Glass or Acrylic Porch Covering

Question:

Richard, I'm a residential home builder & desperate! Is it possible for you to give me the proper name or both proper name and websites I could research the contemporary stoop or porch coverings I have seen in both residential but mostly commercial buildings. Generally made out of glass or acrylic, encased in a metal trim and sometimes hung by chains coming off the structure, mostly used to cover entry doors or doors and part of stoop or porch. . . I've seen them arched, wavy, etc. Help!

Answer:

Hi Linda - thanks for your question! The glazed porch canopies you've seen are inspired by the Art Nouveau movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and in particular, the famous Art Nouveau glass and steel canopies over the subway entrances in Paris.

As far as I know, there's no one that specializes in just that product for residential porches. The ones I've seen are custom steel or aluminum fabrications with tempered glass inserts. Not difficult to design or fabricate, but expensive.

You might consider talking to a conservatory manufacturer like Renaissance Conservatories or Tanglewood Conservatories. Their products are similar to what you're interested in, on a larger scale.

Translucent acrylic panels are made by Kalwall (kalwall.com) for commercial projects, but could be used for porches.

Hope this helps!

Blocking In 2 X 8 Floor

Question

I have an attic space made of 2X8's and want to put down a sub floor (3/4 OSB). There is no blocking in the floor and I would like to add some before I do the decking. How many blocking points should be done normally in a 12' span?

Answer

Hi Wayne - thanks for your question.

I assume you're talking about bridging? This is a code issue, so the requirements may differ depending on your location.

Generally, bridging isn't required for anything smaller than 2 x 12's. When it is, it's usually at 8' spacing.

If you are concerned about lateral bracing in the attic floor it certainly doesn't hurt to add bridging. One row in a 12' span should do it!

Hope this helps!

Richard Taylor, AIA
Residential Architect
Luxury Home House Plans

Historic Home Restoration Consulting

Question

Hi, I'm interested in becoming a historic home restoration consultant. How can I go about doing that? I don't have a lot of experience, but I've read a lot about historic homes particularly craftsman homes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer

Hi Debra - thanks for your question!

Generally, a restoration consultant is someone with a great deal of experience in "hands-on" work with historic properties. It's one thing to know about house styles and history, quite another to know the proper way to go about replacing and rebuilding old-house parts and pieces.

At our office we would only contract with a restoration consultant who demonstrated extensive knowledge and experience acutally working on old homes. You need to know proper techniques and materials and sources for appropriate products.

You're on the right track with reading and studying; you need to add practical experience. I would suggest you find a contractor that specializes in this type of work and try for a job there. It'll probably be as a laborer, but that's the best hands-on experience (that's how I started my career).

You should also consult your local or state historical society, as they are likely to have courses you can take to further your knowledge.

Finally, subscribe to The Old House Journal, Period Homes Magazine, and The Journal of Light Construction (all have websites). They're excellent resources for the kind of knowledge you need.

Hope this helps!

Richard Taylor, AIA
Residential Architect
Luxury Home House Plans

Exterior Paint Colors?

Question

Hi Richard. I have been searching and searching for exterior paint color combination ideas and haven't found exactly what I am looking for. We are getting ready to have our home repainted and wanted to try and find something a little different than we have, but stay with something traditional.

Should we stick with the same color family when choosing a color? For example, if we choose a certain color, should we pick the lighter shade in that same family for the trim or is that not right?

Any help you could offer or any ideas would be most appreciated. Thank you very much for your time.

Answer

Choosing colors is tricky, as you've discovered! Sometimes the best route is to find a house or a picture of a house that you like and copy their color scheme.

Most paint manufacturers have examples of color schemes, and often they're organized by house style - it can be a big help. I've used the Sherwin-Williams color schemes many times; their examples are very good.

Once you've chosen the general scheme, choose the colors using a "color wheel" which will help you choose complementary colors and make the job a little easier. You can find color wheels at any art supply store. Or, most paint manufacturers can show you how to choose complementary colors from among their standard offerings.

I have also used color consultants several times...they charge by the hour but can save their fee many times over in wasted paint! Check with your local paint store for references.

