Save Money On Your Custom Home Architectural Plans

You've bought that piece of property that you want to build your dream home on, now what do you do?

You need a set of proper plans if you want to build that dream home, that means that you will need someone with the proper credentials to create them for you. In Ontario the person that draws your house plans has to have a BCIN number for the building department to even look at the plans for permitting.

Remember something, having drawings created costs money, the more time that an Architect or Architectural technologist takes to draw your new home the more money they will charge you for the completed set of plans.

There are several different ways that these professionals charge for their time, a lot of them will charge per hour and some will charge per job, one thing that they all will do will be to ascertain the amount of time they think they will have to block off for you as a client.

How you ask do they ascertain how much time they will need to block off for you? Well when they meet you if you have no clue what you want or when you want to start or anything else then they are going to have to spend a lot of time leading you through every step.

To help limit he amount of money you will have to spend on your plans here are some helpful tips to do before you ever sit down with your Architect:

• Drive around the neighborhood that you are going to build in and get a feel for the other houses. This will help you understand how everyone else is building, whether they are building a walkout basement, raised bungalow, stucco, stone or other design ideals that fit the area.
• From driving around take pictures of houses that you like. 
• Surf the internet for anything you like, not just houses but front entrances, kitchens, dining rooms, great rooms, bathrooms, decks, outdoor space. Every picture helps with the design, the more detail you can give them the better they will be able to create your vision of a dream home.
• Make lists. You need to tell your designer how many bathrooms you want, how many bedrooms you want, how many stories you want, ect.
• You must come up with a budget number for the overall project. A good architect can design you an entire house that will fall into your budget. There is a rough square footage cost for a custom home, using this the Architect can design the appropriate size of home. If your budget is unobtainable then they will be able to tell you that you need to adjust it.
• When you visit your vacant piece of property you need to decide where you want the house to be orientated, the positioning of the home on the property will greatly affect the design and layout of the home. 
• You need to find out if you need septic and well or if there are services in the area.

Whomever you hire whether its an architect or an architectural technologist you need to come into the process with an open mind on what you want your home to look like and how the design will end up. Remember that you are hiring them for a reason and they are professionals that do this all the time, You don't have to allow them to give you what they think you want, but you also should not reject everything they say because it wasn't in your original thoughts about the house.

As long as the relationship between you and the professional you hire goes well then the final product will not only be what you want but it will also be something that stands the test of time, holds its value going forward for resale and is something that you and your family will be happy in for a longtime.

Rob Abbott

Village Builders Inc.   

Tips on structural designs when building your new home that will save you money

Q:

We are designing our new home and are worried about costs, what can we do structurally when designing the house to make it cheaper to build?

A:

There are many things that you can do to make sure that the overall design of the home doesn’t end up costing you more money than it should.

Design your home to fit the specific lot. For example;

• If your lot has a sloping hill, then you should design your home with a walkout basement. Since you’re more than likely going to build your home with a basement the way to make a home cheaper per sqft is a walkout basement. When you build a walkout basement you get livable sqft that has windows and doors, which is a lot more usable then having a living room in a dark artificially lit basement. If you do build a house with a walkout basement then you should be able to stick to a single story.

• If you are on an extremely small lot then you should think about building a home that is at least two stories, a lot of people are building a two story house with a loft where the attic should be. This will give you a lot more sqft on the same size of footprint.
Every home has a roof, a foundation and at least four walls. What you do beyond that is what costs more money.

• If your house has more than four walls, is an odd shape or has strange corners then it will cost you more money.

• If you have a fancy roof line, like a lot of hips and valleys then these will cost more money.

• Dormers cost more money because they are built into the roof and are labour intensive and result in losses of livable square footage.

• Building a house with only a single story costs more per sqft then building a two story home. Since every home needs a roof and a foundation it is cheaper to build that second story then a large single story home.

• Covered porches are expensive, so are decks that are high enough off the ground that they require a railing.

• Detached garages are more expensive then attached garages.

• The more windows in your home the more it will cost to build and the larger the windows the more they will cost.

• The more sets of stairs that you build in a home the more expensive it will become; you also lose square footage of usable space.

• Hallways are a waste of space, the fewer hallways the more usable square footage you will have.

• Crawlspaces are cheaper to build then full basements, but you lose usable square footage which means the upper levels have to be larger to accommodate things like a mechanical room and storage.

• Stick to building 8 ft ceilings, anything over 8 ft costs more.

• Sun porches, sky lights and solariums cost more money.

• Cathedral ceilings are expensive and so are great rooms.

• Wood burning fireplaces are more expensive then gas fireplaces. The chimney on a wood fireplace is the most expensive part. Wood fireplace chimneys have to go up through the roof and be built high enough that they clear the roof line so that there is enough draw of air to pull the smoke up and out of the chimney.

There are hundreds of things inside of the home that I could recommend you to do to save money, but these ones that I have listed are the ones pertaining to the structural costs.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.