Drawing defaults: grid and wall thickness
Override the defaults for major grid size, exterior wall thickness, and interior wall thickness. Per-user; stamps onto every new room.
Every new plan starts from the same three drawing defaults: a 12-inch grid, 6.5-inch exterior walls and 4.5-inch interior walls. If your homes are built differently — masonry walls, a metric grid, thin partitions — set your own once and every new plan starts that way.
The defaults live under Settings → Drawing Defaults, and they only ever apply to plans you create afterwards. A plan that already exists keeps its own values; change those on the plan itself.
Step by step
- 1
See what a plan starts with
Create any plan and look at the canvas: the gridlines are 12 inches apart, the outer walls are 6.5 inches thick and any interior wall you add is 4.5 inches. Those are the standard defaults, chosen to match typical US timber-frame construction.
- 2
Open Settings → Drawing Defaults
Click the avatar at the top right, choose Settings, and scroll to the Drawing Defaults section at the bottom. Three fields: Grid Spacing, Exterior wall thickness and Interior wall thickness. Each shows the value new plans will use, in your current units.
- 3
Type your values
Click a field, type a number (up to two decimal places) and press Tab or click away — it's saved immediately. Grid Spacing is the distance between the gridlines you snap to. The two thicknesses are what new exterior and interior walls start at. If you type something outside the allowed range the field tells you the limits.
- 4
A new plan picks them up
Press Back to Designer and create a new plan. It opens on the wider grid with thicker walls — the gross area of the same 12 × 14 room grows because the walls now take more of it. Plans you made earlier are untouched: to change one of those, select a wall and edit its thickness in the inspector.
- 5
Reset when you're done
Each field has a Reset link that returns that one value to the system default. Reset all three and new plans go back to 12 / 6.5 / 4.5.
Tips
Metric builds
Switch Measurement Units to m/cm at the top of the same Settings page first, then set the grid to 10 or 25 cm — the fields switch to centimetres and everything you draw snaps to that grid.
Masonry and older houses
Solid-brick exterior walls are commonly 9–11 inches; a rendered cavity wall 11–12. Set the exterior default once and every plan of that house starts right.
Common mistakes
Expecting an existing plan to change
Defaults are stamped onto a plan when it's created. To change a plan you already have, select each wall and edit its thickness in the inspector.
Using the grid to control snap precision
The grid is what you see and snap to when snapping is on; furniture still moves freely when you drag with snap off. It doesn't change measurement precision.
Frequently asked questions
What are the standard defaults?
Grid spacing 12 in, exterior wall 6.5 in, interior wall 4.5 in (typical US timber-frame construction). In metric they show as the equivalent centimetres.
Why don't my new defaults apply to a plan I already made?
Defaults only apply to plans created after you change them. Existing plans keep the thicknesses they were drawn with — edit those walls directly.
Does changing the grid spacing change snapping?
Yes, when snap is on: items and walls snap to the gridlines, so a 24-inch grid snaps in 24-inch steps. Turn snap off to place freely.
Where is the Drawing Defaults section?
Avatar (top right) → Settings → scroll to Drawing Defaults at the bottom of the page. It is not on the Profile page.
Can I have different defaults per project?
Not per project — the defaults are per account. Set them before creating the plans for one house, then change or reset them for the next.
How do I get back to the standard values?
Press Reset next to each of the three fields.
Start designing your room
Draw it, furnish it, walk through it in 3D — on web, iOS, and Android.
Open RoomSketch3DOne-time purchase · No subscription · Web, iOS & Android