I usually don't like darker colors for trim, as it tends to "picture-frame" the windows. Ideally, you'd choose three colors - field, trim, and accent. The accent color is the one you want to be darker. You can find more about this at this link: http://rtahouseplans.com/exteriorpaint.htm.

Depending on the house style, it's not inappropriate to paint the field and trim the same color (as long as it's dark).

The colors on the palette you sent me are a bit nuetral; they're variations on taupe. Try something more bold; reds, greens, rich browns, that kind of thing. Most complaints I hear about exterior colors is that they're too boring, too light, too much like every other house in the area. Try something new!

Hope this helps!

Richard Taylor, AIA
Residential Architect
Luxury Home House Plans

What Style Is My House?

Pocahontas was chatting with her friend Captain John Smith, comparing her reed-covered hut with his sturdy log home. “Hey John,” she asked, “What style is your house?”

“I’m not sure,” Smith answered, “I think it’s a Colonial.”

American home design from the Colonial period through the late nineteenth century followed trends and reflected popular tastes. Well-known styles were often “all the rage” for a number of decades until another style supplanted it; rarely did more than one or two styles dominate home design at the same time.

Elements of Style

The two important characteristics that have the most to do with a house’s style are massing and detailing. Massing is the size and shape of the “boxes” that make up the house; detailing is everything from trim and siding to windows and doors.

The earliest American homes were simply massed. The classic Williamsburg Colonial – upon which many hundreds of thousands of American homes are based – is a simple rectangular box. A Colonial home is usually clad in wood siding or brick, and has double-hung windows (the kind that slide up and down).

Colonial homes were based on simple European models and were rarely exuberantly detailed. The Georgian style – a simple two-storey brick box with symmetrical windows and a centered door – is a well-known example.

Revival and Eclectic Styles

Home designers and builders have been influenced by styles from earlier times throughout American history. In the 19th Century, many homes were based on classical models.

Greek Revival homes have very simple forms, often just a single rectangular block. Taking cues from Greek temples, builders added a front porch with massive columns, and a very heavy cornice line at the roof.

Italianate styled homes emphasize the vertical and are almost always very elaborately decorated. The cornice line at the roof of an Italianate is notable for wide overhangs and large scrollwork brackets, and the windows are often crowned with ornately carved headers.

Colonial Revivals aren’t copies of original Colonials; rather they’re liberal interpretations of all shapes and sizes, using Colonial details and elements for inspiration. The Colonial Revival style was extremely popular during the early 20th Century and almost always has a front porch, a detailed cornice line, double hung windows, and symmetrical massing.

Tudor is a very free-form style, asymmetrical with very steeply pitched roofs. A wide variety of material is seen on the outside, although the best-known examples include some “half-timbering” – areas of stucco or brick broken up with wood timbers. The entry of a Tudor home is often modest but heavy, and windows are broken up with many small panes.

Victorian Homes

“Victorian” refers to a group of styles popular in America during the late 19th century that was made possible in part by the invention of new framing techniques.

Queen Anne is the most common Victorian style and is characterized by an irregular shape, a steeply pitched roof, elaborately carved details, and large porch. Queen Annes are best known for their multi-hued color schemes and complex siding and trim details.

Shingle style is uniquely American in origin, and was one of the first styles to be embraced by society Architects of the late 1800s. Shingle style homes are often similar in massing to the Queen Anne style, but as the name suggests, used wood shingle siding as exterior cladding. Unlike the Queen Anne, shingle style homes usually shun elaborate exterior detailing and trim.

Early 20th Century

In the first half of the 20th century American Architects began developing new home styles instead of relying on classical and European models for inspiration.

Among the more notable American styles is Prairie, popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright but practiced in various forms throughout the country. Prairie homes are typically long and low with deep roof overhangs. Porches are common and usually supported by massive columns. The Prairie style wasn’t in fashion long but strongly influenced hundreds of thousand of “ranch” homes across the country.

Craftsman style began in California and quickly became the preferred style for small homes across the country until about 1930. Small Craftsman homes are usually called Bungalows and are characterized by low-pitched gabled roofs with wide overhangs. Details such as beams and brackets are very common. A Craftsman home has a “hand-crafted” look that continues throughout the interior.

