Picking out or designing house plans is such a fun thing to do. You get to dream about what your future home will look like. You get to be creative on paper. You can make this place exactly how you want it to be. Really, this has been one of my favorite parts of building a house so far.
This step is a little bit intertwined with step one, which was all about planning. If you missed step one, make sure to check it out RIGHT HERE.
Before you can settle on exactly what house plan you want, you have to have a pretty dang good idea of everything else you want too. Of course while you are planning, you will also be experimenting with house layouts and designs, but you can’t decide exactly how you want your house until you have made all of those other decisions. And you certainly shouldn’t be meeting with a designer unless you have most everything else figured out.
So once you have everything planned out and you know what you want and where you want it, you are going to draw up your house plans. Use a large posterboard or huge sheet of graph paper. Graph paper is probably easier but I didn’t have any on hand, so I drew mine on a bright pink posterboard. My designer made fun of me for that, but then he told me how useful it was so go ahead and use neon posterboard if that’s all you’ve got. Use a ruler and decide what scale you will use. I drew mine 1/4 inch=1 foot and it fit just right. Here is what it looks like.
If you take the time to measure everything out and label it, you will benefit in 2 ways.
- You can see exactly how everything fits together. You will be able to tell if that huge kitchen table you want will fit in the dining room, or if you have enough room to put bookshelves where you want them. You can draw everything into your house and see exactly how much room you will have. You don’t want to build your entire house only to find out that you can’t get your furniture where you want it to go.
- You did half of your designer’s job for him. Now your designer doesn’t have to design your house, he just has to convert it to blueprints. If you are paying your designer by the hour like we were, you just cut your bill in half. If you are paying him by the job, then you save yourself hours of time meeting with him to make adjustments and changes. Also, if you are paying him by the job you should tell him ahead of time that you already drew the plans, he just needs to put them in his computer program. This should cut down his price somewhat.
House plans: Buy stock plans vs draw up custom plans
Now I am sure some of you are wondering why I am telling you to draw your plans instead of finding stock plans on the internet…. When I called around shopping for a designer, I asked every single one of them what their preference was. I asked them if it would be better for me to order plans and have them adjusted to what I want, or to draw the plans from scratch. 2 of them told me it didn’t matter. They said it would take the same amount of time for them to draw up new plans as it would for them to make changes to stock plans. The reason for this was that most stock plans needed to be changed or, at the very least, completely looked over in order to make sure everything was in order to pass code.
Building code is different everywhere. In Grant County where I live, they are notorious for having more restrictions then the surrounding areas. Any stock plans that I would have purchased, would have needed to be changed or added to, in order to meet code.
The other 2 designers that I talked to about it said that they much preferred to start from scratch and draw custom plans. It would be easier, cheaper, and I would be more pleased with the end results because I could draw up exactly what I wanted.
Now I am just telling you what they told me. In my case, because of where I live, and because of the fact that I couldn’t find plans that were exactly what I wanted in a house, it was a much better and cheaper decision to draw up my own custom plans. I will have to admit that I also think it’s super cool that no one else has the same house as I do. I created it, and it is exactly how I want it.
It seems to me that the only exception to that would be that you found stock plans that were EXACTLY what you wanted and they didn’t need a to be changed. If that is the case, then my suggestion to you would be to call a few designers and ask them what they think before you pay for the house plans.
I wrote an entire article on how to choose between stock plans and drawing your own custom plans. You can read that HERE.
How much should I be paying for house plans?
One of the questions that I always want answered is how much things should cost. I HATE calling someone to get a quote when I don’t have the foggiest idea of what it should be costing. One time I was asking a sub about his prices and he told me “four fifty”. I had absolutely no idea whether he meant $4.50 or $450.00 seriously! For a few seconds I was freaking out because I didn’t want to make a complete fool of myself, but I also NEEDED to know which one he meant. I had to ask him which one, he chuckled at me but was very nice, and then told me he meant $4.50
Well let me just tell you how lucky you are to have me to tell you how much everything costs so you don’t have to look like a complete fool!
