How do you spend your day?  What rooms in your house do your family congregate in during the daylight hours? 

Of course, everybody would have a different answer to this question, but we feel as though a majority would say that they tend to use the cooking, family eating and family conversation areas at least as a hub for the day’s activities (The Kitchen, Breakfast Room and Family Room).  These are the family’s social spaces…the places where time is spent together. 

It makes a lot of sense to locate these three spaces next to each other, if not even combine them all into the same space; the ‘Great Room’.  Again, each family has their own personality and some people are more formal then others and there are degress of ‘openness’, but most people seem to prefer the concept of an open Great Room.

We plan to look in detail at each of the three spaces below, but first, let us throw out a couple of ideas for the ‘Great Room’ in general.

• Locate these rooms on the sunny side of the house.  Sunlight cheers people up.
• Plan for a lot of windows to take advantage of the path of the sun.
• Invest your budget in the rooms where you spend the most time.
• Trim out the ‘Great Room’ with a little more detail; possibly some ‘built-ins’
• Consider a higher ceiling.

The Great Room is the buffer between the public and private areas of the house.  It is the place where you probably entertain close friends and family.  

Depending on how formal your lifestyle, the Great Room might be too casual a space to entertain strangers or business acquaintances.  It may also be too casual a space to entertain during a formal dinner party.  Everybody is different!

The Family Room

The Family Room is an all-purpose space that has to be totally flexible.  It has to be private and intimate enough for a personal conversation and it has to be public and open enough to use as an entertaining area during a party. 

The room generally centers around an expanded seating/conversation area that is large enough for your entire family to sit and watch television or enjoy a fire.  It is the space where your kids play.  It’s where you read the newspaper while your husband is in the kitchen fixing dinner.   

Some things to consider for the Family Room:

• A twelve or fourteen foot square area for a seating arrangement
• A fireplace (the seating arrangement should probably ‘focus’ on the fireplace)
• A blank wall for the television in a location that you can see from the kitchen
• Windows looking out on the rear or side yard
• A higher ceiling that gives the room a more open feel (a larger room should generally have a slightly higher ceiling to stay in proportion)

The Kitchen

The function of the kitchen seems obvious to most people.  It’s the space where you prepare your meals.  And with that in mind, designers generally lay out the kitchen in an efficient, concise manner that optimizes convience like a smaller scaled industrial assembly line.  There is an entire industry that was created solely to design kitchens.  Scientists strap pedometers on cooks ankles to measure just how many miles they walk in the preperation of a meal.  There is an industry standard for the ‘work triangle’ between appliances that describes the optimum distances for an acceptable kitchen design and we plan on getting into all of that in detail in next week’s blog.

At the same time, the kitchen might be the premiere meeting place in the house for close conversations, the one place where you spend the most time with your children or your closest friends.  With that in mind, you should make the kitchen warm and inviting and eliminate some of the industrial precision that you might think is necessary when you are preparing everybody’s sandwiches in the morning.

Kitchen design is a balancing act between efficiency and comfort and you need to be careful not to concentrate solely on one and neglect the other.

As mentioned, we are getting into a lot more detail on our next blog, but in the meantime, here are some general room layout goals to keep in mind for the Kitchen:

• The Kitchen needs to be convenient to the Breakfast Room, Dining Room, Family Room and Mud Room/Garage. 
• You don’t want to walk the entire length of the house with bags of groceries on food shopping day.
• The Kitchen is a great area for the family computer and bill-paying center.
• The Kitchen should be convient to a door that opens outside to the barbeque area.

The Breakfast Room

In most homes, the Breakfast Room is used for the majority of family meals and the Dining Room is used only on special occasions.

The room should be big enough to fit a table with chairs for each family member and a couple of guests.  It can also be as small as a boxed-bay window with a bench and dinette table.

The room has several functions and the breakfast table can double as a game table, homework area, craft table, etc.

Put in a lot of windows and locate the room on the sunny side of the house.

On slightly larger homes, the Breakfast Room can be expanded to include the following area:

• A ‘Hearth Room’ or cozy sitting area with a fireplace
• A screened porch with outdoor eating area
• A niche or window seat for smaller scaled intimacy.
• A rear stairway for the kids to come down for breakfast

In conclusion, picture having a couple of friends over for a casual dinner party; one group of people are chatting in the kitchen…the kids are playing a board game at the breakfast table…five or six people are watching sports on television…people are wandering out on the deck.   A good ‘Great Room’ should accomidate all of that.

