My Home Inspire Ideas

The stages of building your log home are like any other technique required to build products from appliances to airplanes. The best products start at the drawing board with superior design and development producing superior products Building a home requires many building trades to finish the project. Everyone is interested in saving money. A common mistake that a lot of people make is removing some of the vital trades required for construction with the belief of saving that money. Design and development is one of the leading areas where people think they can reduce costs by discarding that phase from the construction of their home. Most people will build one home in there lifetime so education in the necessity of professionally prepared construction drawings is vital. As a licensed building official and design professional I will show you how proper design and development will actually save you money. All areas of the country are governed by building codes. Some less populated areas have less strict enforcement of the building codes, but that doesn’t mean that building codes in those areas don’t exist. Building codes exist to protect you, not to be inconvenient or cost prohibitive. Building codes are there to ensure the safety, energy efficiency, and accessibility of your home. We demand no less in every car we purchase. We want our cars safe for our family, we want our cars energy efficient so we can afford to drive them, and we want them accessible to all. So why do some people go to great lengths to avoid these same standards in the homes we build by not having professionally designed, code compliant drawings? In any construction project, simply put, proper design and developmental plans pay for themselves. Project costing is next to impossible to preform from simple depictions on graph paper. Materials can not be accurately calculated without the specific details plans provide. Without an accurate list of materials you will certainly over pay for extra materials to cover all the unknowns. Now add in some labor to assemble all these “mystery” materials and you can see there is no money being saved here, just waste. Inaccurate estimates waste thousands of dollars with lost dollars increasing in magnitude as the cost of the home rises. All of this wasted money could be prevented up front with proper design and development resulting in a highly detailed set of plans and specifications. Contractors rely on construction documents and drawings to do their job which is assembly. Without competent design and development the contractor like the estimator has to work with unknowns. Your contractor needs to make a profit to stay in business so he has to cover these unknowns with supposition whether real or imagined. Unknowns cost YOU money. Lets take one component of a typical house, the roof system. There are many ways to frame a roof system in a log home. Now lets say in this example the costs range from $30,000. 00 to $40,000. 00. A contractor without construction drawings assembles the roof for $40,000. 00. $40,000. 00 out of your pocket. However, a professionally prepared set of construction drawings could have detailed a way to assemble that same roof system for $30,000. 00 saving you $10,000. 00! Would you pay $3,000. 00, $4,000. 00, even $5,000. 00 or $6,000. 00 for a set of construction drawings that saves you $10,000. 00? You bet you would! Now multiply the savings by every element found in typical residential construction! Change orders are another source of wasted money. What happens when the builder builds something you don’t like because of the lack of detailed information? Do you live with it or have it changed to your liking? Who pays for that change? YOU DO! There isn’t a builder around that will build things for you twice without charging you. Plans can eliminate these expenses. The misconception that seems to persist in residential construction assumes that a contractor can assemble a home therefore design and development become trivial and unnecessary. A world full of products without design development where individuals decide how to assemble the parts would be ridiculous and so should that approach be when building a new home. In conclusion J. Krentz Design strongly recommends retaining an independent design professional highly experienced in log home design who will work directly for you to assist you with the design, development, and preparation of quality construction drawings and specifications. (more…)

Drawing custom house plans is an expansive industry, but finding a quality designer with construction experience can be more difficult.   Although many individuals claim to be qualified custom home designers, you can determine these qualifications by examining their finished product and verifying satisfaction with their former clients.   Quality designs, highly detailed house plans and customer satisfaction are all attributes of an experienced custom home designer. Integrating many different concepts and functions is necessary to draw a good set of custom house plans.   Many designers can come up with interesting ideas, but they are unable to convey these ideas with detailed construction drawings to the home builders.   They can draw a nice conceptual picture, but these individuals have little or no construction knowledge to translate these ideas into a detailed set of house plans in which the builder can understand.   It is necessary to not only have a keen eye for design, but also a strong understanding of what can be built and how it can be built affordably. Having been in the home design and construction industry for 20 years, Design Alternatives has seen a large number of house plans which appeared complete at first glance.   Although further examination sometimes revealed that these so called custom house plans lacked large amounts of pertinent information.   If a set of construction drawings is not easy to read or thoroughly detailed, the builder is left to make his own interpretation which inevitably leads to guesswork.   This ultimately means increased building costs since he will have to inflate his bid to make sure he covers any unknown construction costs. When evaluating the quality level of house plans, certain items to check are the amount of pertinent dimensions, notes and details.   Highly detailed sets of custom house plans will always include the necessary information to build the house in a productive and affordable way.   You will find many home plans available today are incomplete while only showing the design concept rather than the detail.   Any time your builder is left to guess at how something will be built, it will obviously add cost to your home construction project.   Not all designers go the extra mile to create a quality and useful finished set of house plans, so make sure the custom home designer you select has design as well as construction knowledge. Design Alternatives Custom Home Design takes pride in offering its clients quality custom house plans which comes from the vast experience received during its 20 years in the custom home design and construction industry.   This experience along with the long list of satisfied clients has proven to be the driving force of success for Design Alternatives. (more…)

Home Design Plans

It is a fact that a house is never truly a home if devoid of some personal touches applied by the homeowner. It is the choice to design every portion of your house in preparing custom house plans is perhaps the best way to achieve the desired personal touch and really revolutionize your house into a home. With the help of a contractor, you can always tailor every part of your house to suit your needs and reflect your personality. If you are new to house plans and are not sure how to draft them, then hiring an experienced contractor is the key to success. Moreover, even if you feel confident in designing and drawing up the home design plans, the help from a professional will ensure that the progression is standardized and that the results are much more satisfying.

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The kitchen is often the focal point of any house, as well as a place for cooking and eating it is often a meeting place where the whole family gather. Therefore it is important to have a kitchen that is both functional and pleasant to be in. If you thought that it was too difficult to design your own kitchen, then think again. There are many different kitchen design plans and with a few tips you can have the kitchen that you have always wanted.

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