Classifying Your Home’s Style

Determining a modern American home’s architectural “style” today can be tricky, and nearly impossible in some cases. But most homes, new or old, contain at least a few recognized elements of an identifiable style, and identifying those elements is the key to classifying the style of the house.

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

Historic Plaster Repair

Question

Our home was built in the 1920's, & is in a historic neighborhood. The sunroom on the home has a flat roof & this past spring we had a leak resulting in interior damage. The room has plaster walls & ceiling, an 8 foot section was damaged, including the crown molding which is also made of plaster.

I cannot find anyone that will do the repair- matching the crown molding that isn't damaged. Everyone tells me that the artisans that created the crown molding started with unique molds to create the crown. Can this be repaired matching the existing crown? What do they do in old churches? Don't they match existing work in repairs?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Answer

Thanks for your question. Everything you've said is correct - plaster relief is made using custom screeds. As long as there's some of the original crown profile intact, it's easy to make a new screed to match.

This kind of work isn't common anymore, so I'm not surprised you're having trouble finding anyone to do it! But there are certainly restoration contractors in your area who can direct you towards the right people. I would start with your local AIA chapter (www.aia.org) and ask for architects who specialize in restoration work. You may also have an historical society in your area...find out what they know.

If you have olders public buildings in town, your State Architect may have worked with this before - try the office of the State Architect.

Finally, The Old House Journal (www.oldhousejournal.com) and Period Homes (www.period-homes.com) are great resources for obscure contractors, or at least a place to start. You might even find the tools and knowledge there to do the work yourself!

Hope this helps,

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

Raising Ceilings

Question

Hello..we have purchased a beautiful old home built in 1824. The ceilings on the first floor are fine at a little over 8 feet, but the ceilings on the second floor are quite low at 80 inches.

We have been thinking about raising them, but are a little concerned about all the work involved as the sellers did have central air installed so there is a lot of duct work that would have to be temporarily moved, plus the A/C unit itself as well as all the electrical would have to be redone.

Our biggest concern if we don't do them is that down the road should we decide to sell the house the low ceilings would be a turn off for most people. The engineer who inspected the house thought we would be comprising the historical value of the home by raising the ceilings and a few friends have suggested this as well, that the lower ceilings add to the historical character of the home. We were wondering what your thoughts were? Thank you.

Answer

Thanks for your question!

Always a tough call...the lower ceilings are certainly a part of the historical charm and character, but they're uncomfortably low and don't meet current building codes.

Assuming the work wouldn't have an impact on the exterior, I'd consider doing it - but only after inviting a representative from your local historical society to review the house. Making changes to historical homes to make them more useful is very common; it's often necessary to maintain their use as a home. And it IS a home, not a museum, right?

What you need to do is make the changes with great sensitivity to the historical character...this might require the skills of an Architect who knows how to work with historical homes. Check with your local AIA chapter to find one (www.aia.org). With the proper changes, you might end up with a far more useful, and no less "historic" home.

If money is an issue, then you need to think this through very carefully - if you can't afford to do this correctly, you should leave it to a future owner. It is difficult and expensive to undo a poor "re-muddling" of a historic home!

For more info, check out www.period-homes.com and www.oldhousejournal.com.

Hope this helps,

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

Wood Stair Treads

Question

Richard, we are considering installing wood floor in living room and stairs leading up to it from the front entry and stairs from living room up to bed rooms. Question: Are wood treads slippery (meaning no carpet runner)?

Answer

Thanks for your question!

Yes, wood flooring can slippery when wet...but no more than any other hard-surface floor material. The type of finish you use can affect the traction you get - high-gloss finishes will be a little slipperier.

The type of soles on your shoes will affect traction, too.

Keep wood floors clean and dry, and free of obstacles (especially on stairs) and you should be able to enjoy your wood flooring safely.

Hope this helps!

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

Third Floor Room Addition

Question

My husband and I are looking at purchasing a home. The home currently has the master bedroom downstairs (homes built on a hillside) and the upstairs is the kitchen/living area. My question: is it possible to add on top of the 2nd level to create a new master suite or when the home was being built would extra support had to have been built in to support another floor? I'm sure I need a structural engineer to take a look but would like your thoughts.

