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Posts Tagged ‘Custom’

If a new custom home is in your future, consider doing at least the preliminary designs yourself.  Of course you have no doubt already looked at countless home designs in magazines, but none fit your bill – exactly.

With today’s technology, computer drawing software has been made extremely user friendly.  There are a number of design software options available that the complete novice can quickly manage.  And many of these programs are powerful enough for professional designers as well.

Simple and professional.  What could be better for your own do-it-yourself custom home design software?  Now you can take the best ideas of all of those plans that you have been browsing over and try to incorporate them into your special home.

Many of these software programs offer simple “drag-and-drop” features.  This speeds up the design process considerably and allows you more time to do the more important design tasks like bathroom designs and kitchen designs and closet designs…..

Now designers, architects and builders will do this work for – FOR A PRICE.  But it may take a few generations of drawings to get to your desired home design.  And we all know that time is money!

You will gain a great deal of insight into your home when you design it yourself.  You will look at space requirements and flows that you may otherwise disregard if designed by someone else.  And some of the small but important spaces – closet, linen storage, laundry, even kitchen cupboard spaces – will get the extra attention that you deem is required.

Having this kind of input into your special new home design will be exciting and self-satisfying as well.  Imagine having you friends over raving about a particular design feature and being able to say “That was MY design idea”.

Now you will likely still have to engage someone to produce the construction set of drawings, but the design is still YOURS.  And you will truly end up with a custom home designed especially for you.

Pre-drawn home designs:

Pre-drawn home designs are, by contrast, home designs which have been developed to fit the needs of a particular group of the general populace. They are not “custom-designed” for a particular person, but rather, standardized for the needs of a larger group.

Pre-drawn home designs normally include the “most requested” house plan features including square footage, room dimensions, floor plan layout, amenities, and other like features. These home designs provide an excellent value when compared to the corresponding price of a set of fully custom-designed home designs which may well exceed several thousand dollars.

When you buy a Pre-drawn house plan, you’re not paying for the countless hours spent drawing up a plan, re-working the plan, and finalizing drafts. You’re paying a reduced fee for a single license of that plan.

Advantages of Pre-drawn home designs:

- In most cases, are significantly less expensive

- Minor plan modifications can usually be made by the original designer or a local building design professional for a reasonable charge.

- Very simple and quick purchase process

- Can order the plans and be able to submit the home designs for a building permit the next day

Disadvantages of Pre-drawn home designs:

- May not be as extensively customizable

In conclusion, I would recommend trying to find a pre-drawn house plan, first, at a reputable online house plan website such as HousePlanGallery.com.

There are thousands of pre-drawn home designs available online, and http://www.HousePlanGallery.com offers a huge selection of unique home designs in many different architectural styles.

More likely than not, you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for by doing a simple search. With so many home designs available to choose from, it’s a safe bet that you won’t see your house plan replicated in your area. And if you find a plan you like, but want to make a few modifications – no problem! All of the plans available at http://www.HousePlanGallery.com can be modified to your specifications.

Determining whether your particular needs merit custom or pre-drawn home designs is, ultimately, a personal choice based on your particular situation. Both types will provide you with the information that you need to successfully build your dream residence!

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Interested in learning more? Read the entire article on at:

House Plan and Home Plan Articles

See the most popular home designs at:

Best Selling House Plans and Floor Plans

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Drawing custom house plans is an expansive industry, but finding a quality designer with construction experience can be more difficult.  Although many individuals claim to be qualified custom home designers, you can determine these qualifications by examining their finished product and verifying satisfaction with their former clients.  Quality designs, highly detailed house plans and customer satisfaction are all attributes of an experienced custom home designer.

Integrating many different concepts and functions is necessary to draw a good set of custom house plans.  Many designers can come up with interesting ideas, but they are unable to convey these ideas with detailed construction drawings to the home builders.  They can draw a nice conceptual picture, but these individuals have little or no construction knowledge to translate these ideas into a detailed set of house plans in which the builder can understand.  It is necessary to not only have a keen eye for design, but also a strong understanding of what can be built and how it can be built affordably.

Having been in the home design and construction industry for 20 years, Design Alternatives has seen a large number of house plans which appeared complete at first glance.  Although further examination sometimes revealed that these so called custom house plans lacked large amounts of pertinent information.  If a set of construction drawings is not easy to read or thoroughly detailed, the builder is left to make his own interpretation which inevitably leads to guesswork.  This ultimately means increased building costs since he will have to inflate his bid to make sure he covers any unknown construction costs.

When evaluating the quality level of house plans, certain items to check are the amount of pertinent dimensions, notes and details.  Highly detailed sets of custom house plans will always include the necessary information to build the house in a productive and affordable way.  You will find many home plans available today are incomplete while only showing the design concept rather than the detail.  Any time your builder is left to guess at how something will be built, it will obviously add cost to your home construction project.  Not all designers go the extra mile to create a quality and useful finished set of house plans, so make sure the custom home designer you select has design as well as construction knowledge.

Design Alternatives Custom Home Design takes pride in offering its clients quality custom house plans which comes from the vast experience received during its 20 years in the custom home design and construction industry.  This experience along with the long list of satisfied clients has proven to be the driving force of success for Design Alternatives.