Can I Change This Plan?

You already have permission

Most plan sellers make you pay extra just for the legal right to alter a drawing. Our plans come with it: your purchase includes reprint rights to copy and modify the plans for one project. You can make the changes yourself or hand the plans to any local designer, drafter, engineer, or architect you choose. The copyright stays with CountryPlans and copies keep our copyright information on them, but the changing is yours to do.

Simple changes you can do yourself

Often a plan is close to what you want, but a room needs a bit more space or the entry belongs on another side of the house. Our plans are drawn so the interior walls do not carry the roof or floor loads, which makes rearranging rooms far simpler than on most house plans.

Moving interior walls or changing the door and window layout is work many owners do themselves. Lay a sheet of tracing paper over a copy of the floor plan and draw your changes at scale. Lengthening or shortening the plan can be as simple as snipping two copies of the layout and overlapping them until the dimensions are right, then making a clean copy of the result to work from. Some builders finalize this kind of change once the main floor platform is built, laying out walls and window locations full size right on the deck.

Every set also ships with our plan Booklet, which has its own section on modifying the plans.

Bigger changes: get local help

If your changes are structural, like making the house wider or raising a roof, bring in someone local. We do not do customization work ourselves, and honestly a local person is the better choice anyway: they know your codes, your snow and wind loads, and your inspectors. The permit desk or a local lumber yard can usually point you to a building designer, since builders need plan modifications made all the time.

Because these plans are simple and clearly drawn, a modification that costs four figures at the big plan factories is typically a few hours of a local drafter’s time here. Checking local code compliance is your responsibility either way, and a pre‑submittal chat with your building department is always time well spent. Our guide to codes and permits walks through it.

What the CAD option adds

Every plan can be ordered with CAD files added. That gets you the editable drawing files, so you or a local designer can make changes directly in CAD software instead of redrawing sheets by hand. If you know your project will be modified, it is the cleanest starting point, and it is the same file a drafter would ask you for. Current pricing for the CAD option is on each plan’s page.

Not sure which way to go?

The best place to think a change through is our forum. It holds twenty years of exactly this conversation, and builders who have made the change you are considering will tell you how it went. Post your idea and the plan you are looking at.

You can also email [email protected]. We reply to every message, usually within a day. We won’t pretend to be your engineer, but we can tell you what is in each plan set and point you toward the right plan or the right forum thread.