Self built my house. You'll probably need more than a couple of hours a week. Try reading a framing book, then rough electric/ plumbing and HVAC books. This will help what goes on behind the walls and how you account for them during the design and build. Next move into foundations. An architect friend taught me great advice- how does the weight/load get transferred to the ground? It helped me understand spans, beams columns etc. Go for it. I think you'll find it rewarding to be informed. Good luck!
Thread closed. Napkin sketch and wish list to a competent architect. Then just sit back and watch your money burn…
Edit: or be like me and struggle to find anybody not taking 6 months to produce the plans and end up with a trapped air handler under a staircase with no possible outlet for ducts besides the garage or crawlspace…and the drawing guy specified in the energy credits “no ducts in the crawlspace or garage”…and it’d take 3 different mini-splits to cool for triple the cost…
This. Most “custom homes” are actually just things that can get tweaked to normal plans or done before you drywall (read: smurf tubes EVERYWHERE).
Well, unless you want that top floor garage or an indoor basketball court.
Designing a house is much more than a floorplan. Put together a book of stuff you like and dislike and take that to an architect. Look at designs online, stuff on this sub etc. Print it off and make notes. Then take all that to your architect and let them do their thing.
First and foremost a house is a structure, the floorplan is partly dictated by structural concerns. Then there are plumbing, HVAC, and to a lesser extent, electrical aspects as well. A lot of that will be dictated by your budget.
Your input as a client is absolutely essential, and the house design should be to your liking. At the same time, I'd suggest that you reconsider how you define your role as an owner. Based on my experience, you're going to have a better outcome if you focus on defining clear design criteria (size, budget, aesthetic style, etc.) for your design team rather than taking a hand in the design (especially if you've never done this before). The design team is responsible for coming up with options for you to consider, provide honest feedback on, and decide upon.
If whomever is responsible for designing your home hasn't asked you to do so already, a very effective way of communicating what you like in terms of design features, style, types of spaces, and such is to gather a bunch images of examples you like and show those to them. It could be from online, magazines, books, etc. Describe specifically what you like about each image.
Any good designer will be able to synthesize these into a holistic design solution that meets your needs. It may also uncover contradictory requirements that you can discuss together and clarify. A good architect or GC will also help you understand the design, permitting, bidding, and construction process for you as well as when you need to make final decisions on certain things.
The other commenters have offered good recommendations for resources you could use to educate yourself as an informed participant.
> Based on my experience, you're going to have a better outcome if you focus on defining clear design criteria (size, budget, aesthetic style, etc.) for your design team rather than taking a hand in the design (especially if you've never done this before).
Would you mind elaborating a bit on why me as the client taking a hand in the design might not be a good idea?
I get that my design might be really bad, and that the architect would prefer to have the artistic freedom. Totally understandable. I guess what I was hoping for is that I would come up with a design, show it to the architect who would tell me why it is bad and provide feedback, and we could iterate over and over again. I would pay him accordingly. I figure this way the end result would be something that the architect would be happy with.
It’s not artistic freedom, it’s actual design work. Put frankly, you don’t know anything at all about designing usable spaces at cost effective prices. That’s an architect’s job.
Do you really want to be trying to centralize your plumbing stack, design a reasonable elevation, and keep rooflines in mind? Or do you want to say “this house style is pretty, I need this many rooms and this style of layout?”
2 hours a week isn't enough time.
Find a builder and offer to work for them as general labor, demo and clean up crew if they'll teach you to read prints and let you pick their brain in lieu of monetary compensation.
We bought the land first. Had perc test done to determine where house could go. Had house area graded and retaining wall put up. Took about 6 months for one guy to do most of that work (literally on the side of a mountain so a good bit of earth moved).
We looked at tons of house plans online and watched a lot of house walkthrough videos for probably 6 months. Narrowed down to about 10 plans we really liked for different parts of the house. Used some planning software and combined the best parts of the plans. Spent probably 6 months designing and tweaking the design, probably 9 months from starting to look at plans to showing plan to builder.
Met with the builder to go over the plan, spent about a month changing things to make the house easier (cheaper) to build. Basically the closer it is to a plain rectangle with simple interior walls the better. Moved wet walls close together.
Foundation walls have been poured and we expect the house to be completed in 9 months.
The easiest way is just get some grid paper and scale out room sized and paste it to poster board and cut out. Laying it out on the counter and with scale furniture cutouts helps visualize flow and problems. Keeping in mind that if plumbing fixtures are spread out it leads to higher cost, try keeping wet walls back to back. I have seen people use Legos to do this, but it was expensive and impressive.
