Drawing interior walls

In this guide

1. 1

   The placement workflow — cross-hair + pull-handle

   Tap the Interior Wall tile in the Build Panel. The canvas enters placement mode and renders two new things: - A red cross-hair (chain anchor) at the room center. This is where the next wall segment will start. - A blue pull handle just below the cross-hair. This is the handle you drag to draw the wall. A blue tooltip at the top of the canvas spells it out: "Move the cross-hair to the starting point, then drag the blue handle to draw the wall." The two-handle UI separates where the wall starts (cross-hair position) from where it ends (handle drag destination). It's deliberate — the workflow scales from a single segment to a chain of connected walls without ever leaving placement mode.

2. 2

   Step 1 — Move the cross-hair to your starting point

   Tap-and-drag the red cross-hair to position the chain anchor wherever the wall should start. If you want the wall to start at room center (the default), skip this step and go straight to the pull-handle drag. The cross-hair snaps to: - Existing wall endpoints (so chains stay closed and tidy). - Existing wall corners. - Grid intersections (so dimensions come out clean). You can re-anchor the cross-hair any time before pulling a wall — it doesn't commit anything by itself.

3. 3

   Step 2 — Drag the blue handle to draw the wall

   Tap-and-drag the blue pull handle in the direction the wall should run. An orange preview line shows where the wall will land as you drag. Release to commit the segment. The segment auto-snaps to: - Ortho (horizontal / vertical / clean 90°) — hold Shift to disable ortho if you need a diagonal wall. - The nearest exterior wall, when you drag near it — useful for walls that should attach to the outer envelope. - Existing interior walls (for L / T / X intersections).

4. 4

   Step 3 — Chain another segment (or stop)

   After the first segment commits, the chain anchor moves to that segment's far end and a fresh pull handle appears there. Drag the new handle in a different direction to extend the chain — useful for L-shape rooms, U-shape corridors, or any zig-zag interior layout. When you're done, press Escape or tap somewhere outside the canvas to leave placement mode.

5. 5

   The five styles — Full, Pony, Glass, Railing, Partition

   Select any interior wall and the Inspector exposes a Style chip group with five options: - Full — solid floor-to-ceiling wall. The default. Standard residential framing, drywall both sides, 4–5 inches thick. - Pony — half-height knee wall (typically 36–42 inches). Open above. Defines space without full closure; common between living + dining, around stair landings, and at counter-height kitchen dividers. - Glass — glass panel partition. Shower doors, sunroom dividers, contemporary office walls. Renders as a transparent panel in a slim frame in 3D. - Railing — spindle balusters with a top rail. Loft edges, mezzanine perimeters, stair openings. Safety barrier without visual barrier. - Partition — zero-thickness dashed line. Logical boundary only — used for yard zoning (front/side/back) and conceptual divisions. Does not render in 3D. Different walls in the same room can have different styles. Tap each wall and pick its style independently.

6. 6

   Thickness — defaults and overrides

   Interior walls default to 4 inches thick in Room Sketch 3D — standard residential 2×4 framing with ½-inch drywall on both sides. The Inspector has a numeric Thickness input so you can override: - 2 inches — thin glass partition or low-profile divider. - 4 inches (default) — standard interior wall. - 6 inches — plumbing wall (accommodates drain stack), sound-isolated wall. - 8–10 inches — demising wall between condo units, fire-rated separation, double-stud sound assembly. Thickness is mostly cosmetic in the floor plan — affects how the wall renders in 2D plan view and how doors / windows land on it. For sound and construction implications, see internal walls vs exterior walls and wall thickness conventions.

7. 7

   Load-bearing context

   Room Sketch 3D doesn't model structure — every wall you draw is treated as a generic partition for floor-plan purposes. But the real-world distinction matters when you're translating your plan into a build or a renovation: - Load-bearing walls carry structural load from roof, floor joists, or beams above. They're often in line with the building's structural grid, run perpendicular to floor joists, or have other walls / posts directly above them. - Non-load-bearing (partition) walls carry only their own weight. They can be removed or relocated without structural concern. If you're planning to remove a wall during a renovation, don't assume it's non-load-bearing from the floor plan alone — verify with a structural engineer. Removing a load-bearing wall typically requires a header beam (steel, glulam, or LVL) and runs $3,000–15,000+ to do properly.

8. 8

   Adding doors and windows on interior walls — they cut INTO the wall

   The single most common confusion in floor-plan editing: you tap the Door tile, click somewhere in the middle of the room, and nothing appears. The reason — doors, windows, and openings are made INTO an existing wall. They aren't placed in empty space. If there's no wall where you tapped, there's nothing for the door to cut into. To add a door (or window, opening, French door, pocket door, sliding glass door, etc.) on an interior wall: 1. Draw the interior wall first using the workflow above. 2. Tap the Door tile (or Window / Opening / French Door / Sliding Glass Door / Pocket Door / Barn Door). 3. Tap on the wall at the position where the door should be cut. The door snaps to the wall, splits it into two segments, and renders the door opening with its swing arc in 2D and its panels in 3D. The "Door cut into an interior wall" screenshot in the gallery above is the canonical illustration — the orange interior wall is split into two stub segments where the door opening was cut, the swing arc is drawn between them, and dimension labels appear for each segment plus the door width. This applies to every wall-cut fixture: - Door, French Door, Sliding Glass / Wood Door, Pocket Door, Barn Door (all door variants). - Window, Sliding Window, Bay Window, Corner Bay Window (all window variants). - Opening (doorless passageway). - Fireplace, Dual / See-Through Fireplace (the firebox cuts into the wall). - Mirror, Light Switch, Outlet, Wall Safe (wall-mounted items). All of these need a wall to exist first. If you want an opening in an open-plan space with no wall, you don't actually want a door — you want a Partition style wall (logical boundary, no 3D render) or you want to draw a real wall first and then cut an Opening into it.

Common confusions

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