Tips when choosing a house plan.

1. Pay close attention to the grade/ slope from front to back on your lot. I have seen a lot of people have such a high foundation wall on the back of a house that they paid for and with just a little more money could have had a basement , finished or unfinished that could almost double the value of the home.
2. A hard finished deck on the house will give a more perceived feeling of value over a wood deck that after a few years will look tattered and dilapidated.
Do not get wrapped up in the square footage as much as the finishes in your home. You can always add more expensive finishes to your house but it is very costly to add a foot back in that Family room or Den where you spend all your time. You have a tremendous amount of control of your final price with the finishes you choose.
See this home.

A Great House

A great house does not have to be big. I would rather see a small house with good architectural detailing than a huge house that has absolutely no charm. A great house needs to have good flow and traffic patterns and consideration given to how someone is going to live in it. A house needs to have good exterior massing relationships. It is important to think of each exterior mass and how it relates to the other masses that make up the entire exterior elevation. Proper exterior features like cornice and eave details, material selections, roof shapes, and color selections that are true to the architecture style are extremely important. Fenestration of windows and doors on the exterior as well as the relationship of windows on the upper floors to the lower windows is extremely important/. A couple of the worst mistakes that I see as far as the exterior is concerned are as follows:
1. Too many different materials and too many different textures. Don’t get me wrong, texture is important but it needs to make sense.
2. Garage masses that over whelm the rest of the exterior masses.
3. Dormer windows with such large roof overhang that dormer looks like it is getting ready to take off ( the flying nun syndrome I call it).
4. A hodgepodge of windows and doors on the exterior of a home and no thought given to how the relate to each other.
5. Finally, color is extremely important.
The average person typically will look at a house and realize that there is something wrong but does not know what it is. Then again some people have been sold on bad design for so long that they think bad design is good. Our house plans give a lot of attention to the proper elements that go into a Good House.

Budget Myths

Most people focus on square footage as the big item for cost control. This is not always the best place to cut cost. You can build two houses from the same set of plans with different specifications and have a significant difference in price. One house can have a slate roof, granite countertops, lots of trim or molding, etc., while the other house has the cheapest composition shingle, Formica” countertops, and little or no trim and moldings. The biggest mistake someone can make is to pick a plan solely on square footage. Buying a plan with a family room or den that is too small and you end up miserable in the house because of it is a huge mistake. Consider cutting back on finishes to save money. You can always add a nicer roof, granite countertops, or even more trim and molding. But you can not add that foot back to that family room or den.
Frank Snodgrass