If you have any questions or think of something that we left out, please comment!  You can also email us at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com if you have suggestions.

Our next episode…’Stairs and Circulation Spaces’

More often then not, most people and their families approach their home by car and (if the garage is clean enough to park inside) enter the house through the mud room.

Once inside, a shedding process takes place; people drop their backpacks and sports equipment…take off their coats…kick off their shoes…throw their car keys and the mail onto a flat surface and either head into the kitchen, use the powder room or walk up the stairway.  The goal of a good design is to accomidate this everyday ritual. 

The Mud Room

In the old days, it might have been called the utility room or the laundry.  Recently this room has been upgraded to function as a ‘walk-through’ closet and is called the ‘mud room’.

It’s funny, but the mud room is currently one of the most popular rooms in the house.  If you are a speculative builder, I will guarantee that you house will sell quickly if you put in a nice mud room and nice laundry!  Make the room attractive and welcoming.  Put in some nice millwork.  Include a window to provide natural light.  Make it more then a closet or a wide place in the hallway.

What is in the Mud Room?

• The mud room includes a large coat closet with the traditional rod and shelf
• You also want to include shelves and bins for gloves, hats, boots, etc.
• Cubbies for kid’s backpacks, sporting equipment, dog-walking stuff, golf clubs, etc.
• Survey your family’s needs to find out specific storage requirements.
• The mud room is an organizational space…a place for everything and everything in its place
• Include a built-in bench to sit down on while you to put on your shoes 
• The mud room may also be a good place for the dog dish or cat box.
• A shelf that’s used as an ‘out-box’ for library books that are ready to return, dry cleaning, items that you plan to return at the store, etc.
• Please write with more suggestions.

The downstairs laundry room

There are two schools of thought regarding where you want to locate your laundry room.

• One group debates that the laundry room should be upstairs in close proximity to where dirty clothes are disrobed and close to where clean clothes are stored.
•  The other group reasons that people spend most of their daylight hours downstairs near the kitchen and family room and shouldn’t have to run upstairs everytime that the dryer buzzes.  The ideal location for these people is near the mudroom.
•  Both parties have good arguments and both solutions are probably equally valid.  The overall location should depend on the lifestyle and requirements of your specific family.

What’s included in the laundry?

•  Obviously the washing machine and dryer
•  Shelves above the washer and dryer for soaps, storage, cleaning supplies, etc.
•  A hanging rod for clean clothes
•  Optional – a utility or ‘soak’ sink
•  Optional – a long folding table or counter top
•  Optional – space for an ironing board or sewing machine
•  Optional – storage space for cleaning supplies; vacuum, mops, brooms, etc

Try to put your laundry equipment in a seperate room with a door and not in a closet off of a hallway unless space is absolutely at a premium.  You don’t want to force guests to hurdle over piles of ‘whites’ and ‘coloreds’ as you lead them through the house on laundry day. 

Also, try to avoid using the laundry room as the mud room unless absolutely necessary for much the same reason.    

Common links with the kitchen

When you come home from the grocery store with a trunk full of heavy bags, it’s important that the kitchen is fairly convenient to the garage.  We like to link the kitchen and garage together with the mud room as the common connection.

There is naturally some spaces and functions that can take place somewhere in this transition zone and some of these might be considered for the mud room:

•  Computer desk/bill paying/mail sorting area
•  Large, walk-in pantry with freezer and/or extra refrigerator
•  Utility powder room or sink for cleaning up after working on the car/gardening, etc.
•  Hobby space; gardening area, craft bench, homework table, ?

Please write back with more suggestions or email us at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com 

In the next episode…The ‘semi-private’- ‘semi-public’ spaces

A house can be divided into at least three different zones; the ‘public’ spaces (such as the foyer, dining and living room), the ‘semi-private’ (or ‘semi-public’) spaces (such as the kitchen and family room) and the ‘private’ spaces (such as the bedooms and bathrooms).

In general, the public spaces are located adjacent to the guest entrance and foyer and act as a buffer for the more private areas.  The room arrangement in most floor plans gets more and more private as you get deeper into the house until you get to the master bedroom and bath, which are probably located the farthest from the front door.

