I tried the iOS app MagicPlan to build better floor plan as I wanted somewhat precise measurements for rooms/areas in the house. MagicPlan turned out to quite a wasted effort though as the inability to take the basic drawing and edit it without using CAD software was annoying. All the other export options you get for the $1.99 per plan are fixed or not easily editable.
I then tried OmniGraffle only having to build my own stencil set to do dimension call outs/walls/windows was annoying, so after some digging I tried out FloorDesign. It’s not terrible–no huge bugs, no glaring stupid behaviors. Thus, armed with an 8×10 copy of the original drawings and a Bosch laser tape measure, I was able to build a reasonable facsimile of the layout. It will probably always be a work in progress, but now we have something useful for when we want to estimate distances/square footage/costs/etc.
Below is an exported image of the working floor plan. My next step will be to start adding in the existing landscaping adjacent to the house as I want to finally plant some ground cover outside my office window (over the new septic tank) as the bare earth isn’t very pretty to look at. If I start feeling really creative, I will take the new topography map that was created by surveyors as part of the great wall project and incorporate that into this and then started adding in trees and squirrels….