House design

House design is the most important step before building. I suggest you use for this house plans which depends greatly on the land.

The land you buy will largely determine what you can build due to zoning restrictions. If you have purchased land within a city, the neighborhood will be likely pre-planned, and the Developer you bought the lot from will let you know what type of construction is allowed.

Once you’ve got a basic idea of the size and shape of the house in mind sit down and make a sketch of the house you want. You can use for this Google Sketch Up which can be free downloaded.

I use for that SolidWorks which I am also using to teach Machine Design to my students. Though it is for mechanical design but it works here well also. You can see it from the house design that I made for new Chapala home.

Then you must look for house plans. There are plenty of these in the Internet. They will cost a fraction of what you must pay to an architect (normally from $2500 and up).

One says that a house has walls, a kitchen and bathrooms . The walls are mostly the same in all houses, but the kitchen and bathrooms are the ones that make them different from the others and add them value. So I would recommend putting a special attention to the kitchen and bathrooms. Depending on the style of the house a balcony could give a special view.

Even if you have made home design independently, it is strongly recommended that you have an architect draw up final blueprints. A skilled and experienced eye is required to see any potential mistakes, or to offer suggestions for how you can maximize your space. Sometimes architects would do it for free with the hope to be contracted later as a builder.

In seismic areas like Mexico, California the house design must be submitted to structural calculations that give the place of footings and mainstays and the characteristic and depth of basement, so you can get permits. You must have previously got the soil investigation results. In northern areas the foundation depth must be more then the depth of soil freezing.