How we saved $500 on our house plans
I got 4 different bids to draw up my house plans. The first bid I got was $1200, the second was $1400, the third was $1400, and the fourth was $400. It pays to shop guys! Keep looking until you find the best option. The cheapest option is not always the best option, but in this case it was. The reason it was so much cheaper than all the others is because the fourth designer charged by the hour not the job. He also doesn’t do it as his full time job. Because of this, we planned for it to take a little longer for him to finish the plans. That was no problem at all, because we planned way in advance. Remember step one??? Planning will save you more money than anything else. Because we weren’t in a hurry, we were able to hire someone that was much cheaper but would take a little longer to get the job done. And since I had drawn up my house plans to scale ahead of time, it cut down on the hours that our designer needed to finish our house plans.
Then a few weeks later, we ran into a hiccup. While we were getting quotes from other contractors, we learned that Grant County was incredibly strict on building plans. We would need a much more detailed blueprint in order to get a building permit. The designer we were using didn’t have experience in our county, so he suggested we find a designer who knew what we would need in order to polish off the design. So we started shopping again. We were referred by a friend back to the guy who gave us our third quote. Originally he had quoted us $1400. This time he quoted us $750. I am assuming this is because of his work load at the time. I asked him if he would be willing to lower the price even more because we had the plans drawn up we just needed them finished to Grant County standards. He agreed, and we settled on $600.
So even after hiring two different designers, we still stayed under the first quote of $1200. If we didn’t live in a county with strict rules, we could have had our building plans completed for $400. The only reason we were able to save money on our blueprints was because I was willing to keep shopping. Shop, shop, shop for every single thing you have to pay for, and don’t stop until you have found someone that you are completely confident in for a price that makes you want to tell all your friends. After you shop, negotiate prices, deals, trades, anything you can to get that price down.
We worked out a trade with our first designer for something that was sitting on our property not being used. It knocked off an additional $300
Total price for our completed house plans: $700
Total saved from not going with the first quote we got: $500
My attitude about house plans has been to spend the effort now making the plans perfect on paper and the rest of the process will go a lot more smoothly. We made sure the blueprints were EXACTLY how we wanted them so that hopefully we won’t have to make changes later on that cost us money.
Would you like to see our blueprints? They are located on the checklists, schedules, and printables page. You can sign up below FREE.
If you have already signed up CLICK HERE to visit the page.
If you missed Step 1: Where to start CLICK HERE
Ready to move on to Step 3: Your first hire?
or check out my complete article on choosing between stock plans and custom plans HERE.
~Farmer’s Wife
FREE checklists and schedules
Access to the resources I created that helped Farmer and I save over $75,000 building our own custom dream home.
Kristin McCarroll says
I’m currently in the planning stages of getting ready to build our home. My husband will be building 95% of the house himself. I would be extremely interested in who your designer was. We live in a rural area and there is only 1 company who would be willing to take my house plans and draw them up. (Which will cost me close to $5000) Thank you in advance for your help.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Yikes that seems really high! I just emailed you with a little more information. It might be worth saving $4,000 to travel for a house designer! We had ours done for $1,000 and we even had to hire two designers.
Nicol says
Some counties require county approved architects. Sigh.
Kim says
We will be building in the the next year (in SW Washington!) We will be the general contractor, and my husband plans to do a lot of the work himself. I have read every square inch of your page and appreciate all the detail and time you have put in to sharing. Our house plans look very similar…would you mind sharing a exterior photo? I’d love to see it! Also, what are the parts you plan to do yourself vs what you plan to hire out? It is so exciting but so overwhelming at the same time! One more question as far as budgeting. Do you have a list of items you used to budget? A spreadsheet? I know carpet, flooring, cabinets, etc. but what about all those little things that add up that I’m sure I don’t even know I need?? Thank you so much for sharing!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hi Kim,
So cool that we are so close together! Thank you for the nice comment. Farmer and I were a lot less comfortable with the first parts of building (foundation, framing, plumbing, etc) then the finish work later on. So we hired people to help us on most of the first half. The second half we will be doing mostly on our own because he has a little experience with floors, cabinets, finish electrical, etc. But we have been very involved in every single thing so far except for the plumbing and HVAC system.
