Flooring Professionals: Ditch Hand-Drawn Sketches and Do This Instead

Roughly drawn sketches of residential job sites just aren’t adequate any more. So, it’s time to investigate a faster, easier, better method.

In fact, hand-drawn sketches have multiple drawbacks. These types of drawings are:

• insufficient for addressing flooring-installation challenges

• a poor representation of your plan for a project’s completion

• not immediately shareable from the job site

• often difficult for others to read/interpret

• unprofessional and unimpressive in today’s technology age

So what can you do instead?

Download and use a digital floor plan app

This kind of “flooring company software” can be loaded on any mobile device, and uses smart technology to read and map a room’s dimensions. That means it will automatically measure and sketch any room accurately and quickly, with awesome-looking results. And without the need for remeasuring. A high-quality app will also provide resourceful tools – extra features to help you enhance each sketch with photos, objects and annotations.

It’s a much better method for working as a professional flooring planner who is in charge of performing job-site assessments.

Want to learn more? Read on to discover how you can use a floor plan app effectively during any initial in-home visit.

Quickly Visualize a New Flooring Project

Simply walk around a room with your mobile device to let the app capture the corners and calculate the dimensions. Then the app will do its “magic” by diagramming a floor plan.

Include Photos

Floor plans that include photos provide a more cohesive and comprehensive overview, as opposed to plans without photos. Fortunately, a good floor plan app will let you easily attach photos to any new floor plan you create. Here are a couple of tips to remember:

Include wide shots of each room where new flooring will be installed. This will help others visualize the space without actually standing in it. The inclusion of photos will also help remind you of your own visit to the site, to jog your memory and help solidify your recommendations for any next steps.

Add photos of all doorways and open transitions to adjoining spaces. This will help installers understand the space before beginning their actual work.

Combine Sketches of Adjoining Rooms When Planning Multi-Room Installations

Does your customer want new flooring in two or more adjoining rooms? No problem. A first-rate floor plan app will let you assemble sketches of those individual rooms to create a single, comprehensive floor plan. This step will help you visualize the entire project at once.

Read more: 10 Reasons Why You Should Be Creating Digital Sketches On-site

Fine-Tune Your Overall Sketch with Extra Details

A detailed floor plan is far more useful than a basic, unadorned sketch. The purpose of adding extra details is to make the floor plan come to life, so that anyone viewing it can get a good sense of the space as you see it with your own eyes. A detailed plan also will help eliminate the risk of any confusion as to how the plan will be interpreted by anyone who sees it.

That’s why your floor plan app should allow you to add objects and annotations.

Objects can include structural features, cabinets, appliances, or large pieces of furniture that must be addressed during a flooring installation. Just be sure to add floor plan objects thoughtfully, and avoid cramming your plan with too many details that overwhelm the eyes.

Annotations can provide helpful information to benefit both the customer and your installers. Here are a few examples:

• Room labels/names

• Advice for removing the old flooring

• Comments about the condition of the subfloor (which is especially important when you’re planning installation of hard-surface flooring, such as hardwood or tile, since imperfections in the subfloor can telegraph through the top surface)

• Instructions for tearing out and replacing the subfloor, if necessary

• Clarifications on any repairs or preparation work that is needed before a new floor is installed

• Guidelines for the direction in which new flooring should be laid

• Recommendations on where seams should be located

• Instructions for treatment of door jambs/thresholds and transitions to other rooms 

• Guidance for where to place underfloor moisture barriers or heating elements, if applicable 

• Reminders about installing new baseboards or accessory items (e.g., floor-coordinating vent covers)

• Any general project information that is important to include

Having all of these details collected in one, convenient floor plan document will be hugely helpful to everyone involved with the project.

So, What’s the Best Way to Select a Floor Plan App?

Be sure to look for one that:

• is proven, commercial flooring software, designed for and used by professional flooring businesses

• works with both Android and iOS platforms

• has an easy-to-use interface

• features augmented reality and artificial intelligence technology for automatic detection and calculation of room measurements

• allows you to connect a laser distance meter via Bluetooth, for near-perfect measurement accuracy

• will scan a room, using input from your mobile device’s camera and gyroscope sensors, to form a floor plan within minutes

• permits you to build on that basic plan by adding photos, objects and annotations

• includes a handy, built-in library of objects from which you can choose

• permits you to transform a 2D plan into a 3D view

• enables you to save your flooring plan design as a branded PDF document – one that you can easily email to your customer and your installation crew

• helps you look more professional as a floor contractor

• comes with an optional cloud service for storing, securing and accessing plans

Summary

A floor plan app is a terrific tool for planning flooring projects. When you arrive at a customer’s home with this type of app, you’ll be well-equipped to measure and sketch the workspace quickly and precisely. That means you’ll save time and achieve better results. Plus, you’ll also be able to turn your sketch into a shareable, polished-looking planning document. Once you try this more modern approach, you’ll never go back to doing hand-drawn sketches again!

LEARN MORE ABOUT CREATING DIGITAL SKETCHES ON YOUR PHONE ON-SITE WITH MAGICPLAN APP. THE FAST, EASY AND AFFORDABLE SOLUTION FOR FLOORING PROFESSIONALS.

Or read about our conversation with Seland’s Abbey Flooring Center. “We save a lot of time with magicplan.”

Looking for an affordable bluetooth laser meter option? See our comparison of the 3 best laser measuring tools on a budget.