This charming shingle-style design with Craftsman influences was chosen by our customers, a married couple building in coastal Maine. They wanted a simple, country-style home plan that would fit nicely into Maine’s rugged coastal landscape.

(Pictured: Exterior of House Plan EST-01. Click on the photo to get details about the home plan!)

House plan EST-01 was perfect for our customers from the beginning, but they wanted a few simple changes to truly make the plan their own and assure that the entire home gets fully utilized. They contacted our Design Services team to alter the home plan to fit their specs.

They asked for some simple redesigns of the master bathroom and kitchen. In the kitchen, they added a snack bar for meals on-the-go. They reconfigured the layout of the master bedroom closet, bathroom, and laundry area. And they tweaked all of the exterior dimensions of the structure to minimize material costs.

(Pictured: Main floor plan of house plan EST-01. Click on image above to see more details about the design!)

One significant change they requested was the addition of a basement, which they plan on finishing in the future. (The original plan came with a crawlspace.)

Our customers liked this design because it is simple from the outside, but offers a truly unique, voluminous floor plan for its size, with efficient use of the given space. They liked the idea of starting with that and then implementing their own ideas to personalize it.

You, too, can get the home of your dreams at a fraction of the cost of architect-drawn blueprints! Call our Design Services team any time to get a free estimate on the modifications you are considering to one of our existing home plans: 1-888-266-3439. Or CLICK HERE to complete the free estimate request online!

During the turbulent years of the sixties and seventies, many Americans built homes with the idea that homes were somewhat temporary. After all, with high inflation, most homes provided a good profit when sold, even if owned only a few years. The prevailing opinion was “build only what you need” and if your needs change, “sell it and build again.” Tax laws for capitol gain on your home offered encouragement to sell and move on too. By selling your home, the profits could be pocketed as long as your new home cost more than you sold the old one for.

Well, the tax laws may not have changed too much in regard to selling your home, but people’s ideas sure have. More and more people are planning their homes for the long term. It seems that we kinda missed becoming established in a real neighborhood. A feeling has returned that we want to belong to our communities, one with sidewalks that our kids can ride their bikes on, a place where we get to know the grocery store clerks and the mailman. We want to live near to churches and schools that we can become a real part of. This sounds great but it does pose a problem. How do we build a home when we are young and have limited budgets, that will serve our needs as our families grow or our needs change.

Past generations that were very stable faced a similar irony. They most often chose to solve the problem with additions. Many families made numerous additions over the years. They were normally pretty easy to spot because most often they were unattractive or at best, did not really blend to the home’s original design. In today’s economy, additions can be very expensive, often costing far more per sq. ft. than the original structure. Trees must sometimes be removed to accommodate our quest for more space. So, how do we avoid this mess?

The best way of satisfying today’s budget and tomorrow’s need for more space is simple. Choose a design that allows for future expansion without costly additions. A design that allows us to push into attic spaces that are pre-engineered to handle the loads, and a plan that has multi-use spaces that can change with our needs. Most important, a design that will require no exterior modification at all. Such changes are far more cost effective than additions because they do not require exterior walls, or roofs. They are contained within the existing structure.

To demonstrate how a plan can be expanded & modified, we have chosen home plan THD-220-0.

This house plan has been designed especially for expansion. Our model plan is one story, 3 bedroom, 2 bath plan with an informal living room. It features a loft library with doors leading to the attic spaces. The ceiling of the living room is 2 story in height allowing the library to overlook the room below. This creates a spacious feeling and one that interconnects the loft to the lower lever. The open stairwell and small loft adds a minimum amount of square footage and cost; however, it is the nucleus around which all expansion will occur. The following examples illustrate how this home can expand from a modest 2200 sq. ft., to a luxury home with over 4000 sq. ft.

Main floor plan for house plan THD-220-0

Upper floor plan for house plan THD-220-0

Option 1-Adding 2 Additional Bedrooms Because this plan has been pre-designed for expansion, adding the bedrooms is a snap. The windows for each bedroom were included in the original design as gable end windows. Even the walls and ceilings are partially included as the original roof bracing and collar ties. Doors that served as access to attic spaces now serve as entry doors to new found living area. About all that is required is the interior finish. For a minimum of cost, your 2200, 3 bedroom home is now a 5 bedroom with over 2700 sq. ft.