The public spaces have traditionally been more formal spaces and there has been somewhat of a movement in recent years to incorporate their uses into more semi-public portions of the house.  For example, most families use the formal dining room one or two times a year and the formal living room about the same.  People refuse to eliminate these rooms from their design for ‘resale’ purposes, even though the family that ends up next purchasing the home probably won’t use these rooms any more then they did.

For the purposes of this blog, let’s assume that we are using the more formal layout in which the ‘public’ spaces can generally be described as those rooms that might be occupied during a formal dinner party; the foyer, coat closet, dining room, living room, powder room and possibly the library or home office.

The coat closet

In our experience, we have found that people don’t use the formal coat closet for their own coats unless they don’t have a mud room.  The formal coat closet is for guest’s coats during a party and for the vacuum cleaner the rest of the time.  The coat closet doesn’t have to be large; maybe three feet wide and two feet deep.  Any larger would be out of scale in a house smaller then 2,500 s.f.

The dining room

The formal dining room contains the dining table and chairs and, for a plan larger then about 1,800 s.f.,  should have enough room for a china cabinet or side table.  The smallest dining table seats six and can generally be situated in a 10′x12′ long room.  Tables that handle more people are generally the same width but longer.  For example; a dining room that occupies seating for ten might be 12′x16′ long.  A really comfortable dining room is 14′x16′.

The dining room’s shape is based on the shape of the table and chairs along with enough room (at least 3′) that is necessary to walk around the table.    These rooms are generally rectangular with a width of 12′ or 14′ if you have a side table and a length of 12′ to 16′ depending on the seating capacity of your table.

The living room

Sociologists have made extensive studies on the optimum seating arrangement for conversations and discovered that a 10′x10′ or 12′x12′ space is about the best dimension to talk back and forth without yelling.   Using that information, we generally organize seating arrangments in those modules.  Room sizes vary with the furniture layout that you want to place in the room (as demonstrated below).  A 12′x12′ living room is a comfortable size if all that you have is the seating arrangement.  If you provide circulation space around the seating or extra pieces of furniture, the room should get longer or wider.

The living room is another of those rooms that some people don’t use much but insist on keeping because of ‘resale’.  If that’s the case, you may want to consider using the space for a different function; a library or home office.  A rose by any other name…

The powder room

The powder room usually includes a lavatory and a toilet and is generally a little more upscale when it’s located in ‘public’ space.  If you have a study near the room that can double as a guest bedroom, you might want to include a tub or shower in the powder room so that it can serve as a full bath.  

Locating the powder room is always a delimna for us.  You want it to be convenient for your guests during a party and don’t want them to have to trek through the kitchen or laundry room to use the toilet.  At the same time, you want the bathroom to be far enough away so that your party guests don’t encounter all of the rude sounds and smells associated with the room.  Find a good location that is centrally located and situate the door so that it doesn’t open directly into another room…

The study or home office

Most people have a space in their homes these days where  that acts as a home office or study…a minimum 10′x12′ room that can house a desk and chair. 

If you entertain clients from you home, you might want to locate your home office near the public area of the house so that you don’t have to lead them through the more private areas if you are having a meeting.  If this is the case, the room might be a more professional looking space with a traditional deck layout.

If your home office is just a grunt work space and you don’t want to continually get interrupted by your family while you work, we would recommend locating the room in the more private section of the house…maybe off of the master bedroom or off the mudroom with an entrance from the ‘back door’.  Analyze how you use the room and how formal your requirements are before locating the room on your floor plan.  The home office is one of those rooms that could be totally public or totally private depending on how you use it.

We welcome you to leave your comments below if you can think of anything that we might have left out.  And, as always, we welcome your emails at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com.  Thank you!

Our next episode:  The ‘Family Entrance’ or ‘Mud Room’

Now that we have blocked out the general area of the house on the lot and the location of the garage, let’s determine where we want the front entrance.

This term is a bit of a contradiction because your family will probably not enter the house through the front entrance very often.  The path from the garage through the mudroom is normally the family’s everyday, informal entry. Today, let’s look at the formal entry…the guest entry.

