Why You Need an Apartment Floor Plan
An apartment floor plan is the fastest way to answer the questions that come up every time you move, redecorate, or sublet a unit: Will my couch fit through that hallway? Where can the bed go without blocking the closet? Is there really enough room for a desk in the corner? Trying to answer those with a tape measure and your memory is how furniture ends up returned and rugs end up the wrong size.
A drawn-to-scale plan also helps in less obvious situations. Renters use them to negotiate with landlords ("the second bedroom is only 8 by 9"). Landlords use them in listings to show actual room shapes — listings with floor plans consistently get more inquiries. Movers use them to pre-stage where boxes go on moving day. And anyone planning a sublet, roommate setup, or short-term rental needs to show the layout clearly.
What Makes an Apartment Floor Plan Different
Apartment floor plans are usually simpler than houses — but they have constraints houses don't:
- Tight room counts. Studios, 1-bedrooms, and 2-bedrooms make up most apartments, and they reuse the same handful of layouts. You don't need every CAD feature ever invented; you need walls, doors, windows, and a few fixtures.
- Awkward shapes. Real apartments are rarely perfect rectangles. Closets jut into bedrooms, kitchens have weird L-bumps, radiators eat corners. Your tool needs to handle non-rectangular rooms cleanly.
- Small dimensions matter. When a room is 9'×11', a 6-inch error matters a lot. Snap-to-grid drawing prevents the "close enough" mistakes you get from freehand sketching.
- You're not an architect. You don't need a learning curve. The whole job should take 20 minutes, not a weekend.
That's exactly the niche TinyGrid fills: a free, browser-based apartment floor plan creator that does the essentials well and skips the parts you don't need.
Ready to draw your apartment? No signup, no install — just open the editor.
Open TinyGrid →How to Create an Apartment Floor Plan in TinyGrid
Here's the fastest path from "I need a floor plan" to "I have a PDF":
- Measure your apartment. Wall by wall, in feet and inches (or meters). Don't trust the listing dimensions — they're usually rounded. Note window and door positions too.
- Open TinyGrid in your browser. No account needed. The grid defaults to 1 ft squares.
- Draw the exterior walls first. Click corner to corner around the perimeter. Walls snap to the grid automatically, so dimensions stay clean.
- Add interior walls. Bedroom dividers, bathroom enclosures, and any partition walls.
- Drop in doors and windows. Use the fixture library — doors auto-show their swing arc, windows render as breaks in the wall.
- Label rooms. Living, Kitchen, Bedroom, Bath. Two-letter labels look cleaner than full words on small plans.
- Export. Save as PDF for printing or sharing, or PNG for a quick image.
If you want a head start, browse the free template library — there are pre-built studios, 1-bedrooms, and 2-bedrooms you can open and modify in seconds.
Common Apartment Layouts
Studio Apartments
One open room with a separate bathroom. The whole layout usually fits in 350–600 sq ft. Key zones: sleeping area, living/work area, kitchenette, bath. The hardest part of drawing a studio plan is showing the kitchenette without making it look like a separate room — partial walls or counter overhangs do the job.
1-Bedroom Apartments
The classic "kitchen + living + bedroom + bath" layout. Most 1-bedrooms are 500–800 sq ft. The bedroom is almost always at the back of the unit, away from the entry door. Watch for a closet that eats wall space — it changes how furniture fits.
2-Bedroom Apartments
Two bedrooms either side-by-side (railroad style) or split across a common living area. 2-bedrooms range from 700–1,200 sq ft and have more variation than smaller units. Drawing one usually takes 10–15 minutes once you have measurements.
Tips for Renters
- Always take measurements yourself. Listed square footage and listed room dimensions are routinely wrong by 5–10%.
- Mark windows and radiators clearly. They block where furniture can go more than walls do.
- Save the file. You'll want it again next time you move, when you buy furniture, and when you sublet.
- Share it with movers. A plan emailed before moving day saves an hour of "where does this go?" on arrival.