When the time comes in your life when you want to build a new home, you will have a lot of decisions to make. One of the early decisions will be, should I hire an Architect/home designer for a completely custom design, or purchase stock plans.
Time may be your most important consideration. You may have some rough idea of what you want in a home design, but getting those ideas transferred to construction drawings may take a considerable amount of time using an architect or home designer.
Cost may be another important factor. Most architects will work either on an hourly rate, or a fixed fee, based on a percentage of your total construction costs. Your cost for hiring an architect can run anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars, based on the total cost of your new construction, and whether you want the architect to keep an eye on the work in progress through final construction of your home. Most new home owners will not have a budget that can afford this cost for house plan design.
Stock home plans, in plan books and on house plan websites, offer you an opportunity to take your own ideas of what your family needs, and match them up with a set of drawings that are construction-ready for a much lower cost, and available in a very short time frame.
Many times these stock plans will have already been built at lease once, and you will find there are photos available of how the home actually looked after construction. These are a great help in making a difficult decision of which plan to choose.
You may find almost the perfect house plan in a stock package, but maybe you would need a three car garage instead of two, or you want a basement added to the house for additional living space. For a reasonable additional cost, the designer will be able to modify the drawings to make the changes you need, and provide you with your house plan package at a much lower cost than hiring an architect.
Each home that's built from that set of stock plans is an entirely different house, because the owner makes changes to suit their own needs, and their taste in home design. Landscaping around the home is going to be different also, based on where the home is built, the soil of the lot, and again the owner's taste in landscape design.
We are at your service to assist you in choosing your home plan package, and answering any questions you may have.
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