Approaching the house

• When a guest approaches your home, it should be obvious to them where the front entry is located. 
• Don’t hide the door around a corner or add a second door (for example, a door into the mud room that is visible from the street). 
• If you have French doors or a patio door off of one of the rooms in the front of the house, under-emphasize the secondary doors behind a railing or landscaping to downplay its importance.  
• Eliminate all confusion and take the guesswork out of where to go.

 A few design tricks

• Have the entry door visible from the street and located prominently.
• Accentuate the entry door in some manner; a special roofline or porch, a different color or formality. 
• Lead the guests towards the door along an obvious path; a sidewalk or stairway or with landscaping.
• Have the address numbers positioned so that they can be seen from the street. 

The porch

Your guests have figured out where to enter your house and have made it as far as the front door.  Your doorbell is located somewhere obvious where they notice it right away.  Now, give them someplace comfortable and inviting to stand while they wait for you to answer the door.

The porch is the first ‘room’ in your house that visitors encounter.  Give it more character then just some place to get out of the rain.  Standing on the porch is usually a guest’s first impression of being inside your home even though it’s an outside space. 

The foyer 

Different types of guests are generally welcomed into different levels of your home.  The pizza man probably won’t make it inside the front door.  The kid who mows your lawn might make it as far as the foyer while you write out his check.  A neighbor that you consider to be an acquaintance or a business client would be welcomed inside the foyer but might be limited to the ‘public’ spaces off of the foyer such as the dining and living rooms or home office.  A more intimate friend might breeze through the foyer and into the family room or kitchen without even knocking.  Everybody’s traditions and sensibilities are different.

In a sense, the foyer is a security lock that separates the more public and private spaces within your home.  The formal dining room and living room might be totally open to the foyer.  Semi-public areas such as the family room and kitchen would typically be semi-hidden from the foyer.  Private areas such as bedrooms and bathrooms would be located as far away from the foyer as possible.

Some clients have the tendancy to make the foyer the most impressive room in the house…a room designed to impress.  An expensively detailed stairway is typically visible leading up to the second floor bedrooms.  A huge chandelier is hanging from the two-story ceiling.  The floors are marble or exotic hardwood.  The emphasis lately has been to finish the foyer to a similar quality to the rest of the house.  The stairway isn’t necessarily located off of the foyer anymore (with the exception of your kid’s friends, guests rarely go upstairs).  The current trend is to downplay and make the foyer space a little more modest.

The foyer is a good opportunity to give your house some drama, however.  What do your guests first notice when you open the front door and invite them inside?  Is their attention focused on an attractive view through the house to a blossoming tree in your back yard or did you give them a vista towards a kitchen sink full of dirty dishes?  You want to tease your guests with a subtle glimpse inside the main portion of the house to make the floor plan more inviting; maybe the view of a fireplace or a particularly attractive furniture arrangment. 

Make your guests want to go further into the heart of your home.  Don’t blow your entire budget on the foyer.

Some design hints

• The foyer should be large enough for four or five people to congregate…greet each other…take off their coats…
• The coat closet should be nearby…within four or five paces from the front door…
• The formal entry should connect with the more ‘public’ areas of the house…the living room and dining room…possibly a home office if you entertain clients…
• The foyer doesn’t necessarily have to be convenient to the main stairway.  If you think about it, guests rarely use the stairway unless they are really good friends and hang out at your house a lot.  Sometimes the stairway location works better in a more private setting. 
• The front foyer is a rectangular shaped space that ideally is at least six or so feet wide and maybe eight or so feet deep (48 square feet in this example).  In a fifteen hundred square foot house, the foyer may be twelve square feet and you might have to step into the living room to put on your coat.  In a 4,000 s.f. house, it may be a hundred square feet.  The size is fairly flexible  
• The foyer can be open to the public spaces or enclosed with trimmed openings to achieve a more formal feel. 

Hallways

There is generally a hallway that leads from the foyer into the more private, family sections of the house. 

• The width of the hallway should be a minimum of 3’-2” in a small, 1,500 square foot house and grow proportionally with the overall size of the home. 
• A four foot wide hall is a good width for a larger home. 
• A luxurious house may have five or six feet hallways. 
• In our experience, a homeowner generally has a budget number and a square footage that they are trying to achieve.  Most people work backwards from their overall square footage to stay on budget.  It’s silly to sacrifice the size of a bedroom in a small house to make the hallways wider if you don’t need to.  Cut back on circulation space first.

