I'm here in Longview Texas today looking at a home with clients for a remodel project. Here at R Plans Residential + Interior Design, I generate income through new construction home design, or house plans. But we also do remodel projects in chief architect as well. While my main income is from custom house plans, I always have a remodel project going. The turn around is much less time and it's a healthy challenge to have to design around someone else's work. Of course new house plans are my favorite for their ease of restrictions, but remodel plans have a place. 

This past week I have been bombarded with questions about when to bid and if a floor plan is sufficient for bids. I can assure you with every fiber of my being a floor plan is not sufficient to get a bid. When you send an R Plans custom house plan out for bid, you have all the necessary questions answered. When you just send one of those pages out, you don't have questions answered. My construction documents don't just come with your custom floor plan, they come with a roof plan as well as an electrical plan along with elevations of interior and exterior walls. If your roofer and electrician look at your floor plan, they don't have any idea what to bid. If your mason looks at the floor plan, there is no sign of what type of installation he will be asked to do. He will know whether he is using brick or stone, but there are no ribbons on the floor plan, there is no wainscot and no window or door trim. He requires the elevations in order to give you an accurate quote. It stuns me that some clients can be so adamant about what plans I include in their documents. They want to make sure they are getting everything they need to build their home. Yet the moment they see the floor plan they send it off for bids. If all your builder needed was the floor plan, trust me I wouldn't waste my time creating all the other documents. 

So the latest trend is the modern farmhouse. My most recent clients are all drawn to the metal roof with black windows. They all want the white siding and stained posts. This is a pretty trend, but let's not forget it is a trend. If you want your house to last and keep that timeless look, take some of these attributes, but don't use them all together. I would suggest a white window. We all know white windows look great on the Southern Living houses, and they have looked great for years. pair a white window with some metal roofing. Pair siding with some stained accents. But throw some brick in there. Custom homes with all the farmhouse attributes will be dated back to 2018 for years to come. Look ahead and let me design a home that won't be dated when your kids are grown. 

So what do you think of stairs? There is a cost efficient way to design stairs, and there is a very costly way to design stairs. The only way a 2-story home will help you save money is if you use more than 40 percent of your footage upstairs. Stairs are expensive so let's have them work for us. We do that by putting necessary rooms upstairs. Put your kid's beds upstairs. Put their hangout space, baths, and closets upstairs. The worst thing you can do for cost, is to add a bonus room upstairs and only have the bonus room upstairs. You didn't need a bonus room, and now you are adding stairs along with a bonus room. Stairs only save you if you are saving slab. If you are considering a 2-story and want to help your budget, put necessary rooms upstairs and save yourself the cost of exterior materials and slab.