A free countertop drawing tool built into the Flip Kitchen planner. Trace your cabinets or draw the outline freehand, set the overhangs, seams, cut-outs and waterfalls, and come away with a drawing measured to the sixteenth of an inch.
A countertop is the one part of a kitchen nobody keeps on a shelf. Every slab is cut to your cabinets, and the price, the seams and the wait all start from a drawing — usually a pencil sketch on graph paper that someone squints at over the phone. There is a better starting point: draw the tops over the cabinets you have already planned, let the planner measure every edge, and print a sheet any fabricator can read.
Open the kitchen designer and click ▭ Countertop on the tool strip. In Sketch, press Draw countertop and click the cabinet corners in order — the outline snaps to them — then click the first point to close it. Pick a backsplash, press Generate 3D, and switch to Dimensions: every slab measured to 1/16″, with seams, waterfall edges, cut-outs and the area in square feet. No cabinets drawn yet? Draw DIY sketches an outline on its own. It is free and runs in the browser.
The countertop tool is not a separate program. It is a page inside the planner, opened from the ▭ Countertop button on the 2D tool strip. Hover the button and its tooltip says the whole job in one line: sketch the countertops by hand and get the dimensioned drawing for the fabricator. The page opens on the drawing; a two-part switch at the top flips between Sketch and Dimensions.
Both views are flat. The countertops you walk round in the 3D room come from Generate 3D, and colour and thickness are set in the 3D room’s Flip Board, so a normal session moves back and forth: draw here, generate, look in 3D, come back to read the drawing.
If the cabinets are already on the plan, tracing them is the fast and accurate way in. The outline follows the real boxes, so the overhang, the cut-outs and the seams all come from the cabinets underneath rather than from your eye.
Sometimes there is nothing to trace. You are replacing only the top, pricing a bathroom vanity, or sketching a bar before the cabinets are chosen. Draw DIY works like the planner’s Add Wall tool: click a start point anywhere, aim, type a length and press Enter.
DIY outlines are drawn in yellow and are never built in the 3D room. They exist for the drawing and the square-footage total, which lists them in a section of their own. If you want a top you can see in 3D, trace it from cabinets instead.
Beside the drawing buttons sits Backsplash, with three choices: None, 4″ — a four-inch strip cut from the same slab — or Full, which runs the stone up the wall to the underside of the wall cabinets. The same setting appears on the Countertop page of the Flip Board as Backsplash extent, and the two always agree.
Generate 3D builds the slabs in the room. It stays greyed out until something is drawn. Once it has run, the button reads Cancel 3D, which removes the 3D tops but keeps your sketch, so you can redraw and generate again without starting over. Then press Switch to 3D and walk round what you made.
A backsplash changes the drawing as well as the room. Each backsplash panel gets its own label — BS1 BS2 — and its own measurements, so the wall pieces can be quoted along with the counters.
Every open edge of a slab carries an overhang, and the planner starts it at 1½″ past the cabinet face, the usual figure for stone over overlay doors. An edge that meets a wall starts at 0. To change one, open the Countertop page of the Flip Board in the 3D room and click the edge; a small panel opens.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Overhang | How far the slab sits past the cabinet below, in inches, in steps of 1/16″. Go under ¾″ and the planner warns that the doors may catch the stone. |
| Waterfall | Turns the slab down to the floor at that end. Offered only on exposed side and end edges — never at a wall, a seam or an appliance. |
| Joint | How the waterfall meets the top: a 45° mitre, which is the default, or a butt joint. |
| Off floor | Lifts the foot of a waterfall clear of the floor, in inches; 0 to start. |
| Reset to default | Drops your changes on that edge. |
Right-click an edge on the drawing for the other choice a fabricator cares about, the edge build: ○ Double edge (built up to 1½″), △ Single edge (¾″, flush) or c/c Clean cut for an edge that butts a wall, plus ↺ Auto to drop your override. These are edge types, not decorative profiles. The planner does not draw a bullnose or an ogee, so if you want one, write it on the drawing and say so to your fabricator.
An island gets no seating overhang automatically — the planner cannot know which side the stools go. Set it on that edge with Overhang, or trace the top past the cabinets. Raised bar tops on a knee wall are the exception and start at 12″. As a working figure, 12″ is a perch and 15″ is a meal at counter height; the island guide does the full sum. Anything that deep needs support under the stone, so ask your fabricator what they want beneath it before you settle the number.
A slab has a maximum length, and the planner works to 126″. When it generates the tops automatically it splits any run longer than 125″ at a cabinet joint, keeping the seam at least 12″ from the stove where it can.
When you draw the tops by hand it adds no seams on its own; your drawing is taken literally. A seam appears in two ways: where two pieces you traced share a full edge, or where you place one with More ▾ → Draw seam, clicking two points on the outline. On the Dimensions view, seams are the dashed joints.
Traced tops get their holes automatically. A sink base underneath puts a sink cut-out in the slab above it, and a cooktop puts in a cooktop cut-out. You do not draw them.
