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How to StartThe VisionStart with the home you imagine! As you confront such practical aspects as land, costs, and choosing a builder, let your own personal vision remain your top priority. Then it will truly be your home.Design: "To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent." American Heritage Dictionary A home begins in the mind. The physical manifestation of the home imagined will be a structure called a house, but it all starts with design. If you are planning to build a custom home, chances are you've been inventing your home in your mind, maybe for years. Your mental image picture may be in full-color of every detail, or only a sketchy wish list. Now, you've come to the point where you could use some help. You'll need a design and structural plan which accurately reflects your dreams, yet is buildable and fits your budget. If this first vital step of design is done right, it will lay the groundwork for all the stages which follow, helping to make the process smooth and successful.
Later on, the plan will serve to describe the details of the project to the builder, sub-contractors, suppliers, building officials, and utility companies. Before that, it serves to define for you what will be built. Your first challenge is to define for yourself your images, desires, tastes, wishes, requirements, lifestyle, activities, budget, and the rest of your needs.
Requirements of the SiteWhether you choose a library or stock plan, as is, have a plan modified, or have your home designed from scratch, the site will have its own requirements, which will limit the home design possibilities on that plot of land. A simple suburban lot may require very little research, but a challenging site with many legal and physical restrictions will require extensive research. It would be very disappointing to achieve a design you loved, only to discover it could not be built on your site after all. Your site research may even lead you to choose a different lot!Our booklet How to Choose a Site describes research you can do both before and after you have purchased a site. If you are planning to build in a neighborhood with standard rectangular lots, you can do this research for a typical lot, before you buy. This will help you determine if the neighborhood plots will suit you. Once you have found out what you may and may not do on your home site, draw a "building envelope." This is an outline drawn onto a site plan which delineates the boundaries within which you may build. The result might look like a simple rectangle on a rectangular piece of land, or it could be completely irregular in shape, bordered by various overlapping restricted areas. The space inside the envelope is where you may build your house. Draw separate building envelopes for outbuildings, pools, athletic courts, septic system, or the garage, as these often have different restrictions. Add streets adjacent to the property, and indicate all possible places for the driveway access.
OrientationMake notations on your site plan, showing the directions of sun, weather, views, and sound. Think about the afternoon blast of heat, the warming morning sun, the low winter sun and the high summer sun. Consider trees, hills, houses and buildings that provide welcome (or unwelcome) shade. From which direction come winter storms, summer winds and cooling breezes? Is there a noisy street, noisy neighbors, or a barking dog? Note which are the major and which are the minor views. Which are blocked or partly blocked, and how? Keep in mind that there may be things you do not want to see, such as a particular house, and things you do want to hear, such as the sound of the surf or a babbling brook!
EssentialsThere are features you would like to have in your home and there are features you must have. A simple way to tell the difference is to ask yourself, "If I couldn't have this, would I even bother to build a new home?" If the answer is "no," you have an essential feature. As an example, a young family who is expecting a child might decide that if they couldn't have one additional bedroom, there wouldn't be any point in moving. On the other hand, if they could not afford to include a separate laundry room, they might still decide to build. The bedroom is essential; the laundry room is not. Make a list now, and add to it as you think of more features. Also keep a separate wish list for non-essentials. Keep adding to the lists as you think of things, and refer to them often as the design develops.One good way to organize these lists is to use a separate page for each room, area or function of the house. Divide each page into four columns, as follows:
Living ActivitiesWrite down all the activities that will take place in your home. Now, imagine doing these things in a home without walls, and without sizes or shapes. Just float yourself and other occupants of the home in space, going about the activities of life, including using furniture, getting things out and putting things away, and entering and leaving the house.StorageFor each activity in your home, you have possessions. It is just as important to include storage in your plans as activities. Some storage places are in walk-in-closets, standard closets, cabinets, furniture, under-stair spaces, garage, basement, attic, or even outbuildings. Special rooms that provide for a combination of storage and activity include laundry rooms, mudrooms, offices, media rooms, exercise rooms, playrooms, hobby rooms, room-size pantries, garden rooms, shops, and hallways with closets. Imagine how it would add to your life to have a staging area near an exterior door with storage for the things your family takes with them when they go out. Some of the items which could live there are school books, raincoats, briefcases, library books, outgoing and incoming mail and packages, rented videos, keys, sunglasses, canes, strollers, and backpacks.LayoutIf you plan a home with more than one story, decide which activities, furnishings and storage areas should be on each floor. Which activities could go on any floor, depending on the design? Remember to consider the special needs of children, the elderly and the disabled.Now, orient your activities, furnishings and storage to the sun, shade, sound, views and weather, as depicted on your plot plan. How will you approach and enter the house - from the street, driveway, garage, decks, patios and yard? Where do you want the morning sun: in your bedroom, in the kitchen, on the garden? When do you want to see the views: when dining, washing the dishes, sitting on the couch, waking in the morning, soaking in the Jacuzzi? Do you want to lie in bed and see the stars through a skylight? Don't forget practical concerns. Where will your houseplants and pets live? How can you keep the glare off your computer or television screen? Will you want outdoor space that is protected from wind or sun? From where do you want to see children playing outside? Will you want to see visitors approaching your door? Where will the snow pile up? Not in front of your garage door! Note also any design problems that come up. A frequent problem with view houses is how to arrange your living room furniture so as to see both the view and the fireplace. Another is how to enjoy a western view during afternoon summers when the sun blasts through the windows. Designers often use overlapping circles rather than rectangles to define these amorphous areas. You'll end up with one or more sheets of paper covered with these rough circles, which you may alter from time to time as the design progresses. You can make more than one version. Next, indicate roughly where you will want walls to create sound or sight buffers. Now you know what rooms you want in your house. It may help to look