Posts Tagged ‘house plan’

Effective Planning For House Building

July 10th, 2011

House building in point of fact denotes primarily possessing a good handling in terms of supervision of a broad range of specifics and details prior to the actual house building activity can commence. Supporting funds, land ownership, building permits and other documents, a home plan, a reliable contractor, as well as the time duration to administer the whole lot are crucial considerations in getting started to construct a home.

Financial resources is a good way to begin since even before attempting to budget the house building project, supporting funds or adequate financial resources have to be set aside beforehand. In this regard, home building may be approached with a finance consultant and preparing a studied, equitable financial plan. Getting hold of a good property for house building is among major essentials. It is also best to keep in mind and be compliant with all the guidelines and laws pertaining to soil, geological facts, utilities, and land survey matters. Apparently, prior to settling on the preferred house plan, building permits have to be secured initially for house building.

The exterior and interior design of the house is executed and accomplished by an architect. There are a lot of options to think of so they have to be limited into the lot area of the property, the preferences of the homeowner, and financial resources to be used for house building. Looking at other house plans is useful for the owner to have an idea of what he or she or the family wants. To consider the interior layout for the house building plans, various aspects such as the amount of space for all those who will live in the house as well as the layout design have to be carefully planned. With house building, it is also important to make plans while the house is being built with future purchasers or owners being considered even if at the moment there is no chance that the owner would consider selling the property in the future.

It entails a number of particular trades or art techniques to guarantee work of quality; hence, it is frequently better to employ expert crafts people do the work. Among the trades necessary is the sitework wherein there will be consigned people to clear out and grade the property. Carpenters, concrete finishers, and other construction workers will administer the foundation and slabs in the construction. The framers will be doing lot of rough woodwork to frame the walls and put up the trusses correctly. Another important trade is weathering in of the sheathing, roofing, exterior windows and doors and brick layering by contractors. House building has need of electricians, plumbers, finishers, cabinet makers and other woodwork, installers of air-conditioning, heating, and ventilation, insulators, painters, and flooring installers. Without these trades people, the construction will not be feasible.

The Importance of Scale in a House Plan

June 20th, 2011

To design a home is to create a work of art and science. As in the creation of art, everything has to be scaled appropriately and within the correct proportions. Vitruvius Man comes to mind in reference to this. The ideas of Marcus Vitruvius, a roman architect, lead to this drawing of the man inside of a circle and square which was created by Leonardo da Vinci. Marcus Vitruvius believed that in the building of temples that there should be harmony in symmetrical relations of the many parts to the overall magnitude of the whole. To Vitruvius, the human body was the perfect model to base these proportions.

So how does this relate to the scale of house plans? This philosophy dictates the way homes are planned, designed, and constructed. A house plan concept that is designed with no rhyme or reason lack a sense of harmony. You can find plenty of homes today that look odd or appear to look as if something is just not right about it. The rooms may feel small or cramped, too wide, too narrow, or too long. Perhaps the elevation or front of the home seems a bit weird, yet you can’t single out the problem. Well, chances are the scale and the proportions are out of whack creating an incomplete or undesired feeling about the structure.

Let’s take a set of plans to use as an example. To the average person looking at the floor plan, a room size of 10 feet by 12 feet with a 14 foot ceiling seems fine. However, take that person in a room with those exact measurements and it will become apparent at how disproportionate the height is relative to the width and depth of the space. On the other hand, a room with measurements of 12 feet by 16 feet with a ceiling height of 10 to 12 feet would exude a feeling of balance and comfort.

The design of the house elevation also follow these same rules. Imagine a 1960′s style ranch home with a steep pitched roof. The roof will become the focal point by default simple because it will appear as tall or taller than the floor to ceiling height of the living area. The natural look of the horizontal lines in this type of design is in direct conflict with the overreaching vertical pull of the roof. Again, the inelegant use of size in one part of the house destroys the whole.

The scale of a house and the merging parts are important to the whole design. Developing a home design is more than just arranging rooms and creating elevations at whatever ceiling height we desire. It is a marriage of art and science that demands a focus on beauty and harmony. It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, the beholder of those eyes should understand and value the importance of correct proportions and scale in a house plan.