House plans, home builders & dreams

If you take your time and plan your house well and create detailed plans, you are more likely to obtain the result you want. If you make any changes further on down the track, it will cost a lot more money. You can use the final plans and specifications to obtain quotes from builders.

Remember to take into account the measurements of your furniture and appliances to make sure they will fit. Look at rooms you like the size of (that contain similarly-sized furniture as yours) and measure them, so that your house will be as roomy. Once rooms are built, you often can't easily make them any bigger!

I recommend that you go and look at display homes and at the homes of friends and family for ideas.

Doing your own initial plans

Spend a lot of time on the site and think deeply about what you would like where. For example, look at the morning sun and think which rooms you would like this to shine into. Look at the views on all sides and try and work out which ones you like the best. See what side the afternoon sun falls on and plan what would be best on the western side. For example, in places like Australia where the western sun is very hot, you might be able to put your garage on the western side so you can shade some of the heat from the house.

It is a good idea to buy a book of graph paper and to do some exploratory drawings, first of all in pencil and later in ink (when you know what you want).

Discuss with other members of your family what they need or would like to have in the new house. Make sure your furniture will fit in the rooms you design. Get your tape measure out and measure your furniture, closets and appliances and work out how large each room will need to be to fit everything in it and still have some open space too. Think about the future of your family. Are you planning to have another child? Will the new house cater for this? Also allow for the width of the walls (or just make the house bigger than you think you will really need and let the person who does the final plans allow for the walls). Or draw the walls with a thick marker.

Check that the house you have designed will fit onto the land you have purchased. Remember that in most areas there are generally rules which state you have to build a certain distance back from the street and that you have to have some space between you and your neighbors.

You can also measure the heights of the walls of your existing house and use this as a basis to work out if you would prefer higher ceilings or lower ceilings. If you're building in a hot climate, you should consider higher ceilings and wider eaves. In a colder climate, you may want to ensure that some rooms have lower ceilings so that they will be easier to heat.

See the ebook for the rest of this section.

The type of consultant to use

It takes time to do your own plans and the expertise of a professional can certainly provide you with a lot of advice and save you time and money. It is very difficult to do your own final plans (but not impossible) as you need to know how to use a drawing package (such as CAD) or else do them laboriously by hand. You also have to know all the building requirements of the local authorities. Generally it takes a number of years of study to be able to do them properly.

You have to decide whether you want the builder to do the plans, or an architect, designer or draftsperson. Some consultants have more local or industry knowledge of construction methods and costs and some give more advice (eg about traffic flows). If you want to, some can even supervise the building process.

Always make sure that whoever does the plans gives you an estimate before they begin and ask them to warn you if something will make them go over their initial estimate.

Generally the consultant owns copyright of the plans. But make sure to discuss the copyright as you want to be able to take the plans to whoever you please for a quote and you don't want to be locked into a particular builder or have to pay the consultant any extra fees for using the plans.

No matter which type of consultant you choose, it is always a good idea to talk to the potential builders while the plans are in the preliminary stage as they might also have some good suggestions (eg a cheaper building method) and you can then pass on these ideas to the consultant doing the plans.

You have the right to ask them when, where and how many years they studied, what they have designed, their area of specialization, client references, examples of their designs, etc.

See the ebook for the rest of this section.

Expertise

It is always advisable to go and see some of the buildings that your consultant has designed. Observe whether they look good, suit the environment and are well built.

You can also ask for the phone numbers of the owners of houses they have designed and speak with them. Ask them if they had any problems during the designing process and how they felt the consultant handled the job. Ask them if the person has any bad points or bad habits they should keep an eye out for.

See the ebook for the rest of this section.

Preliminary plans

The preliminary plans generally consist of:

• a site plan
• a floor plan
• four elevations of each building (ie drawings from East, North, South and West).

Final plans

The final plans generally consist of:

• a site plan
• a floor plan
• four elevations of each building (ie drawings from East, North, South and West)
• a cross section of each building
• footing and slab plan (if it is on a slab)
• bracing plan
• roof framing plan
• footing details
• roof framing details
• reflected ceiling plan
• an electrical plan
• a drainage plan
• other details.

Note: You can also pay extra for other plans, such as detailed plans of the interior walls in the kitchen, showing the cupboards, etc.

Tip: Make sure that the plans are correct and that everything is in position. For example, with my plans, although the dishwasher was marked in the kitchen on the general floor plan there was no provision made for it on the plumbing plan so no tap was installed to connect it to and no outlet/power-point was installed behind it to plug it into because it wasn't on the electrical plan. Fortunately, I discovered these omissions just before the plaster was installed and so they were able to be corrected in the nick of time.

See the ebook for the rest of this section.

Extra costs

When you get the fee proposal for the house design, make sure it specifies how many revisions of the preliminary drawings this includes. Ideally you should ask for at least two revisions as there is no point receiving plans that you can't review and modify.

See the ebook for the rest of this section.