Option 2-Changing a Bedroom to a Formal Living Room With the addition of two bedrooms indicated in the change above, one of the existing bedrooms on the lower level can now be converted to other uses, such as a formal living room or a music room. Because the bedroom is located only a wall thickness away from the foyer, this modification is a snap too. Your home has now become a 4 bedroom formal design. The master bedroom and guest bedroom on the lower level, and the kids‘ bedrooms upstairs.

Option 3-Adding a Game Room WIth the kids’ rooms now upstairs, a game room offers a central place for their activities. Just an in option 1, this space has been preplanned. With the addition of finished walls and trim, your game room is complete. Your home has now grown to over 3000 sq. ft.

Option 4-Adding an Office Over the Garage With a bit of preplanning, the attic over the garage can be converted as well. Because it offers an optional outside entry & isolation from the rest of the house, use as an office is perfect. WIth so many people now working out of their homes, this space is in big demand.

Your growth and modifications are now complete. The modest but stately 2200 sq. ft. informal plan that you started with has grown with you as your needs and your family grew. You now have a luxury home with over 4000 sq. ft. But best of all, all of these expansions occurred with absolutely no change to the exterior (without disturbing your lawn area) and a minimum of cost.

TO SEE ALL OF EDSEL’S HOME PLANS, CLICK HERE!

South Carolina customers loved our house plan BOD-31-1A but needed to change 10 specific things to make it ideal for their family. So they hired our design services team and went to work.

They started with a gorgeous design — a two-story French traditional manor. The home plan features beautiful arched and bay windows and a stunning facade. Inside, there’s a huge kitchen, featuring an island cooktop and a well-placed pantry, which is accessible to the patio. The master suite boasts a large private bath with his-and-hers walk-in closets, double sinks and a huge whirlpool tub. The second floor offers outstanding views of the living room from the balcony and game room. Also featured on the upper floor are two decks off of the game room and a secondary bedroom.

(Plan BOD-31-1A:  The original design. Click on the image above to get to get to the plan detail page.)

With the help of our design services group, our customers made the following changes:

1. Added a basement (re-configured the powder room for stairs) 
2. Added a 3^rd garage 
3. Added 3 feet to master bedroom exterior wall 
4. Deleted wall between dining room and breakfast room 
5. Made exterior have a craftsman feel 
6. Deleted curved walls in interior 
7. Made catwalk wider 
8. Increased deck off dining hall 3 feet wider 
9. Increased heigth of exterior garage walls to make large bonus room above garage, door access from 3^rd bedroom. 
10. Added side entrance through laundry room, moved washer/dryer to other end of room/put pantry where wet bar was and deleted wet bar.

Now, on a lovely lake in South Carolina, our customers are enjoying the views and the comforts of their brand new showcase home. When they sent us these photos, they told us that they absolutely love their new home!

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO to get to details for House Plan BOD-31-1A.

(The revised exterior, front view. What a transformation!)

(Exterior, side view.  See the lake views in the backyard!)

(Exterior Rear View)

(Dining/living room)

(View into dining room and kitchen breakfast nook. Our customers deleted the wall between these rooms.)

(Upper loft with living room below)

(Stone fireplace in living room)

(Notice the built-in below the window)

(Master bath)

You, too, can modify any aspect of any of our home plans.  Just call 1-888-266-3439 and speak with a member of our design services team. Or CLICK HERE and complete the free estimate request online. 

(Photos submitted by customer.)

We recently wrote a blog post about how easy it is to modify your home plan’s foundation if, for example, you want to change a slab foundation to a full basement (or anything else for that matter).  Someone commented on that post and asked what the foundation options were.  I guess they want to know what they have to choose from!  So, we thought we’d share the list of foundation options with all of you here:

Full Basement
Usually the same square footage as the main floor, a standard (or “full”) basement offers the advantage of adding living and storage space at a fraction of the per-square-foot price of upper floors. This is because a basement involves adding only minimal depth to the footings that were necessary for building a home with a crawlspace (instead of digging down four to five feet for the footings, dig down eight feet below the frost line and pour a concrete slab). One disadvantage to a standard basement, however, is that when putting a bedroom in, a window well must be added in order to install a window that is deep enough to exit in case of an emergency. A basement may not be used where the water table is too high, since water may seep into the basement.