On a DIY piece you add them yourself: right-click the piece in Sketch and choose ➕ Sink cutout (30×16) or ➕ Cooktop cutout (29×20). Each comes in preset sizes — a sink at 30×16, 33×19 or 25×22, a cooktop at 29×20, 34½×20 or 20½×19. Once it is placed you can drag it along the edge, ⇔ Center it, ⇅ send it to the other edge, or click any of its numbers to type the width, the depth, the distance from the edge (4″ to start) and its position along the run.
Hole sizes on a planning drawing are placeholders. A fabricator cuts to the actual sink and cooktop, so they will ask for the model numbers or the cut-out template from the box, and an undermount sink often has to be at the shop. Choose both before the template visit — the sink guide covers the choice, and the renovation order explains why that visit sets your schedule.
Switch to Dimensions and the tops are laid out flat, every slab measured. The legend explains the marks:
| Mark | Means |
|---|---|
| ○ / △ | Double edge or single edge on that side |
| c/c | Clean cut, where the slab meets a wall |
| Dashed line | A seam |
| ▽ WF | A waterfall edge, with its joint type |
| ▭ | A cut-out, labelled with its name |
| BS1, BS2… | Backsplash panels |
Dimensions read in inches to 1/16″, or in millimetres if the designer is set to metric. An Area box adds it all up in square feet: the backsplash (wall body), the countertops, the island and the waterfalls separately, then a total, then any DIY pieces and a grand total, with a count of the cut-outs. Square footage is the number stone is priced by, so it is the figure to check each quote against.
Moving around: the scroll wheel zooms, a middle-button drag or Alt + drag pans, and a double-click resets the view. A left-drag box-selects slabs and their dimension labels so you can pull them apart into a tidier sheet, and Reset layout puts everything back. 📏 Measure on the tool strip works here too.
Material is chosen in the 3D room, on the Countertop page of the Flip Board. Thickness is 1-1/2″ by default, which puts the finished top at 36″ on a 34½″ cabinet. The 3/4″ option gives a 35¼″ top and leaves out the build-up strip.
Colours come in three quartz groups — Clean, Essence and Signature, 31 stones between them, each named by its code, such as RS1009 in the Clean series. More colors opens another 73 quartz colours, and Wood colors offers laminate wood grains. Picking a colour repaints every top; the 🪨 Format Painter paints a single countertop instead. For which material to choose in the first place, see countertop materials compared.
⬇ Export lists the sheets that go into your drawing set, and Countertop 2D is ticked by default. Preview PDF shows the pages; Save Local downloads them. The design needs a name first, and Export asks for one if it has none.
Send the countertop page together with the elevations, so the fabricator can see the cabinets the stone sits on. Then expect them to template on site anyway, once the cabinets are in and fixed: the drawing gets you a quote and a sensible conversation, and the template gets you a top that fits your actual walls.
Yes. The countertop tool is part of the Flip Kitchen planner, which is free and runs in a web browser with nothing to install. Click Countertop on the 2D tool strip, trace your cabinets or draw an outline, and the Dimensions view gives you a drawing measured to 1/16 inch with seams, cut-outs and square footage. You can try it as a guest without creating an account.
Yes, with Draw DIY. Click a start point anywhere, aim, type each length and press Enter, hold Shift for an angle, and click the start point to close the shape. DIY outlines appear on the drawing and in the square-footage total but are not built in 3D; to see a top in the 3D room, trace it from cabinets.
On a top traced from cabinets it is automatic: a sink base below puts a sink cut-out in the slab, and a cooktop puts in a cooktop cut-out. On a DIY piece, right-click it in Sketch and choose Sink cutout or Cooktop cutout, pick a preset size, then drag it or click its numbers to type the exact size and position.
One and a half inches past the cabinet face on every open edge, and none where the slab meets a wall. In the 3D room, open the Countertop page of the Flip Board and click an edge to change it in sixteenths of an inch. Islands get no automatic seating overhang, so set the seating side yourself.
The planner works to a 126-inch maximum. When it generates tops automatically it splits runs longer than 125 inches at a cabinet joint, keeping seams at least 12 inches from the stove where it can. On hand-drawn tops you place seams yourself with Draw seam, and your fabricator has the final say.
Yes, on any exposed side or end edge. In the 3D room, open the Countertop page of the Flip Board, click the edge and tick Waterfall, then choose a 45-degree mitre or a butt joint and, if you want, lift it off the floor. Waterfall is not offered at walls, seams or appliances.
Use it to get quotes and agree the layout, not to cut stone. Fabricators template on site once the cabinets are installed, because walls are rarely straight and square. Bring the drawing, the sink and cooktop models, and your seam and overhang preferences to that visit.
Inches to the nearest sixteenth by default, or millimetres if the designer is set to metric. The area box gives square feet for the backsplash, the countertops, the island and the waterfalls, with totals.
Ten minutes of clicking corners gets you a drawing every fabricator can read, and a square-footage figure to hold their quotes against.
Open the countertop tool →