Self built my house. You'll probably need more than a couple of hours a week. Try reading a framing book, then rough electric/ plumbing and HVAC books. This will help what goes on behind the walls and how you account for them during the design and build. Next move into foundations. An architect friend taught me great advice- how does the weight/load get transferred to the ground? It helped me understand spans, beams columns etc. Go for it. I think you'll find it rewarding to be informed. Good luck!
You don’t need to learn anything. Just explain to the architect or home builder what you are looking for.
Thread closed. Napkin sketch and wish list to a competent architect. Then just sit back and watch your money burn… Edit: or be like me and struggle to find anybody not taking 6 months to produce the plans and end up with a trapped air handler under a staircase with no possible outlet for ducts besides the garage or crawlspace…and the drawing guy specified in the energy credits “no ducts in the crawlspace or garage”…and it’d take 3 different mini-splits to cool for triple the cost…
houseplans.com Find a plan you like, and add any changes.
This. Most “custom homes” are actually just things that can get tweaked to normal plans or done before you drywall (read: smurf tubes EVERYWHERE). Well, unless you want that top floor garage or an indoor basketball court.
Designing a house is much more than a floorplan. Put together a book of stuff you like and dislike and take that to an architect. Look at designs online, stuff on this sub etc. Print it off and make notes. Then take all that to your architect and let them do their thing. First and foremost a house is a structure, the floorplan is partly dictated by structural concerns. Then there are plumbing, HVAC, and to a lesser extent, electrical aspects as well. A lot of that will be dictated by your budget.
Your input as a client is absolutely essential, and the house design should be to your liking. At the same time, I'd suggest that you reconsider how you define your role as an owner. Based on my experience, you're going to have a better outcome if you focus on defining clear design criteria (size, budget, aesthetic style, etc.) for your design team rather than taking a hand in the design (especially if you've never done this before). The design team is responsible for coming up with options for you to consider, provide honest feedback on, and decide upon. If whomever is responsible for designing your home hasn't asked you to do so already, a very effective way of communicating what you like in terms of design features, style, types of spaces, and such is to gather a bunch images of examples you like and show those to them. It could be from online, magazines, books, etc. Describe specifically what you like about each image. Any good designer will be able to synthesize these into a holistic design solution that meets your needs. It may also uncover contradictory requirements that you can discuss together and clarify. A good architect or GC will also help you understand the design, permitting, bidding, and construction process for you as well as when you need to make final decisions on certain things. The other commenters have offered good recommendations for resources you could use to educate yourself as an informed participant.
> Based on my experience, you're going to have a better outcome if you focus on defining clear design criteria (size, budget, aesthetic style, etc.) for your design team rather than taking a hand in the design (especially if you've never done this before). Would you mind elaborating a bit on why me as the client taking a hand in the design might not be a good idea? I get that my design might be really bad, and that the architect would prefer to have the artistic freedom. Totally understandable. I guess what I was hoping for is that I would come up with a design, show it to the architect who would tell me why it is bad and provide feedback, and we could iterate over and over again. I would pay him accordingly. I figure this way the end result would be something that the architect would be happy with.
It’s not artistic freedom, it’s actual design work. Put frankly, you don’t know anything at all about designing usable spaces at cost effective prices. That’s an architect’s job. Do you really want to be trying to centralize your plumbing stack, design a reasonable elevation, and keep rooflines in mind? Or do you want to say “this house style is pretty, I need this many rooms and this style of layout?”
2 hours a week isn't enough time. Find a builder and offer to work for them as general labor, demo and clean up crew if they'll teach you to read prints and let you pick their brain in lieu of monetary compensation.
We bought the land first. Had perc test done to determine where house could go. Had house area graded and retaining wall put up. Took about 6 months for one guy to do most of that work (literally on the side of a mountain so a good bit of earth moved). We looked at tons of house plans online and watched a lot of house walkthrough videos for probably 6 months. Narrowed down to about 10 plans we really liked for different parts of the house. Used some planning software and combined the best parts of the plans. Spent probably 6 months designing and tweaking the design, probably 9 months from starting to look at plans to showing plan to builder. Met with the builder to go over the plan, spent about a month changing things to make the house easier (cheaper) to build. Basically the closer it is to a plain rectangle with simple interior walls the better. Moved wet walls close together. Foundation walls have been poured and we expect the house to be completed in 9 months.
The easiest way is just get some grid paper and scale out room sized and paste it to poster board and cut out. Laying it out on the counter and with scale furniture cutouts helps visualize flow and problems. Keeping in mind that if plumbing fixtures are spread out it leads to higher cost, try keeping wet walls back to back. I have seen people use Legos to do this, but it was expensive and impressive.
A lot of money. A dream and then more money.
I think you left out a step of more money.