House Plan GHD-3142 is a vacation home with fabulous outdoor and indoor living spaces. From a 10-foot deck off the side of the house to a spacious great room with dining area and eating bar on the main level, and a loft above, it caters to those with a comfortable escape in mind.

Our customers, the Jenkins, are building this home in a somewhat isolated part of British Columbia – a true “get away from it all” locale. This will be their cabin — their main home being near Vancouver. While they intend to spend a lot of time alone at the new cabin, they wanted it redesigned to better accommodate guests since they have a large extended family and many friends who will be invited up for long visits. 

They asked our modifications team to redesign the main level to include a larger master suite and a significantly larger kitchen. And they removed the garage from the lower level and replaced it with 2 additional bedrooms, a small living area, and a large laundry room. The Jenkins also had us increase the house length by 2 feet so the total length is 46 feet. Finally, we reversed the blueprint drawings, text and dimensions (so that what was once on the right is on the left and vice versa) to better suit the layout of their lot.

The couple are also planning to build a separate (detached) garage and are currently reviewing our selection of garage plans to find one that fits their needs.

House Plans GHD-3142

Main Floor Plan of GHD-3142

Robert & Emily owned a nice parcel of land in northern Minnesota (“up north”, as we Minnesotans like to call it). Now that all their kids are out of the family home, they decided to build their dream cabin on their northern land and retire there.

They started with house plan SHD-093-SEA. In Homeplans.com’s database, this house is titled “Truly Unforgettable” and it is just that. It’s a dramatic cottage/vacation home plan with incredible angles and a stone chimney, to name just a couple of it’s “wow” features.

Rob and Em wanted to make the cabin plan their own by making some adjustments, so they hired our home design services team.  (We specialize in customizing Homeplans.com’s house plans.) 

They opted for a more Craftsman-style exterior so we added some shingle siding, more detailing with the porch/deck framing, and architectural shingles. Even with these alterations, we kept the home modern by using fiber cement products (Hardi-plank, Hardi-board, etc.). Rob and Em’s lot is sloped so they asked us to modify the plan to include a walkout basement that faced the lake. Now they and their guests can step right out of the downstairs into their beautiful – lakeside – backyard. The basement was left unfinished for now, but it will eventually be finished to include another bedroom, bathroom and recreation area.

We also removed the covered deck on the living/dining room side of the house and added numerous windows because that’s the lakeside wall. Then we moved the fireplace to the side so it wouldn’t block lake views, and we added a main level wrap-around deck from the front/entry side of the house.

In addition, Rob and Em wanted some of the space from the exterior patio used to increase the finished living space so they could have a larger front entry and kitchen, as well as a new flex/mud/storage room next to the entry.

Now the “Truly Unforgettable” cabin is truly perfect for these Northern Minnesota empty nesters!

Cabin Plan SHD-093-SEA

If you have a favorite home plan that needs some adjustments, give us a ring and we’ll give you a free estimate. 1-888-266-3439. We can handle all types of house plan modifications — from simple foundation changes to complicated projects involving adding square footage and repositioning rooms. Also, we can adapt any Homeplans.com house plan to suit any lot!

Oregon customers Ralph and Beverly are retired and wanted to modify home plan DD-2452 to fit their needs. They had found the perfect lot that overlooks a river and vineyards. Home plan DD-2452, a sprawling Southern style design, was a great fit for the lot because of its floor plan layout that included creative outdoor spaces like a front porch and backyard patio. 

Our home design team happily took on the modifications project. Beverly is in a wheelchair so needed all passageway doors increased to 36“. She also wanted some accessibility features added such as a roll-in shower instead of a tub. In addition, the couple requested some rooms that weren’t included in the original floor plan: ”endless pool“ room, sewing room, game room, and equipment room. We made additional modifications including: changed the 3-car garage to a 2-car, moved the range to the kitchen island, converted the master bedroom office area to a walk-in-closet, added a master bathroom skylight, put in a 3‘ wall between the breakfast room and great room, added window wells and a Bilco door in the basement, made some modifications to outlet locations, and made a few other customizations.

The end result?  Happy customers with a home that is customized to their distinct tastes and a much more affordable price tag than a “from-scratch” home design.  No blueprint modifications request is too simple or too complex for our home design team. If you have a favorite home plan, but are curious what it would cost to make some specific changes to it, just call us and we’ll provide you with a quick, free cost estimate. 

House Plan DD-2452

Floor Plan of DD-2452

Modifications to existing house plans are a speedy, inexpensive way to get a custom home. Our house plan mods team can alter any aspect of a house plan – including house size, foundation type, room additions, changing exterior finishes, adding or changing special features, etc. We recently completed a project, on home plan J-9818, for a couple in Tennessee. They wanted several changes including:

• Convert the exterior finish on the master suite/garage/laundry wing to a thin cultured stone veneer.
• Convert the remaining exterior finish to Hardi-board siding, with a cultured stone based from the finished floor level down to grade. 
• Provide cultured stone approximately 32” up all porch columns. 
• Adjust all porch columns to be 8” square above stone base. 
• Add the garage storage closet space to the master walk-in-closet. 
• Shift the laundry/garage common wall into the laundry room by 1’. 
• Create a new walk-in pantry that is the same width as the laundry, but extends 4’-6’ into the garage space. 
• Shift the door to access the house from the garage into the garage 4’-6’. 
• Shift the front wall of the garage and the overhead garage door forward by 4’-6’. 
• The area in the left-rear corner of the garage will become a workshop/storage area. 
• Shift the rear exterior wall of the master suite back 1’ to enlarge the master bedroom and walk-in-closet. 
• Add a 30” wide knee space along the master bathroom vanity. 
• Show a fireplace in the rear-covered porch adjacent to the fireplace in the great room. 
• Convert the first two column bays of the front covered porch into a screened area. 

Our modifications experts accommodated all these change requests and the customers now have a completely unique home.

House Plan J-9818 as designed (before modifications)

Main floor plan for home plan J-9818

Customers often ask about changing the foundation on their home plan of choice. This is a very easy modification.

Foundation selection might depend on a customer’s geographic location (slab foundations are very common in the south, while full basements are preferred in northern regions). Or, it might be based on style preference. For example, if below ground storage is important to you, you might opt for a full basement.  A foundation change may also be necessary due to your lot. Daylight basements, for example, are perfect for sloping lots; the big advantge is that this allows the basement to be an indoor-outdoor space, with the outdors accessible through French or sliding glass doors. 

Whatever the case, our modifications team can handle this very common plan customization request. Just get in touch with us and tell us which plan you’re interested in and what kind of change you want to make to the foundation and we can provide you with a free estimate! 1-888-266-3439

Learn more about house plan modifications.