This guide will teach you how to model your own house in tinkercad. This is a great experience for those wanting to try out or learn CAD as it will allow you to gain an understanding of some of the more basic techniques. Additionally, modelling a house can be expanded upon much further than just the walls and windows for those who are already slightly more advanced at working with CAD software.

Step 1: Creating a TinkerCAD Account

Tinker cad is a free, online 3D modelling program which runs through the web browser. To access this website however, you require an account. This step does not take long and only requires basic information such as an email and password.

Here is the LINK required to create a tinker cad account.

Step 2: Creating a Project

Once you have created an account and have logged in, navigate to the home page. From here you can create new circuits, code blocks, or work through tutorials. However, for this tutorial navigate to the 'designs' tab on the left hand side and click on '+New' next to the 3D Designs section to begin modelling. Any changes you make in this section will be automatically saved and cannot be seen by anybody unless you set it to private. From this page you can also set new names to your projects.

Step 3: Making a Floor Plan

The very first step in modelling your house is to create a floor plan. Using a ruler, measuring tape, or even by estimating, draw a floor plan of your house in a notebook or scrap piece of paper and write down lengths and sizes of the walls. For this guide, I will be using a simple floor plan which I have found online. Things to take note of during this step includes:

Wall length,

Wall thickness,

Directions which doors open,

Window heights and lengths,

Door heights,

and wall/roof height.

For more complex models, you may want to take note of couches, tv's, and other furniture. However, this guide will focus on the basics and will not include any furniture.

Step 4: Deciding on a Scale

The next step is to decide on a scale for the model. As tinker cad's work plane is limited, creating a model which is several meters long will expand over a distance which will take a while to navigate easily. For this reason, the size of the house will be scaled down. Since tinker cad works in mm, I would suggest using a scale of 1:100. This means that the model which you create a 100th of the size in real life, and that for a 3.5m wall, it will be modelled in tinker cad as 35mm.

Step 5: Creating Your First Shape

Once you have decided on your scale, it is time to begin modelling. Click on the square shape on the right hand side and place it onto the work plane. From here you will be given the opportunity to change its dimensions through the drop down box which opens when you select the shape. You can play around with dimensions to get an understanding of how tinker cad modelling works. You can navigate this screen using your middle mouse button and right click.

Step 6: Creating the Floor Plan

Once you are comfortable with changing a shapes dimensions, I would recommend making the camera top down by holding right click and dragging your mouse down. This will allow you to view the walls without any obstruction. From here, it is time to start creating the walls. By using the scale which you determined in step 4, change the dimensions of the square to match that of one of the walls. Next, you can add more shapes into the work plane through the same process as the first. Change the dimensions of the second square and connect it to the first wall in a way which matches the floor plan. You can simply drag the two shapes on top of each other and have them snap in place, however, if they do not correctly join, you may need to change the snap grid size in the bottom right of the work plane.

Once two walls are in place, select both shapes by dragging the cursor over them both, and click the 'group' button in the top right, or press ctrl + g on your keyboard. This will connect the two shapes together and make them move together.

Now you can repeat this process for the entire floor plan, leaving gaps in the walls for doors. Don't worry about adding gaps for widows just yet, these will be added later.

Step 7: Adding Doors

To add doors to your floor plan, click on the drop down on the right and select 'shape generators'. From here you can search for 'door'. Find a door which is similar to those in your house and drag it onto the work plane. You may need to change its dimensions slightly before you move it into place. Once its size is accurate, move it to fill in the gap in the floorplan which you should have left in the previous step. Repeat this step for each of the doors in your house.

Step 8: Filling in the Gaps

Depending on the height of your walls and doors, you may have a gap between the top of the wall and the top of the door. To fill this in, create a new square and change its dimensions to the size of the gap. If you did not measure the height between the roof and top of the door, that's okay! you can simply subtract the height of the door from the height of the roof to get this distance. To move your new shape into place, simply use the slider seen on the work plane to change its height. Once its height is correct, you can move it like it is another wall in step 6. Remember to group the new shapes together to ensure that you don't accidentally move them.

Step 9: Adding Windows

Now it is time to add windows to your house. On the right hand side select the drop down and click the 'basic shapes' tab. The first shape in this section is a grey box. Click on it and add it to the work plane. This box acts as a 'hole' when it is group with other shapes.

Change the dimensions of this shape to match those of a window within your house. Move the hole into place where the window should be and group it together with the rest of the house. You should see a hole in the wall. Similarly to the doors, you can choose the 'shape generator' tab and find a custom window shape the move into place of the hole.

Step 10: Furntiure

While I will not go into great detail about adding furniture to your model, you may want to continue adding more detail to your house. If this is the case, you can search the 'shape generator' tab for things such as couches and tv's, or you can follow tinkercad's tutorials to learn more about making custom shapes.

Step 11: Adding a Roof

You may feel the need to add a roof to your house after finishing the walls, doors, and windows. If this is the case, you can simply navigate to the 'basic shapes' tab and drag a shape which matches that of your roof. For the typical house, this will probably be as simple as adding the 'roof' shape, resizing it, and moving it into place.

Though for some, you may not want to add a roof as it will hide the inside details of your house.

Step 12: What's Next?

If you have finished creating your house and want to do more, you can find more complex buildings online to model. Additionally, you can add backyards, front yards, or small details like pipes and gutters.