Drawing a scale diagram of your bathroom isn't difficult; you might remember doing something similar at school. The trick to making life easy for yourself is to draw your plan on graph paper square or squared paper. This is nothing more than a sheet of paper with horizontal and vertical lines drawn at regular intervals but it makes things so much easier.

You could buy some software to draw your scale diagrams

Why does everyone seem to want software to do it all for them? People think that all they need to do is purchase a remodeling or design program for their computer and it will do the whole thing for them. Well this just isn't going to happen. There is software available and there are some very good programs too. Will it make your life easier when you remodel your small bathroom? Very unlikely.

If you are a property developer or a professional kitchen and bathroom designer then remodeling software can be an essential part of your work because it enables you to reuse your work again and again. However if all you are doing is redesigning your bathroom at home then I would advise against it.

Scale drawing isn't too difficult

If you are worried about the scary words "scale drawing" then don't be. All it means is that you are going to make a smaller than life drawing of your bathroom while keeping all the distances in proportion. For instance if your bathroom is 8 foot by 10 foot and you have some squared paper with 16 squares by 25 squares then you can simply use the scale 1 foot = 2 squares. Your scale drawing would then use 16 squares across the top by 20 squares down and leave 5 unused squares at the bottom.

Make Cut-outs of the bathroom fixtures and design away

This is the fun part of the job. It's like fitting together a jigsaw puzzle but there might be more than one way for the pieces to go. You will need a few sheets of graph paper for this. Draw the outline of your bathroom on one sheet of graph paper and the outlines of the toilet, bathtub, shower, washbasin and other stuff on another sheet. You may need a few sheets of paper to draw fixtures of differing shapes and sizes to try out in the plan. Cut out the paper fixtures and spend time arranging them to fit over your outline bathroom drawing.

Getting your bathroom design right first time

Make sure you spend plenty of time on the design phase of your project because whatever you come up with will be what you have live with for some time to come so it pays to get it right from the beginning.

You need plans of the floor and the walls

You will need plans of the floor space looking down. You will also need plans of the walls, especially if you are planning vanity units, mirrors or cupboards.

Discuss your bathroom makeover plans with your contractors

Your contractors will be able to point out any problems you might have with your plan and suggest ways that you can adjust things to solve the problems. This is a very important part of the project and can be the difference between a smooth remodeling job and a nightmare when mistakes need to be corrected later.

Make sure you get your free graph paper below.