walk-in robe dimension, including when a walk-in is genuinely worse than a wall of built-ins.