House Plan Modifications

Common House Plan Modifications Design Services Questions

HOUSE PLAN MODIFICATIONS

You’ve looked and looked but just can’t seem to find the plan that matches your wish list exactly. So, what do you do? Settle for something that’s just close? Or do you spend thousands of dollars to have something custom-designed just for you?

Building your dream home is just that – it’s building your dream. The place you raise your family and call home for the years to come, so settling for something that’s not quite right shouldn’t be an option. The good news is that you also don’t have to pay the same amount as you would if you were having a custom house plan drawn because you can start with one of our stock plans and “tweak” it to make it fit all of your needs.

What is the process for making modifications to a plan?

Once you’ve found a house plan that most closely matches your wish list, click on the little button at the top right of the elevation that has a pencil in it, or scroll to the bottom of the plan details page for that plan and you’ll find a contact form with a place for you to type out the modifications you would like to make. If you want to talk to someone in person, you can always call us at 800-725-6852 from 7:30-5:00 CST Monday-Thursday and 7:30-1:30 CST on Fridays. Our designers will review your modifications and provide an estimate that we will e-mail to you for your approval.

Once you have decided to move forward with your house plan modifications, you just have to return the signed proposal and pay a deposit and we can begin work on your plans. We accept American Express, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal as payment forms for the deposit and final balance.

Once the paperwork is out of the way our team will complete a preliminary set of plans with the modifications and email to you for your review.  This allows you to review, and verify that all of the changes were made to your satisfaction.  It also allows for you to review the plans in case you have any other additional changes.  Frequently we have clients come back with more changes after they have had more time to review and consider all the details.  If you would like to make additional revisions at that time you certainly can and we would provide you with a change order estimate for the cost of those changes. 

After the preliminary plans are approved, our team moves forward on the remaining details and finalizes the entire set of construction drawings. The entire process should only take a few weeks total to complete, assuming you are able to make decisions and approvals in a timely fashion.

How much do revisions cost?

This is a tough question to answer, and we get asked it a lot! We charge hourly for modifications and will provide you a written quote based specifically on the exact changes you are interested in making to any of our house plans. The benefit of having us modify your plans is that you will be working directly with the designer of the original home plan! This allows up to provide quick, efficient communication, resulting in faster turnaround times. We turn our quotes around quickly so you won’t have to wait for a third party seller to contact a drafter, who most likely didn’t design the original house plan, to try to come up with a timeframe to change the plan. We have the plans on our software system so making changes through us is the fastest way to get your plans to you.

What is your turnaround time for modifications?

Once you contact us with your modification requests, we will e-mail you an estimate within 24-48 hours. Depending on the number and complexity of changes, you should be able to see preliminary drawings in 7-10 working days after a proposal is signed. Once you have approved the preliminary design, final working drawings usually average 6 more days. Modifications to our current plans is a significant part of our house plan business, so we have a highly trained, dedicated staff who work mainly on revisions so that you can get your modified plans as quickly as possible.

Why do foundation modifications cost extra?

We are located in the Midwest, so all of our plans are drawn with a basement foundation plan. We understand that in many parts of the country, basements are not an option so we offer to modify the plans for a flat fee of $295. We charge hourly for our time, and have done enough foundation changes to know that we can usually modify a house plan for that fee.

Can you custom-design a house for me?

Yes, but first, we will exhaust all avenues for stock plans. We have an extensive library of stock plans, many of which have not yet been published that we will search internally for you. We will do this internal search free of charge because we want to help you find the most economical way to achieve your dream house plan.

If after an exhaustive search we still come up empty-handed, we will be happy to sit down with you to determine the cost to have a custom house plan drawn specifically for you.