The main house layout

Please keep this thought in mind as you move forward:  A floor plan is a grouping of individual spaces connected by hallways.  Sometimes the hallway goes through the middle of the house, splitting the rooms.  The hallway can linger along the outside edge to bring in light.  Sometimes the hallway will actually widen enough to transform into small rooms.  Keep flexible.

As always, please comment if you have questions or opinions…or email us at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com

Our next episode…’Public Spaces’ in the Home

The first step…and this may seem a little contrary to some…is to figure out what to do with the garage.  And, please…don’t get me wrong.  I’m not some big car enthusiast who is planning to build their house around his Ferrari collection.  Just the opposite.  I am assigning the worst spaces first and am planning to put the garage in the most undesirable living space.

Here are a few suggestions on where to put the garage.  Some are contradictory and may need some thought.

• Don’t put the garage on the sunny side of the house.  Save that exposure for the family room and kitchen.
• If you have beautiful views to the east, west and south and an ugly view to north, that’s where you want to put the garage.  (If your ugly view is to the sunny south, you may want to reconsider and put the living areas on that side with high, blocking windows.)
• If you are next to a noisy highway, put the garage on that side as a sound buffer.
• If your lot slopes, consider putting the garage on the high side of your lot to minimize the amount of steps that you need to get up into your mud room.

The basics:  What is a garage?

The garage is basically a storage room.  And, not only is it a place to store your cars, but it’s a place to store trash cans, bicycles, lawn mowers, garden supplies, etc.   To have the garage be truly functional, you need to plan for all of these items.  How many of the people who are reading this right now have their car permanantly parked out in the driveway because their garage is used as a junk room?  Base your design on a storage space for your trash cans, lawn mower, bicycles AND your cars.

Based on housing your typical SUV, the minimum two-car garage dimension should not be less then 20′x20′.  (A Chevrolet Suburban is 18.5′ long and you need a few inches all around to walk into your house).  A single car garage should not be less then 12′ wide x 20′ deep.

These dimensions consider only storing the cars in the space and with all of the other ‘stuff’ that people have, this function is basically defeated if you don’t take other storage into account.  Conclusion, add two or three feet of length to your car dimensions for trash cans, bikes, etc.  A comfortable two car garage would be 21′x24′ and a comfortable single car garage would be 14′x24′.

When you design your garage, show scaled drawings of: trash cans, work benches, storage shelves, etc.  Make sure that everything works on paper before you pour concrete!

Where you locate the garage defines the general layout of house that you build.  For example:

• Is the lot wide enough to locate the garage in the typical position on the side of the house?
• Is your lot so narrow that the garage needs to be located in front of or behind your main house?
• Do we want the garage to be front-loaded or side-loaded?
• Do we want the garage attached or detached?
• How can we configure the garage so that it doesn’t overshadow the main house?
• Is our lot so small that we need to depend on street parking?

The width of your building envelope starts to suggest what sort of garage arrangment you need:

• If your building envelope is wider then about 54′, it’s comfortable to put the garage on the side of the main house.  Take care to set it back and locate it where it doesn’t overpower the main house.
• If your building envelope is between 40′-54′ wide, you can locate the garage on the side of the house, but you are limiting the main part of the house to being one room wide plus a hallway.  At this dimension, the garage width is approximately half of the total width of the house and you need to take extra care that the garage doors aren’t the primary features of the front elevation.
• If your building envelope is 40′ or less, you may want to consider an alternative garage layout; a detached garage in the back yard or a side-load layout.  At some point (probably around 30′) a garage starts to totally dominate the lot and becomes problematic.  Garage solutions on very narrow lots typically have the main house hidden back behind the garage or some other unusual arrangement.

Some other considerations:

• Your layout will generally be totally different if you have a corner lot or can access your lot from an alley.  (This is based solely on the garage location.)
• If you live up-north where it snows, position your garage door so that it gets some sunlight in the winter and isn’t continuously icey.
• Try to arrange your driveway so that you can have extra guest parking outside and show those cars on your plans.

Remember, when a guest drives up to the front of your house, you want them to focus their attention on your front door…not your garage door.