Answer

Thanks for your question! There are at least three places you'll need support for the additional floor. One is the floor structure itself, which is where your current roof structure is. Chances are, this is inadequate as a floor structure.

The second (often overlooked) place is the walls supporting the new floor (and new roof above). These need to be evaluated for their ability to carry the greatly increased loading above. Often this means opening up the walls from the inside and adding studs.

The third place is the foundation - it also needs to be able to carry the addition load. Whether it can or not is a function of the size of the footing and the bearing capacity of the soil you're in.If one or more of these areas are inadequate, there are creative ways to support an extra floor...but you'll need local expertise for that!

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

Residential Elevators

When one of the Architects at my firm suggests to a client that an elevator might be the answer to some of the issues in their new home design, the reaction is often predictable: “An elevator? That doesn’t make any sense, does it? Aren’t they really expensive? Who puts an elevator in their house anymore?”

Residential elevators are found in more homes than you might think – and not always as an extravagance, but often as a practical and cost-saving design feature.

We’d Live Here Forever, But…

As American homeowners age, they’re becoming concerned about their ability to remain in their homes. They’d like to stay well into the golden years, but most family homes have all of the bedrooms on the second floor, including the owner’s suite. With sixteen or more steps between the first and second floors, the stair can quickly become a difficult (and often dangerous) obstacle for older homeowners. It’s a major reason why empty-nesters move to one-level homes.

But while a one-level home design is more easily adapted to a changing family structure, a one-level home is more expensive to build. It can have nearly twice the foundation and roof area of a comparable two-story home without any additional space, adding greatly to the cost of the house. And so most families build a two-story when they’re young, and move to a one-level home later in life.

It’s cheaper to build a two-story house, but is the difference between a two-story and a one-level enough to offset the cost of an elevator? The answer is often a resounding yes, and with money to spare. If the cost of a one-level home is a 25% premium over a two-story, then an elevator can be a money-saving consideration in even a relatively inexpensive home.

Design And Lifestyle Considerations

What do you do when a family is still young, wants to live in the house forever, but can’t justify the cost of installing an elevator they may not need for many years? A solution we like is to install the elevator shaft – without the elevator – and use the space for temporary closets.

As it happens, the area required on each floor for the elevator shaft is about the size of a walk-in closet…so that’s what we do – put a temporary floor at each level and use the spaces as closets until they’re needed for the elevator. Installing the elevator years later is a simple matter of removing the floors and installing the cab, doors, controls, and related equipment.

A second stair is frequently added to a design when a house becomes so large that a single stair is too remote to effectively serve the entire second floor. That second stair takes up a lot of space, however, and can be difficult to work into the plan.

But an elevator takes up much less space than a stair and can be much more easily worked into just the right spot in a house design. It can also be “hidden” in the plan – visitors are unaware that there’s an elevator in the house.

Details

Elevators are operated either by a hydraulic piston or a cable-and-pulley and electric motor. Most residential elevators are the cable type and are quiet, safe, easy to operate, and relatively quick. There’s no “machine room” as with commercial elevators – all the equipment is contained within the elevator shaft.

The interior of the elevator cab can be finished to match the rest of the house including the flooring and trim, and the door is indistinguishable from the others in the house. With the door closed, the only clue that there’s an elevator in the house is the call button next to the door.

A typical residential elevator cab is about 4’ by 5’, large enough for two adults and two children, or an adult in a wheelchair and a caregiver. It will also hold boxes of holiday decorations, furniture, groceries…

A Luxury That Saves Money

A typical residential elevator adds $20,000 to $25,000 to the cost of a house. But since an elevator can allow you to build more efficiently, it can actually save money.

You’ll save the cost of moving, and of building a new home at future prices. You may recover the cost of the elevator - and then some - at resale. And if the elevator becomes a medical necessity, you may be able to take advantage of tax benefits.

It’s a small part of a house, only about two percent of the area of a 3,000 square foot house and just one percent of a 6,000 square foot luxury home. At current custom home costs that’s less than four percent of construction costs.

But most important is the benefit of staying in the home where you raised your family; the home you’ve grown to love; the home with the memories. Is an elevator a luxury? Perhaps, but maybe one you can’t afford to pass up.

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

Smooth Stucco

Question

Hi, Mr. Taylor.

