Home Plans and Design

Stock Small Home Plans Save You Money and Time

You’ll be quite surprise how popular it is buying small home plans. Many of the houses you enjoy looking at (and sometimes even jealous of their owners…) were designed using stock home plan. And you’re not the first one to wonder about that and to ask yourself why should you buy them -

That was the question I asked my friend a few years ago when he suggested me that. Each time I visited him (not quite often, I must say. 150 miles are separating us), I used to be amazed of his cottage. It looked so beautiful outside and so efficient in its space usage, I was sure he paid architect to design it (and he can sure afford it, trust me). One day, as I told him I wish I could build house like his own, he instantly replied – So go and choose one design. There are thousands of them. Who do you think designed this house? At first I couldn’t believe, but when he showed me the blueprints and a website with so many small house designs, I understood that you can buy the blueprint for your dream house from a website, and it would significantly less expensive than custom designs. And when I say less expensive, I’m talking about thousand of dollars. Try and look for cottage or log cabin blueprting – no architect will charge you less than 5 to 7 thousand dollars, whereas stock plans would usually cost you no more than $700.

Usually you’ll build one house in your life. You want to put all your resource and much of your fortune into it. So why don’t you use the experience and knowledge of a professional home designers and architects, that have designed hundreds and thousands of houses, all in a very affordable cost?

How to Design Your Perfect Modular Home Plans

A modular home is very different from a manufactured or mobile home. It can be almost any shape or size. When you order a modular home it is created from your modular home plans and the modules are brought to your building site and put together.

The modular home can be designed in any way that you would like and are as small as a cottage or as large as a very elaborate modern home. There are many already designed plans for modular homes that can be used for your new home that were created to by experts to be an excellent use of space and practical use.

The smaller home usually begins at 1000 square feet and will probably have kitchens and living rooms that are open spaces. The bigger modular home designs can be 6000 square feet of usable living space. They will have up to five bedrooms, dining room, family room, separate living room, a breakfast nook and a library. If you would prefer to create or customize your own plan then the modular home company will help you with your plans to be sure that they will work on your site and meet your needs as well.

Your design will be crafted in modules and come almost ninety percent complete as it arrives at your building site. They will then put the sections together and finish both in interior and exterior touch-ups being careful to seal all the seams. For instance, the cabinets you choose and the fixtures will all arrive at your building site with the floors competed and even the walls painted.

The modular home are not just a box that is put together but they come with ornate details that are stylish and delicately detailed. The embellishments can be French doors, crown molding, angled walls or ceiling treatments. Even the small cottage size home can be customized to be detailed with special design features. This means that event the more inexpensive smaller home can be customized with the ornate features of the largest home making it a very unique home at an affordable price.

Modular home are build according to your plans and your added details. You will be able to make as many luxurious additions as you want. The choices for the cabinets, fixtures, flooring, color schemes, and windows will all be up to the plan you create for your home in the design phase.

When you have finished your design, then the factory takes a short time to get the modules ready for delivery to your building site and then it is just a week or two for completion.

Homogeneous Home Plans – Are They Good For the Neighborhood?

There has been much debate recently regarding the affects of the standardization of home plans in new developments. Developers work with architects to design a home plan that is both cost effective and aesthetically pleasing. They then build entire neighborhoods or developments using this home plan. These actions result in pleasant but homogenous neighborhoods. There are many advantages and disadvantages to using the same home plan for all parties involved including the developer, investor, and the homeowner.

The Developer: Building an entire neighborhood is an extremely expensive endeavor. To minimize the cost of creating the home plans for the development as well as the cost of the material and labor, developers will often create one prototype of a home plan and use it over and over. This way they are able to purchase materials on an economy of scale by buying in bulk. The labor is also more efficient since the contractors are building the same home plan each time. There area few issues for developers when building neighborhoods with these standard plans. If they overbuild and they encounter a recession in the housing market, they often end up with a glut of vacant housing. These units often sit there for months unoccupied and are hard to sell.

The Buyer: There are both economic and aesthetic benefits to living in communities with these standardized home plans. The first benefit is that you can purchase a cheaper home since the developer is building at a lower cost. Although the properties all have the same plans, they are new buildings and are generally decent looking.

The Investors: usually gravitate towards these types of properties as they are cheap investments and are generally cash flow positive. They are not as concerned with the aesthetics and design of the home because they don’t actually live in the neighborhood.

However, investors face the same disadvantages as the developers. If he over builds and the market collapses, they will have to sell cheaply because of the glut in the market of properties with the exact same home plans.