As always, please comment if you have questions or opinions…or email us at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com

And please come back for our next episode:  ‘The Front Entrance or ‘Welcome to Our Home’

Not staying within budget is probably the biggest problem in keeping your project on track and you need to have a series of small ‘reality checks’ during each phase to keep things moving forward.

It’s a ‘chicken or egg’ dilemna.  You can’t determine the construction cost of your home without having the plans finished.  And, you can’t draw the plans within budget if you don’t know how much the work will cost.

First, let me explain how pricing is normally accomplished by your builder:

After your plans are finished, your contractor will send them out to all of their subcontractors to calculate their bid numbers…the carpenter, plumber, window supplier, roofer, etc.  There might be sixty or seventy subcontractors involved.

If you want your contractor to get competitive by bidding the plans out to two or three subcontractors in each trade, they might end up getting bids back from 150-200 companies.

The contractor will set up a spreadsheet and fill in the blanks as numbers come in.  He will tally up a sub-total for his contractors and then add another 15-20 percent for his own expenses (superintendant, office staff, dumpsters, portable toilets, etc) and profit.

This process easily takes two weeks.  So…when you ask your contractor how expensive your house is going to be, he won’t be able to give you an accurate number until he goes through procedure.

There is a shortcut that most contractors use based on their experience on past projects.  For example, a contractor might be able to say that they finished a house that was similar to yours in quality last year and it ended up costing about $100 per square foot….or two hundred dollars a foot…prices vary wildly based on your location…the quality of the finishes, etc. 

This is a rough approximation!  A square foot of bedroom is obviously much less expensive then a square foot of kitchen.  You can pay $500 for a stove or you can pay $5,000.

Here is what I would recommend you do:

• Call contractors in your area.  Describe your project and ask them what the ‘square footage’ cost would be for a similar project. 
• Try to divide up these costs for: standard, upgraded and luxury quality construction.
• Verify that this is just the cost for construction and does not include land.
• Ask them what items were not included in this price: finished basement, covered porches, sitework, septic system, etc.
• Also ask them how they calculated this square footage.  (It generally is calculated using the ‘air-conditioned’ area on the first and second floor.  The square footage of a house normally doesn’t include the garage or basement.)

The end result of this exercise is to determine what the price per square foot of your house will be.  With that, take your overall budget and divide by the price per square foot.  This will give you the maximum size that your home can be to stay within budget.

Example:  If your overall budget is $300,000 and you determine that a similar quality home is normally costing $125/s.f. then you will be able to build a 2,400 square foot home for your budget.

BE CAREFUL!  Make sure that the cost of your property is included somewhere in the calculation.  If you qualify for a $300,000 mortgage and your land costs $250,000 then your house budget is only $50,000.

Be conservative and have somebody check your figures.  This really is one of the more critical steps in the process and can totally mess up your deal if you get something wrong!

Then…as you design your new home, continually check the square footage of the house to make sure that you’re still on target.  Stick to your quality level and don’t go crazy with upgrades.

If you have any questions or opinions,please comment!  You can also email us at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com

And please come back for our next episode…”Where Do You Want Me To Put This Garage?’ 

Here are six easy steps to help you get started:

1.  First, find a copy of your property survey or plat.

• Check the settlement package that you got when you closed your loan (the plat is usually on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper and will have the logo of a surveyor or civil engineer on the bottom).
• If that fails, go down to the county property tax office to check the land records for a copy of your plat.
• If that fails, talk to the people who sold you the property or a realtor.
• If that fails, call a civil engineer or surveyor for some free advise on where plats are normally filed.  Every speck of dirt in this country has been surveyed at least once before.
• If all else fails, hire a surveyor to draw a new plat.  You can’t move forward without accurate dimensions to work with!

2.  Second, call up the zoning office and determine the setbacks.

• They should be able to tell you something like…”You can’t build within ten feet of the side property lines…twenty five feet from the front and thirty feet from the rear property lines.”
• Setbacks may vary for different zoning classifications, subdivisions or specific pieces of property.
• They may vary depending on whether the lot is a corner or interior lot.
• Get the setbacks based on your specific address!  And talk to the person who is responsible for handing out this information, not the receptionist.
• Note:  Sometimes there are different setbacks for houses, detached garages, driveways, outbuildings, decks, etc.  Ask the person at the county office for advise and do whatever research is necessary on the county’s website.

