House Plans and Custom Home Design

House plans are documents that you use to build a home. The documents usually consist of the following sheets: Notes, Elevations, Floor Plans, Foundation Plan, Floor Framing Plan, Roof Framing Plan, and Construction Details. House plans should be detailed enough for submitting and getting your building permits. When your house plans get approved at the Building Department then you may use them for getting bids from builders and sub-contractors for pricing out your building cost. Once you get a bid you can choose the home builder and start building your new home.

In order to build a home you need your project to be organized and accurate, You need to meet the requirements of the local building code. Whey you buy house plans, this gives you the peace of mind that you are well prepared to build your new home.

Yes, house plans can be copyrighted and are protected under federal copyright law. It is never a good idea for a designer or architect to start their designs from someone else's designs or plans.

Yes, any house plan that you find from our website can be customized or changed. It is easy. We can meet together in person, or on zoom and discuss any changes that you want to make.

There are many factors that go it to making a house inexpensive to build. A good design considers this no matter what the budget is. Nobody wants to waste money. We considera lot of things . First, many materials come in 2 ft. increments. When a plan is designed in 2 ft. exterior dimensions this helps to eliminate waste. We consider floor joists spans, truss spans,  interior bearing walls, and all other structural elements to value engineer each home.

Yes, however, house plans that are bought online often do not meet code. many are poorly drawn up and lack detail and clarity. In Washington State there is a very strenious energy code that requires spec ial trusses and insulation details. When you buy a plan online from a national company it often requires updates to meet local codes. This can become very expensive. We recommend using a local company.

When you want to create a house plan you must consider a lot of things concurently. Here are some things we think about: Slopes where the house is going to be placed, views, asthetics, green building, archiectural style, cost to build, height, width, and depth restrictions. value engineering, and ease to build construction methods. Then, you must consider the flow and funciton of the home as a hole and each room individually.

House plans are much less expensive if you order them without changes. Call to find out the current fee schedule. When changes are made the stock house plans then the hourly rate is charged per current fee schedule. Custom Home Plans are charged by the square foot. This price may vary depending on where you are buidlng. Call us to find out more. 

360-237-4784

Most house plans take between three to four weeks to create. Once the house plans are done then you need to plan for Engineering which is done by an outside engineering firm and can take sever al weeks to complete.