Starting a room plan from a blank canvas can feel like a big task. A floor plan template — a pre-drawn room shape that you customise to match your actual space — gives you a head start and makes the whole process more approachable.
Free Room Planner lets you start from a template or build a room from scratch — whichever is faster for your specific space.
What Is a Floor Plan Template?
A floor plan template is a pre-built room outline — typically a rectangular or L-shaped room with doors and windows already positioned — that you adapt to match your actual space. Templates save you the time of building the room outline from scratch and help you visualise what a standard arrangement looks like.
Templates are most useful when you're planning a common room type in a standard size, or when you want to see what a typical arrangement looks like before trying your own layout.
Types of Floor Plan Templates
Bedroom templates. Typically rectangular with a door on one wall and a window on the opposite wall. A single bedroom template (roughly 3m x 3.5m) and a double (roughly 3.5m x 4m) cover the majority of standard UK bedroom types.
Living room templates. UK living room templates typically include a chimney breast on one wall, a bay window, and two doors — reflecting the common layout of Victorian and Edwardian terraced houses.
Kitchen templates. Come in the standard layout configurations: galley (two parallel runs of units), L-shaped, U-shaped, and with island.
Bathroom templates. Small bathroom templates show the standard UK bathroom (bath, toilet, and basin in a 2.5m x 2m space). En suite templates show compact shower room configurations.
How to Use a Template Effectively
- Start with the template that most closely matches your room shape
- Adjust the dimensions to match your actual room measurements — this is the most important step
- Move the doors and windows to match your real room's layout
- Use the template's furniture arrangement as inspiration, not instruction — try the standard arrangement first, then experiment
- Add your specific furniture dimensions
When a Template Isn't Right
Templates work well for standard rectangular rooms. They're less useful for: rooms with unusual shapes (alcoves, chimney breasts that project significantly, bay windows that affect the layout); very small rooms where every centimetre matters; commercial spaces with more complex planning requirements.
For these situations, building your room from scratch in Free Room Planner takes only a few minutes and gives more accurate results.