week of the house plan
It’s Friday — ack!
We were consumed by house plans this week, and my house is in desperate need of attention. I stayed on top of the necessities (laundry, dishes, toys, and, unfortunately in this house, daily vacuuming), but actual cleaning got shafted. Today is Cleaning Day anyway, so I intend to ignore house plan thoughts and get to it.
Two weeks ago we ordered a “planning set” of house plans. After not hearing or receiving anything, Matt inquired about our order. The sequence of subsequent events is as follows:
- Sorry, I can’t help you, I’ll forward your email on to someone else.
- Ok, I am going to help you; I’ll look into it.
- So sorry, we haven’t done anything with your order yet, but I’ll mail them today (last Friday) by FedEx and they’ll arrive Monday.
- Monday morning email: Um, we actually FedExed you the wrong plan. We don’t have the file for that plan, so I’ll contact the designer and get it from him, then ship it to you. It’ll take another week. We’ll refund your shipping cost.
- Tuesday: Sorry, the designer no longer carries that plan. We’ll refund your money.
So, although it was a bunch of hoopla, I think it’s best that way. I called several house plan designers and most reccommended coming with a basic idea and some pictures, but starting from scratch so that it meets current codes and the changes we’d make will be sure to work. Not only that, but the designer we were inclined to go with anyway (having been previous employees of his when he was in the bagel industry) turned out to beat the others’ prices by 35%. So, before setting up an appointment, Matt and I have been drawing up our ideas…if we don’t have to go with a stock plan, might as well start from scratch, eh? Uh-huh. 2 1/2 evenings, though, and we have a main-level house plan (no upper bedroom level yet) in the square footage we want with four corners, a side-entry garage, a great room, a good-sized dining room, a mud room, a school room, a two-sided fireplace….and maybe some stairs, but those haven’t been properly placed yet. Stair placement depends on tower placement, and Matt’s still working on that. We’ll see what our designer has to say about the structural feasibility of a tower…..it just might have to go in after the inspectors have stamped their stamp and gone back to town. :)
So, anyway, today is cleaning day. I’ve packed up the graph paper, pencils, and books, and resolved not to look at it until at least after dinner. But maybe after dinner today will be spent on other pursuits….
Ugh. Better you than me!!! So, is this the plan for the straw house, or the final one? Very curious to know. What a pain about the planning set, but have fun designing your own!!
This is the final house. We figured out that the intermediate step of a strawbale “barn” home would set us back more than it would help us forward; and without a practice strawbale structure, we’re not going to go that route. After our house plans are done, we’ll collect bids from regular builders and from pre-manufactured panel companies (custom plans, but factory-made wall segments specific to your plans that they ship to your site).
Pretty soon we’d better actually get some of the preliminary things done — like buying the land! :)