As far as the budget goes, I have had a lot of people asking for that so I am working on putting it all together right now in a way that is easy to understand (easier said than done!) There were definitely A LOT of “those little things” that I didn’t know anything about either. Probably around $50,000 worth haha, but I will get that put together as soon as I can so you guys have something to go off of.
Keep me updated on how your build goes! I would love to hear all about it.
~Farmer’s Wife
Leti says
Hey Kim, my husband and I will be building in the next year. And wondering where you’re located. We will be building in Kalama Washington. I’d be interested in knowing who you used as your sub-contractors?
Thanks😀
Leti
Moriah says
Your blog is so thorough, I love it! But as a planner, I am always hungry and searching for more info haha. I have drawn out our floor plan, both main level and basement (probably more on to architects standards than most) but I’m hung up on the fact that I don’t want to take my plans to a designer and have them do stuff as well (except maybe the roof plan, but even that I would like to do myself) but am having a hard time finding help and direction on what to do so that it’s still safe and acceptable. Any advice for someone who wanted to be an architect but couldn’t afford the school but now feels like this is “her chance”??? (Sorry if any of this is confusing! Feel free to email me! 🙂 )
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
No you are fine 🙂 I think it is good for other people to read these in case they have the same questions.
I think it’s great you want to do your own plans. I have two suggestions …. 1. If you have a knowledge base on this subject, which is sounds like you do have some, there are computer programs out there that will help you with the details. You can design everything the way you want it, and it will allow you to see it in 3D. If you kind of know what you are doing as far as design and architecture goes, then this is a great option. You may even be able to find someone that has a program, or rent one from the library or something, in order to save the cost of the program. However, if it is something you love to do and you are serious about it, you might consider buying a program and doing plans for other people when you are done with your own. In our county you don’t have to get your plans stamped by an engineer, anyone with a computer program can do it.
2. Ask around and find a designer or architect that would be willing to “mentor” you. Pick their brain and have them teach you what you need to know in order to do your own plans. You may not be able to find someone willing to do this for free, but if you want to do it right then this may be the best option.
Gabrielle says
Hi! I came across your website yesterday and read the entire thing in one evening. Today I’ve started on your checklists and timeline. And I got Mark Smith’s book from the library. Everything has been very helpful- so let me just start by saying THANK YOU! I’ve already made lots of progress in the past 24 hours thanks to your website and advice. I’m still a bit overwhelmed by it all, but the way you have broken everything down has made the process a lot easier to understand. I too will be the female GC of a husband-wife owner-builder team.
My question is in reference to finding a designer/architect to draw up blueprints for us. I have already drawn a to-scale rough schematic design of our desired house plan but need to have it drafted into blueprints for construction plans (permit drawings). I have only found 3 companies in my area that offer this type of service, and they seem pretty pricey. One quoted me a fee of $2 per square foot! It sounds like what I need to find is someone who doesn’t do this for their full time job, but does it on the side and can take my designs and turn it into blueprints. Where/how do I find that person? Do you have any suggestions?
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Wow that’s expensive! First I would try looking far outside your area? Where are you at? Often times it is worth driving several hours for a house designer. I talked to a lady once who took a plane 5 states away to have hers drawn up because it was a $5,000 price difference.
In our area (central Washington State) the average price was 30-40 cents per square foot. We found a guy that only charged $750 for custom plans. Look as far outside your area as you have to.
As far as finding someone who does it on the side, usually those people work by word of mouth. It’s really hard to find people who just do it for fun or for a little extra money, as they don’t usually have an actual company. Try asking anyone you know of that has built in the last ten years. I bet they all remember who drew up their plans.
Thank you for the wonderful comment Gabrielle, you can absolutely do this!
Megan Musgrove says
Hi, I’d like to pipe in with hopefully some helpful info as I am actually a designer.
To be honest I first came across this post on Pinterest and clicked it b/c the title scared me a little! It always scares me a little when anyone says they drew their own home plans and I at first thought, “No! Please don’t tell people to do that!”. So I was relieved when I saw you simply sketched your floor plan and then took that to a designer. 🙂
I cannot repeat enough that the cheapest option isn’t always the best. Like with many things, you often get what you pay for. Another word of caution: Several people have brought up finding someone who doesn’t do this full time. That’s fine, no judgement on part-timers (this is what I do for a living, but I still work part time). However, oftentimes people drawing up plans in their spare time are moonlighting off their employers’ software. It’s extremely illegal. So if someone is doing this, you might want to ask if they own their own software license. Some programs used aren’t ridiculously expensive, but some are. It cost me over $6000 to get started with my software and over $1000 every year to keep it up. Not to mention maintaining very powerful computers, etc. So the people that do have their own companies may have a good chunk of overhead they’re maintaining.
The main thing to note is that you’re not just paying for someone who has the software. You’re paying for someone who both knows their software AND who can design. I sometimes cringe a little when someone calls and says they drew up their own plans. Simply b/c there’s so much more to it than many folks realize. There are guidelines (I have my own sort of rules I follow) for everything from how much space in a potty room, to how wide for a hallway, and how much clearance between surfaces in a kitchen. There are also modular dimensions to consider (friendly dimensions). These are things I do automatically, but most people aren’t aware of.
There’s also the massing to consider. The shape of the house. If someone draws up a lovely floor plan that can easily be adjusted to where it works just fine, did they consider the roof lines? On very simple homes this isn’t usually a major issue, but the more complex it gets, it quickly becomes so.
Things like windows and doors. Their locations and proportions. I see a lot of “ugly” dormers simply b/c there are right and wrong ways to do those so they look right.
So when you pay for a good designer, you’re paying for much more than just a set of blueprints drawn up. You’re paying for their knowledge and experience. Someone that may have less experience or not have as good an eye may cost less, but your home will very likely not look as good or function as well. I tend to teach my clients through the process. I like to say we design the home together b/c it’s their home, their money, and they will be the ones living there. But I want them to be in love with it and most people trust my judgement on proportions and things. I teach them along the way and we generally end up with a wonderful end product.
It’s also important to know the difference between an architect and a designer/drafter. A licensed architect has been through a professional program of study to obtain a Bachelor’s of Architecture. Usually a five year program. Then they’ve interned for at least three years with a firm and then taken a slew of exams to obtain licensure. It’s a very lengthy process. And therefore they usually cost a lot more. However, they often do extremely detailed plans and do project management as well. A designer or drafter could have little to no training, as there’s no regulating body for them. I, personally, have an Associates of Drafting. This is common, but as far as design I am completely self taught. Most people don’t need a licensed architect for their plans. Only if you’re doing a very complex, very large home, or a modern home. Most people are fine with a drafter/designer. However, just know what you’re getting and if you’re comparing prices, make sure you’re comparing apples to apples.
Hopefully these tips will help some folks out who are looking for designers!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Wow, thank you so much for that Megan! That was very helpful.
May I ask where you are from? People reading this may be interested to know where to find a qualified designer such as yourself.
~Farmer’s Wife
Kari Chicoine says
I’m so glad you responded so intelligently to this. I am a drafter/designer and educator by trade. I’m in California and $5,000 for a custom home is a deal. When you pay someone for a set of plans to obtain building permits, you need someone who knows the local, state, and international building codes. You can’t just turn in floor plans, you have to do site plans, elevations, sections, electric/lighting plans and many details. Then you need the structural engineering and Title 24 report. We also need fire sprinklers designed here. With all those consultants, I do the coordination for all of this included in my fee as well as the printing of all the plans. Drawing up house plans is not an easy thing to do if you want a quality, well thought out home. Little things you would never think of can be pointed out to you by someone who does this for a living…and that’s my two cents worth.
Kelly H. says
I would love to know who your final designer was. We are hoping to build next year in Adams County Washington. We’re also hoping to do a lot of the ‘finish’ work ourselves. Your blog has been super helpful!! Thanks!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Kelly, we used a guy named Slavik. All the info about him is on the checklists, schedules, and printable page with the list of people I hired. He was AWESOME and I loved working with him. Not to mention he was by far the cheapest I found around here. He isn’t an engineer though, so if you are looking for something super intricate and detailed, or you are required to have an engineers stamp, then he won’t be much help. Good luck!