20X40 builders, I want to do like you, not too sure from where to start.

[wannabe]

Hi, everyday I am on this forum, I am just impress how good, deternined some of you are. I'm now 34 y.o., paying $1200/month a mortgage, and start feeling pretty stupid about having signed that loan.

I feel, like probably some you, strangled by this commitment and everything surrounding it ( property taxes, school taxes, high utility bills, maintenance ).

So I'm, in what I guess it's called the mid-30 crisis. My whole lifestyle is now put in perspective, big cars, big job, big house and.... big bills. I basically don't want to depend on my job to survive. I want to work, and with my gain, I want to pay for the necessity and have fun. That's it. I want to enjoy life a lot more. For now, I can't. I am stuck in a vicious circle.

I made my first step last week towards the freedom. I bought a 1 acre lot in Drummondville, Quebec. Now, I want to build on it. Obviously, this would be my future house. It would have to meet building code, and... wife's code. It would have to be a house that she would enjoy having. Me, any house from this site would suit my needs. On her side, it is a little more difficult. I looked to most builders thread, yes house/cabin are nice, but it is very tough to have a good idea of the interior, the space, bedrooms, living room. It is very hard to imagine a 20 feet wide house. Some of you went a little bit more wide than 20 feet. But for ease of construction, 20 feet seems the way to go. So, 20 X 40. That's what I want. 1.5 story. Full basement. Now plans. I know, 20 X 30 plans are for sale. What about 20 X 40? People building 20 X 40, how did you manage the plan approval from local authorities.

Keep up the good work everyone, I really enjoy looking at what everyone of you are doing. Very inspiring.

[John Raabe]

  to the forum!

To get a feel for some of the spaces in a finished house you can look at some of the 20' wide houses in the CountryPlans Gallery - http://www.countryplans.com/gallery.html. You will not find a 20x40 sized plan for sale on this site. And that may not be the size you end up building anyway.

No matter what plan you get (from here or any other site) you will likely make changes and modifications. Get your wife involved in playing with floor plan layouts and see if there is something you can both agree on. Here's an article about that: http://www.countryplans.com/stockplan.html.

[wannabe]

I looked at every single builders threads in the gallery. It is really hard to have a definite idea of the whole interior look. Especially the larger models. Could someone tell me if the sister website would offer more pictures. Plan modifications? I have seen that some people modified their plans by using different softwares. Is that easy to do? By going on the paying website, what more can I get compared to here? Thanks.

[comanche]

Here's how I handled that. I drew out a rough plan for the interior of our 24x32- windows, door,  stairs to loft, wood stove area, kitchen and bathroom. Then I had my fiance draw out her plans. We compared, decided what we liked and didn't like about eachothers, and made a set together. The next 4 months before building we went to lots of friends houses and changed our plans a bit more. We thought we had our plans were set, but my dad came up for a few weeks to help and suggested we move our door to another wall and I am very happy we were flexible enough to switch it.

When you go to friends houses ask them their dimensions and maybe even do a sketch of their house. You might find you like different dimensions better.

And finally, plan for closets!

[MountainDon]

We made scale drawings of our furniture. We then laid them out on a paper grid and worked out the size from that. Maybe a crude method but for us it worked well.

[BassLakeBucki]

I am a along way from the building stage but I have thought about doing one thing after I have my plans designed. I will take some stakes and mason's string and lay out a fullscale model with the plan dimensions right on the building site. I think this will give me a feel for the house and allow me to make changes in both size and orientation.

[MountainDon]

I am a along way from the building stage but I have thought about doing one thing after I have my plans designed. I will take some stakes and mason's string and lay out a fullscale model with the plan dimensions right on the building site. I think this will give me a feel for the house and allow me to make changes in both size and orientation.

  After the paper trial method had got us a design we did the same... then widened the plan a couple of feet.

[wannabe]

So if I understand right, most of you don't really go with plans from CP. What I like about plans from CP, is the support from this forum. You know, other than a shed, I never built anything. So I am sure I will have so many questions while build it. But I am very determined. That's why I was asking about Planhelp.com. It seems like when joining that website, we get plans in an electronic format, and we can play (modify it) and there are a few more resources than here for such things.

[UK4X4]

I started here on the site...and have spent way too many hours looking at peoples builds

Then I ordered and got some plans from here

Out came the graph paper for doing scale dwgs

My tape measure and notepad became a regular visitor to peoples homes

measuring room sizes that I liked

even took it too england to measure my sisters lounge area !