3. The overall goal:  To define the building envelope or the specific width and depth dimensions that you have to work within.  Try to walk away from the conversation with:  okay…I can build a forty six foot wide by seventy two foot deep house.

Also keep in mind, there may be internal setbacks on a piece of property such as: the house needs to be 50′ from the septic field and 30′ from a water well, etc.  It gets complicated sometimes and sometimes you end up with a tiny, weirdly shaped building envelope.

4. Next, research any other regulations that might sneak up to bite you.

• Check for easements, utility lines, storm sewers going across your property, etc.
• Make sure your property isn’t in the flood plain.
• Try to find a title search, any legal judgements, etc. on the property.
• Try to find out if you are in a special ‘district’: a historic district?  Watershed district? Visual impact district?
• Does your county have regulations regarding maximum lot coverage?  Maximum building height?
• Ask a lot of questions.  Somebody…a county employee, neighborhood builder, civil engineer, realtor, website…will have the answers and may know something that you don’t.  Now is the time to do your homework!

5. Physically walk the property to get a feel for how to lay out the rooms.

• Determine the direction of the sun and wind.
• Define any physical site features that might alter your design; trees, steep slopes, rocks, wells, septic tanks, etc.
• Look for good or bad views to design around.  Use a step ladder to see what the view will be like from the finished house.
• Define possible ‘outdoor’ spaces such as potential patio areas, private hot tub niches.
• Do you need to work around a septic field?  A well location?
• Physically visualize your room locations by walking around your lot with a handful of wooden stakes and actually laying out the rooms on the ground.  The kitchen should go…here, with the window looking out onto that beautiful rose bush, etc.

6.  Set your design ‘priorities’.  What’s more important to you?  Putting the house there to take advantage of the view…or putting it over there…to avoid moving the telephone pole.

If you have any opinions or questions or if you would like me to cover a certain topic, please comment!  You can also email us at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com

And, please come back for our next episode:  How to Keep your Custom Home Within Budget!

• The Design Program…or the general space and lifestyle requirements that you and your family require.
• The Physical Restraints…your lot and the specific qualities of the property that you intend to build on…and…
• The Financial Restraints…your budget.

We will first discuss the Design Program:

A production builder will survey people to find out what amenities in a home is most popular and then design their homes based on that information.  Some people are satisfied with the ‘typical’ house and are happy having the builder define how they lead their lifestyle.

A ‘custom’ design centers on your specific requirements and how your family specifically lives, not the ‘typical’.  Here are some exercises that will help you define your personal ‘program requirement’:

• Take a mental journey through your daily activities.
• Where would you spend the majority of your time if you could design the space from scratch?
• What spaces are important?  What spaces are not that important?
• How is your lifestyle different from the ‘typical’?
• Take an inventory on your family’s needs.  Do each of your children require their own bedroom?  Bathroom?

From this information, you should make a ‘wish’ list of the rooms that you would ideally have in your new home: three bedrooms, two and a half baths, family room with big eat-in kitchen, small living room, a home office, quilting room and library, etc…or whatever list corresponds with your lifestyle.

Make a list.  Do some dreaming.  Have some fun imagining what your life would be like living in your dream home.

If you have any comments or questions or if you would like me to cover a certain topic, please comment! You can also email us at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com

Please come back for our next episode:  Six Easy Steps to Help Fit Your House to Your Property.

Besides that…it’s really a lot of fun! 

Over the next several blogposts, you will learn how to design your own custom home.  By the end of this course, you will have:

• A better understanding of what’s possible and an appreciation of living the ‘custom’ lifestyle.
• A knowledge of the architectural process and how you can use it to your advantage…be an educated consumer.
• The tools necessary to make good decisions and custom tailor the environment for your family.
• The skill to actually design your own home and prepare the construction drawings for the job.
• The knowledge to effectively work with an architect to get the design you want.
• The opportunity to daydream a little and possibly come up with some great new ideas.
• A house for you and your family that you designed yourself!

Most people are content with picking house-plans out of a magazine or buying a house that was designed from a survey of what their ‘peers’ wanted in their home.

Learn how you can live better!

If you have any opinions or questions or if you would like me to cover a certain topic, please comment!  You can also email us at howtodesignyourowncustomhome@gmail.com

And, please come back for our next episode:  The Design Process…Step One, Define Your ‘Program’.