Quick answer
Upload a photo, scan or screenshot of a kitchen floor plan and the system reads it automatically: it drafts the cabinet run left to right with widths and roles, you check and correct the draft, and a coded quote with to-scale drawings follows. Clearer images read better, unlabelled widths get estimated, and a person confirms everything before manufacture.
Key points
- The upload reads a plan the way an estimator would: left to right along the run, naming each cabinet and its width.
- You stay in charge of the draft. Anything it got wrong, you correct on screen before the price is built on it.
- The price comes back as coded lines, the same shape as a Schedule of Rates, with to-scale drawings behind it.
- It compresses the week of back-and-forth to a first number into one sitting. It does not replace the site measure.
- Clearer images read better, labelled widths beat estimated ones, and a person still confirms everything before anything is cut.
The kitchen floor plan you are holding is a photo of a photocopy: a work order attachment shot on someone's phone in a hallway, dimensions half legible, tender closing Friday. Getting a joinery number off it normally means a scanning session, an email chain, a call about the wall oven, and a quote landing the following Wednesday. The plan was always readable; the queue was the problem.
The upload option on our online designer removes the queue. You photograph, scan or screenshot the plan and upload it, and the system reads the drawing and drafts the kitchen automatically. Here is exactly what it does, what it gets right, what it estimates, and where a person still stands between the upload and anything being manufactured.
What happens when you upload a plan
The system reads the cabinet run the way an estimator would: left to right along the drawing. It identifies the cabinets and drafts each one with a width and a role, sink base, drawer bank, tall unit, overheads, then assembles them into a run you can see on screen. From there the standard machinery takes over: the drafted run becomes a to-scale plan and elevation with every dimension in millimetres, and a live price built from coded Schedule-of-Rates lines.
Two behaviours are worth knowing before you take the photo. It reads clearer images better: a flat, well-lit scan beats a keystoned phone shot of a curled page. And where a width is not labelled on the drawing, it estimates from what it can see. An estimated width is a placeholder for you to confirm, not a measurement.
Three steps: upload the plan, correct the drafted run, take the priced schedule.
The draft is yours to correct
Nothing about the draft is final. The run appears with its widths and roles, and you check it against the plan you uploaded: nudge a 450 to the 600 it should be, reassign a cabinet the reader took for a drawer bank, remove the box that was actually the dishwasher. Corrections take minutes, because you are editing a mostly right draft instead of drawing from nothing, and that is the entire trade. Both the price and the drawings then rebuild from the corrected run.
The check matters most on the widths that were estimated. Correcting them costs a minute at draft stage. Leaving them wrong costs real money later, the way approximate kitchen measurements always do.
How accurate is a kitchen quote from an uploaded floor plan?
As accurate as the plan plus your corrections, and the honest hierarchy runs like this. A clean scan with labelled widths reads well, and the draft usually needs little beyond a role check. Somewhere in the middle, a phone photo with a few labelled dimensions reads well where labelled and estimates the rest. At the bottom, a blurry shot of a hand sketch still produces a draft, but expect to correct more of it. In every case you see what was read and you fix it before a price is built on it.
Underneath all of that sits the fixed rule of this trade: a site measure locks the final dimensions before manufacture, and a person confirms everything before anything is built. The upload gets you a real first number in one sitting. It does not get anyone permission to cut board.
| What you upload | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Clean scan, widths labelled | Close draft; check the roles, confirm, price |
| Phone photo, partly labelled | Labelled widths read; the rest estimated for you to correct |
| Screenshot from a PDF plan | Reads well; zoom to the kitchen before capturing |
| Hand-drawn sketch | Drafts with more estimating; correct it line by line |
From drafted run to coded price
Once the run is confirmed, the price assembles as coded lines, the same shapes used on schedules of rates: wet underbench cabinet per number, dry underbench cabinetry per metre, overheads per metre, tall units per number, benchtop per metre, splashback and the small lines. The shape is deliberate. A maintenance contractor can lay the lines against a client schedule, a builder can drop them into a tender, and anyone can see which line moves when a cabinet changes. The code-by-code detail sits in kitchen Schedule of Rates codes explained.