I've been playing with the idea of building a house, but I'd like it to look old--like the spanish or cotswold style houses built in the 1920's and 30's.

I've noticed that one thing the old houses have in common is a very smooth stucco finish, giving more of a plastered look. Is there a product or technique that can give this effect, today?

Thanks, Kitty

Answer

Hi Kitty - thanks for your question!

A modern stucco finish can easily be made as smooth as you like; it's really just a matter of how much sand is in the mix, and how the finish is trowelled.

Generally, however, a smooth finish is not as durable as a textured one; is more prone to cracking; and is more difficult to create a uniform color with.

The older finishes you like required regular maintenance.

It can be done, but you may not be happy with the long-term results.

Hope this helps!

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

An Old Perspective On New Home Energy Efficiency

Buildings use about 1/3 of the energy consumed in the United States. A lot of that energy is wasted because houses aren't designed to use it efficiently. The few energy-efficient homes out there today use technology to manage energy use, but 30 years ago many homes made energy-efficiency intrinsic to their design. Can we do that again today?



read more | digg story

Open Shower

Question:
As I dream about building a new home, I have drawn out a shower I saw in a magazine- approximately four by six with no shower door-then i thought about how cold (air flow) that might be. Is that type of "open shower" really functional or primarily aesthetic? Thanks for thoughts and ideas.

Answer:
We do a lot of showers without doors - sometimes called "lockerroom" type showers. The trick is to wrap the wall around once towards the inside (kind of like a square spiral or a maze) so that the opening to the shower faces an inside wall of the shower, rather than opening to the bathroom.

Is that confusing? Think of it this way: create two showers; one about 4 x 2, and one about 4 x 4. Put them next to each other, then create a small opening between the two. With this type shower, you don't have a glass door to keep clean, and you can use the 4 x 2 part as a "drying off" area. We put a separate floor drain in there, and add towel racks.

A real treat is to add heated towel racks - you'll wonder how you lived without it!The down side is that it can take up more space than a conventional shower, but with careful planning it's a really nice bathroom feature.

Hope this helps!

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

Construction Costs

Richard Taylor, AIA
Custom Home Architect
Luxury Home Plans
Luxury House Plans

Square Foot Pricing…Handle With Care!

When evaluating the costs of building a new home, many homeowners use square foot pricing as a basis for comparison. Let’s talk about square foot pricing for a minute – what it is and what it isn’t.

Square foot pricing is a method to roughly compare construction costs for two similar houses, houses in different parts of the country, and houses with different characteristics. It is not a method for determining how much a particular design is going to cost to build.

I can tell you, for example, that a typical production starter home (a standard plan built by a large-volume regional or national builder) will cost around $80 to $100 per square foot to build in my part of the country. A “semi-custom” home will cost around $110 to $130 per square foot, and a true custom home will cost at least $140, and as much at $200 per square foot to build.

Show a builder a house plan, and with a few specific questions, he can place it within one of those ranges. That’s a start, but for a 2,500 square foot “semi-custom” home, a range of $20 per square foot is a lot of money. You most definitely don’t want your cost estimate on a $250,000 house to be off by $50,000!

But with a little research, square foot pricing can be a useful tool. Find out what similar houses cost to build in your area (don’t forget to take out the cost of the land first) to place your plan in an appropriate price range. Find builders who build homes in that range and have them prepare a more detailed take-off for you.

An experienced builder will be able to further evaluate your plan in terms of the expected level of finish, the impact of your building site, and other factors in order to fine-tune the cost estimate.

House Plan Size

Many things affect the cost of building a typical house but there are three big ones: size, complexity, and the level of finish. The effect of house size on construction cost is obvious - I don’t need to explain this in detail, do I? Bigger houses cost more. But it’s not quite that simple.

Significantly more important than house size alone is the matter of where that size goes since the “cost per square foot” of a house varies tremendously from room to room. It’s obvious that a kitchen, with appliances, cabinets, countertops, plumbing fixtures, tile flooring, and other expensive finishes will cost more “per square foot” to build than a bedroom – which doesn’t have much more finish than carpeting and paint.

