Master AutoCAD for interior design projects with a step-by-step guide on how to effectively label sheets, input sheet names, and understand the role of each sheet in a commercial project. Learn more about how to fill out a sheet index, create a code plan, partition plan, furniture plan, finish plan, reflected ceiling plan, restroom details, and schedules and details for commercial design projects.
Key Insights
- This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to effectively use AutoCAD for interior design commercial projects, including how to label sheets and understand the role of each sheet in a detailed commercial project.
- Guidance is provided on how to create various plans, including a code plan, partition plan, furniture plan, finish plan, reflected ceiling plan, and restroom details. Each plan serves a specific purpose in the interior design set and is vital for project completion.
- The article also emphasizes the importance of the sheet index and how to fill it with the correct details such as the project name, interior designer, applicable building code, location, and project specifications. This ensures all necessary information is included for a successful commercial interior design project.
This lesson is a preview from our AutoCAD for Interior Design Course Online (includes software) and Interior Design Professional Course Online (includes software & exam). Enroll in a course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.
We'll notice that this project comes preloaded with many drawing tabs across the bottom. Each sheet is labeled by its sheet number. Let's start by clicking on I-001.
When this sheet opens up, we'll notice a few things. Number one, the sheet index is not complete. So let's go ahead and open up our document, the AutoCAD for Interior Design Commercial Sheet Notes.
Download this from the course and open it up. You can use it to copy paste each one of these sheet names or you can type them in. Let's zoom right into our sheet index.
So our first one is number I-001. We'll type that in, I-001. And then we have a name here and it's the cover sheet and so on.
Let's go ahead and complete this list, I-002. This is the existing plan and this is fairly common for an interior design set. We want to show the existing plan or it could be called demolition plan if we have some demolition going on before we start our new work.
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I-101 is our code plan. So what is a code plan? It's a plan where we talk about how the building code, meaning the international building code typically, or another building code affects our project. Let's go ahead and go to I-102 and this is a partition plan.
Partition is a fancy interior design word for walls. So it's the walls, all the walls we're proposing to add to the project. Now we're out of rows but not a problem.
We'll click in the first cell in row number five and up in our table cell options we have an insert below for rows. So insert below and let's go ahead and add them all now. We need one for 103,104,105,201, and 501.
Okay let's keep going. I-103 and that's for the furniture plan. Super important plan for interior design.
That's where we list and show all of our furniture. Now we have I-104 and this will be a finish plan. What does that mean? It means all of the materials like the walls, the flooring.
We want to show where all of those materials go on the plan. Now we want I-105 and this is a reflected ceiling or reflected ceiling plan sometimes also called RCP. It shows the ceiling which again very important for interior design.
We're showing all the ceiling materials and ceiling located lighting. Now we want I-201 and this is our restroom details. And in a commercial project the key here is having ADA compliant restrooms.
We'll talk about that when we get to that sheet. Then we have I-501 and this is for our schedules and details. Schedules will do slash details.
Now before we move on let's take a look at the rest of this sheet and talk about each element we might need for a commercial project. We have the name of our project and in this case it's a law office. We're taking an existing warehouse and converting it to law offices.
So that's our title. Project information. We have our location.
We have our interior designer and that's you. We have first and last. Make sure you put your first and last name right there.
And then the applicable building code. In this case we're going to use the international building code 2024 but that will change depending on your local municipality. Then we have project specifications.
In a commercial project these often become a fairly large document of specifications or they can be simple sheet specifications like are shown here. And then we have our title block and that's it for our cover sheet.
