How to Design Your Own House Plans
Though you'll need to have final blueprints drawn up, designing your own home is the best way to ensure that you get exactly what you want. Follow these steps to get a head start on building the house you've always wanted.
- Difficulty:
- Moderate
Instructions
Things You'll Need
- Graph Papers
- Home Design Software
- Pencils
- Personal Organizers
- Electronic Personal Organizers
- Notebooks
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1
Make a listing of your family's requirements: how many bedrooms you need, how large the rooms should be, what floor plan you want in your kitchen, if you want a formal living room and dining room, and so forth.
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2
Look around at houses you like in your neighborhood. Take note of details you like on houses you see; for example, you may not like your neighbor's entire house, but you love the porch.
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3
Read home design magazines for ideas.
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4
Read books on home design as well as those with collections of plans.
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5
Draw your floor plan in pencil on blank paper or on graph paper. Draw to scale; make a block or an inch equal a specific distance. Common scales are 1 inch = 4 feet and 1 inch = 8 feet.
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6
Consider using some helpful home design software- you'll probably find this easier than drawing. Most packages come with templates so you can easily insert appliances, fixtures and even furniture into your plan.
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7
Bring your plans to a architect so he or she can draw up building plans. The architect can also catch any problems or suggest changes.
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1
Tips & Warnings
Look at as many houses, plans and articles as you can. Nothing gives you more design ideas than seeing a lot of houses. Particularly useful are articles with color photos of the homes finished (and furnished).
Don't let the architect overwhelm you and change your plan needlessly. Listen to suggestions, but make your own decisions.
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Comments
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nice one
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this is nice.
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Idiotic concept- WOOF. You too can be a successful building designer- just walk around and steal a few copyrighted ideas, than have an architect "draw it up" for you. BUT.. don't let the professional change too many things on you - what do they know, they only studied design for for 5-6 years and then interned for another 5-6 before hanging out their shingle. No professional building designer or architect would touch a project like this with a 10-foot pole. Whomever wrote this nonsense was using "rolling papers" not "graph papers".
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rampg
Nov 01, 2008
If you think you can design your own house with a $99 software you are in for the surprise of your life. Architects don't go to architecture school 6 years for nothing. No responsible architect will do the plans for a houser designed like that. It's probably a death trap and many, many design issues would have been probably overlooked by an untrained person. The worse part is that you will come into the design process with a lot of pre-conceptions that may be irrelevant and will prevent you from analysing and accepting good ideas customized to your needs presented to you by the architect. Design is an adventure, enjoy it! -
rampg
Nov 01, 2008
If you think you can design your own house with a $99 software you are in for the surprise of your life. Architects don't go to architecture school 6 years for nothing. No responsible architect will do the plans for a houser designed like that. It's probably a death trap and many, many design issues would have been probably overlooked by an untrained person. The worse part is that you will come into the design process with a lot of pre-conceptions that may be irrelevant and will prevent you from analysing and accepting good ideas customized to your needs presented to you by the architect. Design is an adventure, enjoy it!