through plan books at this point. Floor plans will give you an idea of the different ways that homes have been laid out. Drawings or photos of homes will give you ideas about exterior styles. The style of the home is one of the things that determine how much of the square footage of the house ends up on which story. For example, the Colonial style lends itself to an equal amount of space on each story, whereas a Cape Cod has much more on the lower story. Any vaulted or high ceiling reduces the space available on the floor above. Partial-flight stairs create multi-level homes. A view home is best designed from scratch for a particular site and its views. Arranging the rooms to take advantage of the views may also create a unique design. Our 19-page booklet, the Custom Home Design Guide, with forms, charts and tips, was developed to help you organize your needs and ideas for your custom home. SizeTo get an idea of the size house you have dreamed up, make a list of the living and storage areas. Now, work on the rough sizes for those rooms, using for comparison your present residence or that of a friend. In this way, you can physically experience the size of the rooms, unlike working with a flat floor plan only or even with a 3-D computer rendering.If you think your master bedroom should be as big as your living room is now, go stand in your living room and imagine it transformed into a master bedroom. Which will be the outside walls with windows? Assign areas for the closet, the desired size bed and other furniture. Include space to do all the things you want to do in your bedroom (study, read, exercise, do office work, watch TV). If you want to make sure there is room for the children to run around in the new playroom, let them run around a room of similar size. To see if you can maneuver between kitchen counters, set up chairs or tables to represent the counters, and mime your typical cooking actions. How about when you add an extra cook or a toddler? Another way to visualize the size of rooms is to visit realtors' or builders' open houses. Measure the length of your stride before you go and you'll be able to pace off any room for a quick measurement. Although it would be fun to measure out rooms in your backyard or at the beach, it is not a good way to imagine interior spaces, which feel quite different when enclosed by walls and ceiling. Once you have rough sizes for your rooms, add, for each full flight stairway, about 80 to 100 square feet. For a half-flight in a split-level design, add about 50-60 square feet. Now, total the square feet on each floor, and finally add about 5% for hallways. Consulting the building envelope on your plot plan, can you see that there is definitely room on your site to place the lower story? If not, consider moving a room or area upstairs. Or, you may need to pare down the size of one or more rooms, or to eliminate an optional room, relegating its activities elsewhere. If it is a tight squeeze, especially if the outline of the building envelope is quite irregular, consider retaining professional design services, rather than trying to find a stock plan. Some building sites present a design challenge. Architects, building designers, and designer-builders perform residential design services. BudgetNext, ask one or more local builders to give you an idea of current building costs for custom homes. They might express this in terms of a range of prices, per square foot, and it might be quite a wide range. This reflects the fact that differences in costs are determined not only by the size of houses, but also by their specificatons. Some custom builders have model homes that represent the quality you can expect from that builder for a given price per square foot.Now is the time to take a realistic look at your lists of "essentials" and "non-essentials". Honestly evaluate if you should use a lower, middle, or higher price per square foot. One example of a lower-cost specification is a laminate kitchen counter from your local home improvement store, versus the higher-cost specification of a custom granite counter. If you are planning to have a marble slab floated over from Italy, the higher range is probably not high enough. Another example would be your choice between composite, metal, shingle, or tile roofing. Now, multiply the square footage of your imagined house by the appropriate price per square foot. Does it fit your budget? What if you pare down to your "essentials" list only? Remember to leave room in your budget for changes and unexpected expenses. Industry recommendations for the amount of that contingency fund range from 10% to 25% of the total budget. Use the lower figure for a simple design on a flat, uncomplicated lot, as long as you do not have expensive tastes and you are not prone to changing your mind. Use the higher figure for a home to be built on a hillside, with a complex shape, or with high-end fixtures, materials, or methods. Stock Plan, Library Plan, or Design-from-ScratchIf you haven't done this already, it's time to choose whether to buy a stock or library plan, as is or modified, or to have your home designed from scratch.The difference between library plans and stock plans is that library plans were custom designed for a particular client. To find a usable library or stock plan, peruse plan books and websites, keeping in mind what is important to you in terms of the use of your land, the orientation to sun and weather, the general layout of the rooms and stories, a rough idea of the size of the house, and the type of specifications within your budget. If you find something that is awfully close to your ideal, inquire about having modifications made. To have a home completely custom designed, choose an architect, designer or designer-builder. Where do you go from here?If you've gone through all the above steps, you will be on your way to achieving a home design you love and which meets your needs. Now it's time to get a partner.A library or stock plan may be modified by the plan company or a professional architect or designer. House plans are protected by copyright, so always get written permission before having a plan altered. If the copyright holder is an architect or designer, he may reserve his legal right to make any changes himself. Take the final plan to a custom home builder, or retain the services of a designer-builder for both modifications (with permission as above) and construction. If you've chosen to have a unique home designed, give the designer all the information that you have been compiling, along with any photos, pictures or drawings that might help you communicate the style you like. At Peter Asher Designs, we provide our clients with our 19-page Custom Home Design Guide, to help them focus on what they really want and need in a home. A good designer will ask you extensive questions about your specifications and desires, either in writing or in person. Even after providing all your notes, pictures and site research, it is still necessary to talk to your designer, answer his questions, and ask your own. If your designer does not completely understand what you want, he may create a design that does not work for you. Having your plans repeatedly changed and redrafted could add considerable time and expense. A small detail, such as a few inches difference in the dimensions of a bathtub, is capable of causing a chain reaction, requiring the redesign of the bathroom, adjacent closet or bedroom, nearby stairway, or even a room on the floor below or above. So be sure to ask which specifications are needed to create the initial design plan. Whichever course you choose, with careful planning you can create a home that is livable, comfortable, one-of-a-kind and exactly what you want.
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