If you squeeze the size of a house down by taking space from low cost-per-square-foot rooms like bedrooms you’ll find that you haven’t affected the overall cost of the house much at all. In fact, you’ll likely not do much more than simply raise the cost per square foot of the entire (now smaller) house – and maybe not change the overall cost at all.

So a smaller house – if the size difference is in inexpensive rooms – may not be a less expensive house.

House Plan Complexity

The effect of the complexity of a house on the construction cost is frequently misunderstood and it’s one of the sources of many an unpleasant surprise for house plan buyers.

Simply put, a complex house is more expensive to build than a simple house. But what makes a house complex? Mostly it’s a function of the shape of the house and the relationship of the amount of roof and the amount of foundation to the area of the house.

Consider two typical house designs: A rectangular two-story Colonial house and a French Country home with a first-floor master bedroom suite. Both houses are 3,000 square feet and both have the same level of finish.

The Colonial home is the picture of simplicity; both floors are exactly the same size and are stacked directly over another. So while the entire house is 3,000 square feet, the foundation and the roof are each only 1,500 square feet (I’m ignoring the garage for this example). It’s efficient and easy to build.

The French County plan is the same size but less efficient; with the master bedroom suite moved from the upper floor to the lower, the roof area and foundation area increase by about 500 square feet – but the overall size of the house stays the same at 3,000 square feet. More roof and foundation containing the same area; same size but with more lumber and concrete = more cost.

Colonial homes have simple gabled roofs. In the simplest examples the roof is made entirely with just one truss configuration. That’s a huge sigh of relief for the truss fabricator and the framing crew – every truss is the same! And without any intersecting roofs or dormers, there’s no overlay framing and no flashing or valley metal to install.

But French Country design is distinguished by its more “rambling” nature; an attractive home of this style spreads itself out a bit. French County roofs are typically hipped rather than gabled (hips are more expensive) and are often steeply pitched – more lumber is required and the roofing labor is more expensive.

Every angle, intersecting roof, bay window, porch, or level change adds complexity to a house. If you’re comparing two house plans, watch for complexities in the layout that may make one significantly more expensive to build than the other.

Finishes and Fixtures

Let’s compare two houses again, only this time they’re both 3,000 square foot Colonials. One has a fiberglass tub in the master bath (about $500) and one has a $5000 whirlpool tub. That one change adds $4500 to the cost of the house but more importantly, it changes the “square foot” cost of the house by almost $1.50 per square foot.

Careful - here’s where homeowners get “nickeled and dimed” to death. Perhaps you were quoted a base cost of $120 per square foot for your house. Add the tub, and it’s gone to $121.50. Add hardwood, granite, under-mounted sinks, brass hardware, and other upgrades and suddenly you’re at $140 per square foot and way out of your budget.

Finishes and fixtures (flooring, cabinets, countertops, trim, etc.) represent about 30% to 40% of the cost of a house. You may only increase the cost of each item a little but because so many items fall into this category it’s very easy to lose control of the total cost.

If you want nicer finishes but your budget is tight, do what my clients do – put the nice stuff in the kitchen and master bath and the cheaper stuff everywhere else. More importantly, assemble a list of the finishes and fixtures you want at the beginning of the project and stick to it.

Budget Creep

Budget creep is the gradual, sometimes unnoticeable increase in the cost of your project as new items are added, mistakes are uncovered, or unusual site conditions are revealed. Budget creep happens slowly, one decision at a time, creeping up and devouring your building budget before you know it. It can afflict you during the planning of a house project but more often it’s a disease of the construction phase.

A little planning, patience, and foresight can help avoid it.

On any project, start with a clear idea of the level of finish and quality you expect. Don’t assume that your builder is in tune with your ideas about finishes – discuss your expectations in detail and whenever possible, see the actual finishes and fixtures. If you’re not the detail-oriented type, hire a professional interior designer.

Poor quality drawings cause additional unplanned work during construction, and always end up costing homeowners money and time. My firm’s been hired many times to correct drawings done elsewhere that contained glaring errors, omitted necessary structural steel, or just plain didn’t work. Sloppy drawings are an open invitation to Project Creep.

Finally, always have realistic expectations about your project budget and communicate that budget to your builder. When everyone understands the project’s financial goals the chances for success are greatly increased.