Everyone benefits when excessive money is not spend on blueprints. A customer who came to me recently spoke with an architect in Montana and she was quoted 8% of the total build cost for their architectural firm to do the full construction drawings for their home. The total architect’s bill would have been in the neighborhood of $56,000— which did not include any structural engineering, civil engineering, or geotech analysis. I charged about $4,800 for final construction drawings with the same level of construction detail for the project. This was a savings of $51,200 or 93%.
Affordable architectural designs can be drawn for all sorts of homes, garages, barns, barndominiums, and even multiplex housing units like townhouses or condos without investing substantial funds that can be well spent in other areas of your construction project, or simply a realized savings that does not have to be spent.
Architectural Designs
So what are “architectural designs”? Architectural designs simply means “the art of planning structures with aestheticism and function in mind”. Added to this, the plans are drawn with computer design software such as Revit and AutoCAD and comes with elevations, perspective views, floor plans, sectional views, framing schedules for things like the roof and subfloor, and sectional views. Other details that are often included are soffit and fascia, call-outs detailing siding materials, truss schedules, door and window schedules, and more. Often a site plan is included. And yes, all of this is included with our standard designs rates (please see our Services page).
Best House Plans on a Budget
Often owners purchase, or are tempted to purchase, stock plans from one of the online mass marketers of house plans only to realize that the plans do not include the changes they want and need nor any of the site specific information such as snow and wind load, site plan information, and a plot plan — which are all necessary to insure the house is built to the correct specifications for the property location and to meet the HOA and local building code requirements. The best house plans on a budget are those that have been customized to your own needs. If you find yourself the owner of a set of this type of plans, don’t despair. We can take these basics and revolutionize your plans and tailor them to meet your needs.
Low-Budget Simple House Design Plans
If you have ever been involved with getting a house approved, sometimes the HOAs (Home Owner’s Associations) can be harder to deal with than the city or county planning and permitting departments. No matter how much you pay for the designs, they may be rejected several times. From our experience, sometimes the cost-conscious low-budet simple house design plans that we provide pass through the permitting process faster than even architect-stamped plans. Why? Because we spend a lot of time during the design phase researching the HOA requirements and including them in the plans. Two homes we did recently only had a few minor changes to pass. For the one residence we had to adjust post size on the covered porch and on the second the HOA requested a total square footage count of the area projected to be disturbed during the construction process.
Cost-Smart Custom Home Design
While economy and maximizing your construction dollars are important, I would caution you about dirt cheap house plans. I have reviewed some of these and often they are very deficient in all sorts of vital information. You do “get what you pay for” but there is no reason to pay a full architect’s rate when plans like we provide meet and exceed the requirements and expectations.
Affordable architectural designs is a cost-smart avenue to see your custom home designed to meet your wants and needs while carrying the assurance that site-appropriate structural planning is incorporated. Our fancy quote about architectural designs above, “the art of planning structures with aestheticism and function in mind” is exactly what our designs do. Function should drive the design and the home should be tailored around how your family functions, what things are important to you, and what your specific needs are. And the aestheticism is formulated with materials and textures that resonate with you. Your home needs to be a haven of rest that allows you to relax and prepare to go back out and enjoy life. Too often cheap house blueprints or low budget ‘cookie cutter’ plans off of the internet are incapable of meeting your wants and matching your dreams.