How to Draw a House Step by Step (1.5-Story)

by easyartstart

This beginner-friendly guide shows how to draw a house with an attic using easy-to-follow illustrations and simple instructions.

The house in the example features a main floor and an attic. These are also known as bungalows or cape cod houses. The house is drawn with two large windows with plants for the main floor and one small window for the attic. There is also a front door with a couple of steps below it and a chimney on the roof.

The drawing is done in a flat 2D style with no perspective, utilizing simple black outlines and solid colors. The style is similar to art you may find in a cartoon or a coloring book.

As you may have noticed, the illustration consists of a lot of straight lines. While you could use a ruler to help you make these it’s recommended that you do them by hand (if you wish to improve your artistic skills).

Although the guide is set up in a way where ideally you won’t need to do any erasing, it’s highly recommended that you start the tutorial in pencil and make light lines that you can easily erase in case of a mistake. Darken your lines later on by tracing over them (once you have all parts of the house outlined).

Step 1 – Draw the Foundation of the House

Begin by drawing the house’s foundation. Make it a long and narrow rectangle.

While this step is very simple it’s also very important as the foundation will set the width for the rest of the house. Be careful not to make it too long or too short.

Step 2 – Draw the Front

On top of the foundation draw the forward (street) facing part of the house. First, define each of it’s sides with a pair of straight lines and then add the pointy roof over top (called a gable roof).

Step 3 – Draw the Side

Attached to the front section add the side of the house. This again consists of two parts, the lower rectangular area and the roof on top (with a slope on it’s side). First, draw the roof and then connect it to the foundation with a single straight line to define the wall below it.

Step 4 – Draw the Windows

With the main sections of the house outlined add some windows. In this case there are three of them in total (all rectangular in shape). Start by adding the largest window in the middle of the forward facing part of the house followed by the smaller one above it. Also, add a window near the outer end of the house’s side section. Make this one the same height but slightly narrower than the first one.

Once done outlining each window also draw a ledge below the two larger ones. Similar to the foundation make the ledges long narrow rectangles.

Step 5 – Draw the Door

Near the middle of the house between the two large windows draw the door. Make it’s shape a vertical rectangle and add a round handle to one of it’s sides. Below the door draw a pair of steps. Make the top step slightly wider than the door and the bottom step slightly wider than the top one.

Step 6 – Draw the Window Plants

To make the house look a little more lively add some plants growing from the window ledges. As this is a somewhat stylized drawing you can outline the plants as a series of curves of slightly varying sizes. They should look a little bit like clouds. However, if you want a simpler drawing you can leave these out.

For more on drawing plants see:

Step 7 -Draw the Window Frames

Add fairly thick frames around the two larger windows and add some dividers to all of them afterwards. Using vertical lines split the largest window into three and the smaller one into two. Split the small window into four using a vertical and a horizontal line that both run through it’s center.

Step 8 -Draw the Chimney

Finally, for the last part of the house add a chimney coming up from the side section of it’s roof. Make the chimney’s bottom part slightly narrower (but taller) than the top.

With the chimney in place you should have all parts of the house outlined. If you are happy with how everything looks go over your drawing with darker lines (as was mentioned at the start of the tutorial). Otherwise make whatever tweaks you think are required before doing so.

You can either trace over your lines with a regular pencil (simply press harder on it to darken them) or a thin black marker.

Step 9 – Color the Drawing

Once you are done with the line drawing you can color the house as shown in the example. Use whatever medium you prefer or have on hand (markers, colored pencils, paints etc…). You can use a regular pencil for the grey and the white of the paper for the white.

Fill in it’s different parts as follows:

Roof – red
Walls – yellow
Windows – blue
Door – brown
Window Frames/Steps – leave white
Foundation/Window Ledges/Chimney – grey
Window Plants – green

While the above is a good combination of colors you can also use a different one if you prefer.

Conclusion

As mentioned at the start of the tutorial, drawing simple things like the house shown in this guide can be a great way to improve as a beginner artist. Line quality is an important part of learning to draw and this tutorial allows you to practice making straight lines while drawing something nice.

Even if you are not particularly interested in learning to draw this is still an easy to follow tutorial that can be a fun way to pass some time. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it.

For more similar guides see the following: