My Home Inspire Ideas

Guest author, Joe Ahmann, owner of Ahmann Design Inc, has kindly written this article to help you in your house plan search. So you’ve bought your home lot and you’re ready to by the perfect house plan, but you don’t know where to start. There are important questions that you should ask your designer before buying that house plan, and I can help. I have been designing custom home plans and stock house plans for 20 years, and I have compiled a list of questions you should ask your home designer before buying. 1. How long have you been designing house plans? The more experience your home plan designer has, the more detailed his or her plans are likely to be. Stock house plans experience is also important because with all of the competition for online house plan exposure, there are plenty of home designers out there with little or no experience. 2. Do you design custom house plans? You think you’ve found the perfect house plan, but you want to make a few “tweaks”, and before you know it, your revision bill is 2-3 times the cost of the original home plan. A good designer will recognize the fine line between designing a custom home plan for you and spending too much time on revising a stock house plan. 3. Can I return my house plan if I decide not to build it? Most stock plan brokers online have an “all sales are final” policy, so make sure you check it out BEFORE you click the “buy” button. But there are some house plan companies and home plan designers WILL allow you to return your house plan with a minimal restocking fee, so be sure to ask. 4. Why can’t I return my house plan? Because there are so many house plans sold online to different parts of the world, it is hard to police theft. Bottom line is that there are many people out there buying a house plan and building it more than one time, which is a copyright infringement unless agreed to by the house plan owner. Home designers have limited resources to check to see if you are telling the truth or not, so most have adopted the “no returns” policy. 5. Will I need to have my house plan reviewed by a local architect? House plans sold through the large brokers online are required to be 2006 IRC compliant at a minimum, but some areas of the country require special additions to the plan that are specific to that area. It’s best to check with your local building official before buying a house plan. 6. Do you have references I can talk with? Most home plan designers will not have a problem giving you names of past clients, and if they do, reconsider using them! 7. What is your timeframe for completing my house plan? If you are hiring a home plan designer to draw a custom home, or modify an existing stock house plan, ask up front how long it will take so there are no surprises later. Many home designers who sell their house plans online are a “one man shop” and may require more time to complete the work. 8. Do you have photos of the house plan I like? Many times the house plan designer will have photos of a stock plan that’s already been built, so it’ always good to ask. 9. Who owns my house plan when it’s finished and paid for? The original designer is the owner of the copyright of your house plan, even if you’ve made changes to a stock plan. What are your payment terms? Some home plan designers will require an up-front deposit to begin the project, and it’s always a good idea to find out ahead of time how payment will be handled. (more…)

The festive mood remains well active even when the holidays are over. People visit the stores and shops to make full use of post-holiday discounts. Friends and relatives continue to visit your place till the end of January. It takes some time for the world to get back to the conventional track of life after January 1. Though the calendar is saying that the holidays are over, the fact is: they are not. First few weekend parties in the New Year are going to be rocking! And you still have enough reasons to decorate your home and garden. Decorating by Style:Try something new, unique and different. If you are one of those who love to try their hands with crafting, then go ahead and prepare some holiday crafts yourself. Jingle bell door hanger, gingerbread stable, beaded snowflakes, Christmas tree etc. can be prepared at home. For New Year home decoration, write the New Year in figure OR New Year’s Resolutions in the crafts and make them suitable for New Year celebration. Decorate keeping the occasion in mind:For Christmas parties, merry red with snowy white looks good. On the other hand, the New Year celebration parties demand a more vibrant and dazzling color scheme – velvety blue, maroon with black, or dark green with golden ornamentation can make your New Year celebration more engaging. Ask your family members if they have anything to say about the colors of the party. Make the entire session more interactive by engaging all family members in the home decorating process. Make sure the whole interior is made up to the color scheme you have selected for the season. For Christmas party, choose white upholsteries with red borders, red coasters, and white dinner sets with red ornamentation. Similarly, the upholsteries for sofa and chairs should be chosen appropriately. When it comes to New Year celebration, an appealing and engaging ambience is desired. There should be plentitude of colors and lights all around the corner. This style is applicable for the New Year celebration parties held after January 1 too. Create an artistic symbol:To make the entire setting more soothing, select a pattern for this season; there must be abundance of this art all around. For example, draw a bunch of flowers; order bespoke curtains and upholsteries that contain the embroidery you designed. And the Red CarpetYour carpet should also fit with the look and feel of the interior. A red carpet is always good for Christmas or New Year party! Make sure the carpet has the right texture for your interior. The pattern that you selected for the curtains and upholsteries might not be available in the carpet store. In that case, select the same theme for your carpet. For example, if you have chosen floral embroidery for the curtain and sofa upholstery, make sure the carpet has floral texture too. And you are ready to welcome guests! Play some holiday numbers to create the perfect ambience of celebration. Serve the drinks, snacks and foods that you love most and allow the festive mood to stay within your home for few days more! (more…)

By far the kitchen is one of the most important rooms in the home. It has grown in importance from an out-of-the-way service area to a room that’s central both physically and functionally to the home, which is why kitchen decorating ideas are so important. Kitchen decorating ideas are easy to find if you know where to look and keep a more observant eye open. Channels like the Home and Garden Television Network and the Discovery Channel have paved the way for many homeowners’ home improvement renovations. Among the renovations are kitchen makeovers that incorporate state of the art kitchen decorating ideas as well as traditional styles and decorating ideas. There are even specials on do-it-yourself kitchen decorating ideas that can teach you simple things like wall-painting jobs, such as sponging, mottling, and rag-rolling that can make your kitchen a tad more attractive. You can even get ideas by really noticing the kitchens in various homes that you visit like your friends’ and relatives’ homes. Perhaps one of the most difficult things is deciding whether you want to go retro or whether you want the trendiest cooking space available on the market today. What can make this decision harder is if you live in a home that’s generally traditional and everything in your floor plan caters for a traditional kitchen. But the good news is that if you do choose to stick with the traditional style kitchen décor you can always update the look to keep your kitchen looking new, fresh and working functionally. Again all you have to do is look around. Try visiting your local home improvement store and have a chat with the sales assistants or even jump online and browse the internet for some great ideas in the traditional department. However it can sometimes be easier to find kitchen decorating ideas for modern cooking areas than it is for retro-style rooms and also many people prefer to really upgrade instead of just update their kitchens and for these reasons a lot of people tend to opt for the contemporary style kitchen décor. There are many sleek contemporary kitchen decorating ideas available on the market today so finding one that’s right for your needs, budget and available kitchen space shouldn’t prove too difficult. The beauty of contemporary kitchen designs really lies in its sleek and smooth designs that allow you to hide every appliance behind cabinets that boast clean lines and smooth edges. These appliances can be recessed into the walls or they can be built right into your countertops and the look is not only elegantly subtle, but it also works great in saving a lot of space in your kitchen. However because the entire face of kitchen décor has changed to be more space, time and money economic, many of today’s appliances are designed to camouflage themselves into the room. These concealed models function on a superior level than the customary appliances and come in such a vast array that they can match and mesh well with almost any existing kitchen décor. Adding accent kitchen lighting is yet another way to really give your kitchen a nice face lift and it can be done very cheaply and quickly. Cabinet and counter lighting are good options for a quick functional and aesthetic look. But whatever decorating idea you choose to employ in your kitchen it is always best that your décor works for you instead of against you. Functionality should never be compromised for beauty especially not in a kitchen. It’s a wise idea for your kitchen decorating ideas to suit your dining room and living room needs as well since these rooms tend to directly correspond with each other. (more…)

Here are some tips that you should consider before building a new Home: Make certain that you know how the software works. Have a few minutes to read the attached instructions and try to practice utilizing the software until you turn out to be comfortable with all the tools and any other options, which are offered in the program. Get one or two books about house design, to ensure that you’re designing all things so that it’ll work and flow correctly in the new house. Do not make your hall ways too big and the bedrooms very small. Do not design a house that has engineering problems. Your house may look wonderful when seen on the computer, but encompass engineering troubles. If you have a good design, you need to ensure that all the plumbing, electrical, air-conditioning and heating systems will function and work well with your home design. It would not be a bad plan to know how homes are constructed, prior to designing one. I cannot tell you how many architects I already have worked with, who do not know how homes are in fact built. When you have that house design software, try designing different buildings, before calling an engineer or architect. A good architect or engineer and even a good general contractor could look at a home design and mention problems with it. Here is a list of online home designer services and free home designer software that could improve your ability to make beautiful home designs that reproduce the chains of your budget while adding up your personal touches into each design. Besides that, these tools make it fun to plan and in fact foresee changes to your house’s design. Online home design software that draw design for home plan/floor plan online: Floor Planner – Website that offers Floor Plan Design Services Gliffy – Website that offers Floor Plan Drawing Services Free Home Design software that will assist you design your own ideal house: Envisioneer Express – Offers Free Software for Residential House Designing SmartDraw Floor Plan – Offers Free Software for Floor Plan Design Sweet Home 3D – Offers Software for Open Source Free Home Designing (more…)