With the plans and the sizes I wanted - designs started to form getting to a 3 story before reality stepped in

I asked an exorbitant quantity of questions mainly referring to sizing beams as I'm in a high snow area

the help recieved was awsome and I can only hope to pay that back over time

The plan set i bought gave me the  basics of what I'd need to supply the permit office

The width I decided on for the house meant a total re-design- out came the autocad clone to do the dwg set

foundations- roof design and the beams all came from the research and help from here

what I started out with changed full circle to what I'm building today..

Costs have doubled from my original estimates - mainly due to foundation requirements and the land I bought

The whole process to date is two years - and no roof on yet - but working on it !

[wannabe]

I started here on the site...and have spent way too many hours looking at peoples builds

Then I ordered and got some plans from here

Out came the graph paper for doing scale dwgs

My tape measure and notepad became a regular visitor to peoples homes

measuring room sizes that I liked

even took it too england to measure my sisters lounge area !

With the plans and the sizes I wanted - designs started to form getting to a 3 story before reality stepped in

I asked an exorbitant quantity of questions mainly referring to sizing beams as I'm in a high snow area

the help recieved was awsome and I can only hope to pay that back over time

The plan set i bought gave me the  basics of what I'd need to supply the permit office

The width I decided on for the house meant a total re-design- out came the autocad clone to do the dwg set

foundations- roof design and the beams all came from the research and help from here

what I started out with changed full circle to what I'm building today..

Costs have doubled from my original estimates - mainly due to foundation requirements and the land I bought

The whole process to date is two years - and no roof on yet - but working on it !

It seems like I'm still at your step #1. I think I looked at every builders thread. Very interesting by the way. Is yours on here. So you drew everything in Autocad. Did buying the plans help with your personal drafting.

Thanks.

[TBoss]

wannabe,

Your situation is very closely related to mine.  Hang in there.  We should finalize the paperwork on our land here in the next week or two but we are still trying to decide what to build.  Due to our lease expense, we are also limited to how much money we can throw at this project so we may have to get a loan from the bank.
The only other option I see is to rent something very cheap in a small town (60 miles away for me) and use the saved money to start on the project.

Im hesitant to get a loan from the bank but I would also like to get on the property ASAP as we will see big savings from what our current lease payment is.
We've considered a 20x40, a metal building home that we could convert to a garage later, and a walkout basement with roof that we could later add a main floor to.

So many decisions.  It seems this is the toughest part so far.  That and trying to get people to answer you back when you have questions (not this forum) ;-)
I will be following your thread to see your progress and I wish you the best of luck.

[Danfish]

Unless you are willing to compromise it is a challenge fitting ready-to-build plans to your current lifestyle and furnishings.  As mentioned in an earlier post, the "wife code" plays a strong role in the final design. 

First it is important to lay out a scale site plan, consult with local agencies and plot all setbacks, easements, coverage limitations, height limitations, and impact of natural features (recently had a site that building was limited by a heritage oak tree).  Then there is orientation of the structure to consider viewshed, sun exposure, privacy, and noise reduction.  That will determinate buildable area, and ultimately, the limits on size and floor plan of your future home.

Then do layout (to scale) drawings of your exiting funiture arrangements and if you plan to continue with a similar arrangement, see how this might fit into a floor plan. Nothing worse than finding your lifestyle and furnishings do not fit the final space.

[UK4X4]

"So you drew everything in Autocad. Did buying the plans help with your personal drafting"

Originally when I bought them - they were to build from....but sizes etc changed sufficiently that I had to redraw everything.

the plans were then used as the basis to which I did my set

Details copied over - changed to suit

basicly the plan set gave me everything the permit office required- I did a similar dwg for everypage in the original plans

Terminology-wall construction - layouts and full views all helped in how do draw mine- correctly to American regs

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process !

[wannabe]

"So you drew everything in Autocad. Did buying the plans help with your personal drafting"

Originally when I bought them - they were to build from....but sizes etc changed sufficiently that I had to redraw everything.

the plans were then used as the basis to which I did my set

Details copied over - changed to suit

basicly the plan set gave me everything the permit office required- I did a similar dwg for everypage in the original plans

Terminology-wall construction - layouts and full views all helped in how do draw mine- correctly to American regs

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process !

Is it possible to know to name of the software you used. I tried a few free software but they all seem missing some important features. The good ones, like Autocad, their pricetag just don't justify buying for drawing one set. I graduated in Graphic arts, despite it was a long time ago and that I never really worked in that trade, I can use most software. I am more wondering about the ability of my computer to run the software correctly and fast enough.

Thanks

[UK4X4]

I used earlier a free version of turbocad- but then I upgraded my PC to win 7 and it would not work

so I changed to Progecad smart - also a free version- and there's a workarround for getting it to work in win7
The free version works fine on my home PC with vista.

Neither are 3D- but basicly identical to autocad

The 3d drawings I did with Google sketchup.