How to create any millwork/joinery cad drawings in SketchUp - ready to render in VRay, Enscape or Lumion

Why you would want to create these sorts of drawings in SketchUp?

Millwork and joinery CAD drawings are one of the most time-consuming parts of being an interior designer. Often, you may make many changes to the drawings in order to land on the final design. I like to use Sketchup for this kind of process because it is quick and easy and, if you follow the process, almost completely foolproof.

The key to effective millwork or joinery drawings in Sketchup is to make sure that you are drawing inside your group. You may apply textures more easily and resize and scale them.

The second thing that you should do when creating millwork drawings in Sketchup is to make sure that you are adding in small details such as the gaps between the doors and drawers and ensuring that corners are not completely sharp.

Once you have followed these SketchUp tips you can bring in details from the 3D warehouse such as hinges and handles to give life to your model.

I have created a series of how-to YouTube videos on drawing millwork or joinery drawings in Sketchup which goes through the whole process of drawing and getting it ready to bring into Vray or another rendering engine.

I created this model in Sketchup 2021, but you can use any version of SketchUp, even the Sketchup free version is fine.

So let's dive into the process- You will be creating your model firstly in elevation view then create 2 more copies: one for your 3d model showing doors/drawers and one for internals.

The first step is to set up your drawing.

1. Set up your drawing

• Measure your space- we start off by measuring our space within the model. We need three measurements: width, height and the depth

• Inspiration images- collect some inspiration images of the kind of joinery you would like to create. This helps to bring your design to life.

• Create a rectangle using the height and width measurements, we will be drawing our model in elevation

• Check your measurements (twice!!)

• Once you are happy with the dimensions, create a group.

• Make a scene for your drawing so you can easily navigate between it and your main model.

• Go into the group to create details: make sure you have included details such as any toe kicks, shadow lines etc

• Ensure that you are creating every line within the group

• Use the move tool to create a copy of the elevation drawing and for a 3d model

• Make sure you save your model at this stage

Check out the YouTube Video below.

2. Adding Details

• Push-pull to create a 3d model: We push-pull the doors out to 580mm and then pull out the toe-kick and the shadow line to the full dimension, less the thickness of the door. In this case, we pulled it out to 560mm.

• Creating the door detail: We then create the door detail by creating an offset of 20mm inside of the model. Be very careful that you have entered the model or you will not be able to manipulate the depth.

• Make the model render ready: When creating a SketchUp model of millwork, I always make sure to add in the details that make the model seem real. The main detail is to add in gaps between the doors and hinges to make the model seem real. I usually create a 3mm gap and then push the gap in 18 mm (the thickness of the door). This is a small detail but really makes the model seem realistic. You do not need to do this if you are merely drawing an elevation.

Check out the YouTube Video below.

3. Adding textures

• Adding textures and colours: Jump over to a site where you can download textures that you may want to apply to your model. Good ones to use include SketchupTextureClub. My favourite at the moment is Architextures. Download it onto your computer.

• Adjust textures: In SketchUp, open up the materials editor and add the new texture. Make sure that you resize it to the correct size. Then we apply the texture inside the model, making sure that we add textures to all parts of the model, even the small details.

• Bring in handles from 3 d warehouse: to finish the model off we bring in some handles from the 3D warehouse.

Check out the YouTube Video below.

Once you have created this drawing, copy it and place into your model. It is ready to be rendered in Vray, Enscape or Lumion.

Are you :

✔️ looking for more clients

✔️ wanting to launch your new interior design biz effectively?

✔️ wanting to upskill your offerings?

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