It is also a defence against the vaguest object in this industry, the one-line kitchen quote. A number built from lines can be checked line by line, which is the whole argument of how to read a kitchen quote and spot the hidden costs.
What it replaces, and what it doesn't
Be precise about the claim. What the upload replaces is the slowest, least valuable week in the process: the stretch between holding a plan and holding a first real number. Scan, email, wait, clarify, wait again. That week compresses into a sitting, and the output is better than the week used to produce, because it arrives with drawings and itemised lines instead of a figure in an email.
What it does not replace: the site measure, the human check before manufacture, or the conversation about finishes and services. Those were never the slow part, and they are where the risk actually lives, so they stay. And if you would rather build the kitchen on screen from scratch than upload a plan, the designer works without any CAD software either way.
Where it earns its keep
Maintenance work orders, first. An order lands with a plan attachment and a due date; the supervisor uploads it from the ute, corrects two widths, and a coded price with drawings is with the client the same day, in the same line shapes their schedule uses.
Tender day, second. An estimator triaging a stack of kitchen drawings can put a first number against each one in minutes apiece, then spend real attention on the three jobs that deserve it.
And the hand-drawn sketch. A homeowner in Weymouth with a pencil plan of their galley does not need it redrawn to get a price. The sketch uploads, the draft comes back, and correcting it together is a better first conversation than a blank enquiry form ever was.
Getting a clean read the first time
Lay the plan flat in good light, get the whole kitchen in frame, and label the widths if they are not already. Upload, correct the draft against what you know, and take the coded price and drawings. If the job is going ahead, send it through: a quote with a reference number comes back within 24 hours, photos can ride along with it, and a site measure locks the dimensions before the workshop touches board. The plan in your hand was always enough to start with. Now it is enough to finish the first step with.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get a kitchen quote from a photo of a floor plan?
Yes. Upload a photo, scan or screenshot of the plan to the designer on the MTN Kitchens site and it reads the drawing automatically, drafting the cabinet run left to right with widths and roles. You check and correct the draft, then a price built from coded lines and to-scale drawings follows. A person confirms everything before anything is manufactured.
What kind of image works best for the upload?
A flat, well-lit image with the whole kitchen run in frame. The system reads clearer images better, so a scan or a straight-on photo beats an angled shot of a curled page, and a screenshot from a PDF plan works well if you zoom to the kitchen first. Labelled cabinet widths are read directly; anything unlabelled gets estimated for you to confirm.
What happens if the widths aren't labelled on my plan?
The system estimates them from the drawing and you confirm or correct each one on screen before the price is built. Estimated widths are placeholders, not measurements, so treat the resulting number as a working first price. The final dimensions are locked by a site measure before manufacture, the same as on every kitchen we build.
Does a person check the quote before anything is built?
Always. The upload and the drafted run get you a first coded price and drawings in one sitting, but a person confirms the full specification, and a site measure locks the real dimensions, before anything goes into production. The automation removes the waiting at the front of the process, not the checking at the end of it.
Can it read a hand-drawn kitchen sketch?
Yes. A hand-drawn plan drafts the same way as a printed one, though expect more estimating and a longer correction pass, since hand sketches carry fewer labelled dimensions and looser proportions. Write the widths on the sketch before photographing it and the read improves markedly. It is a genuinely useful path for homeowners who have measured their own kitchen.
Is the price from an uploaded plan final?
It is a real, itemised first number, built from coded lines off the run you confirmed, and it is what you use to decide whether the job proceeds. The final contract price follows the site measure and a person's confirmation of the specification. If your corrected widths were accurate, the two numbers land close together; the site measure exists to make sure of it.
Why does the quote come back as coded lines?
Because coded lines are auditable and portable. A maintenance contractor can match them to a client schedule of rates, a builder can drop them into a tender, and any reader can see which line moves when a cabinet changes. A single lump-sum kitchen number can do none of that, which is why we price the same way at every scale.