Partial Basement
This is a basement where the lot dictates that the square footage of the basement be substantially less than the square footage of the main floor. Areas with rocky or unstable soil conditions, or sloping lots, often require a partial basement. If you want a full basement but can’t dig on certain parts of your lot, put in as much basement as you can.

Daylight Basement
For a sloping lot, whether front-to-back or front-corner-to-back-corner, this is the basement of choice. Simply put, a daylight basement sits at ground level and opens to a side yard and/or the backyard. The big advantage is that this allows the basement to be an indoor-outdoor space, with the outdoors accessible through French or sliding glass doors.

Partial Daylight Basement
Just like a partial basement, the square footage of a partial daylight basement is substantially less than that of the main floor. A partial daylight basement is often used when the slope of a lot would only allow building a basement under part of the main floor, but the owner would like to have full-height windows and perhaps a door to the backyard.

Crawlspace
This type of foundation is an option when soil conditions or a high water table do not allow the construction of a full basement. Footings for a crawlspace are extended down to the frost line, but not below it, as with a full basement. In cold conditions, a well-insulated crawlspace will result in a warmer main floor than would a concrete slab.

Slab
A slab can be poured right over the ground with little or no soil preparation, making it the least-expensive foundation option in home construction. First, forms with steel reinforcing are placed on the ground. Concrete is then poured over and allowed to set before placing the house on top. Cost-effectiveness is the biggest advantage to slab foundations, but they are also beneficial in areas that have insect problems, e.g., termites or ants. The downside is that with a slab foundation you give up the low-cost living and storage space that a basement would provide.

Pole
This foundation type may be necessary in coastal areas where homes are built either partially over water or in flood plains where water periodically rises. The poles allow the main floor to be built high above the ground and keep the home out of harm’s way.

Pier
Like the pole foundation, the pier foundation may also be necessary in coastal locations with periodic flooding; however, the more likely use for a pier foundation would be in mountainous or coastal areas that require you to drill into rock to place steel rods and pour concrete. As with a slab foundation, cement posts offer the advantage of durability and insect resistance.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, our modifications team can change any foundation in any way you want.  And they’d be happy to provide you with a free, no obligation cost estimate to give you a price. If you have any further questions about foundations (or any other house plans-related questions), please feel free to call us at: 1-888-447-1946!

Want to save money with a slab foundation? Or are you dreaming of a daylight basement that will take the best advantage of the lake views on your sloping lot? Or maybe you want to warm up your main floor by adding a crawlspace underneath?

If you are interested in a home plan that doesn’t offer the foundation that you want or need, we want you to know that this is a VERY EASY modification to make to the design! We have a modification team that can, quickly and inexpensively, create the right foundation for you.

Foundation modifications typically cost about $550 but the actual price will vary depending upon your house plan and the type of foundation you want to add.

Call our modifications team for a free, no obligation estimate: 1-888-266-3439.

Or go to the free modification estimate page on our website, fill out the form and submit it. Someone from our modifications team will get back to you shortly with a price. CLICK HERE to get to that page.

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

When you are looking for a home that fits your family’s needs perfectly, a home plan is a great start, but may not fit perfectly off the rack. That’s where our modification team at LifeStyle HomeDesign comes in. We are home design and Computer Assisted Drafting experts who have access to most of Homeplan.com’s and can take your family’s individual needs and wishes and incorporate them into the plan you find that is just about perfect. The analogy would be having a tailor hem up a pair of pants to your exact height, and take in an inch here or let out an inch there, to have a suit fit perfectly. Not an expensive suit created just for you out of a batch of fabric. Most of us can’t afford that. Rather, one at a nice clothing store that has suits ready to do final fitting at a cost-effective price. The fit and look is unique and perfect, yet affordable. The result is also not an off the rack, ill-fitting suit, or in the case of a home, one that a large-volume builder builds up and down the street for you and your neighbors, with dull repetition. Cheap? Yes, desireable? Not really. Not what we aspire to. 

So look through our extensive collection of home plans knowing that it is easy for us to add a few feet here or there, move a wall, door or windows, or even add another stall on the garage or porch out the back, to perfectly fit the plan to your family and your lot.

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.