Houston Home Designs
On the next few pages, I am going to discuss different things to look at and consider when evaluating or designing home plans. The purpose is not to bias you one way or the other, but instead to educate you on cost considerations and other important issues when beginning to consider your new home.

1) Rectangular versus Complex footprint
If there is one single thing that affects the price of one plan versus the other, it is the shape of the footprint or foundation of the home. I will use two extremes to make my point. The plan above and the plan that follows are two projects that we are currently working on. Both of the homes will be well appointed with custom cabinets, hardwood floors, granite throughout, nice appliance packages, etc. However, the one above is on a small inner city lot and the one that follows is on a 5 acre tract of land.

Assume that both of them had the same square footage. This will be a stretch but stay with me. Notice the complexity of the second one. I think it is obvious that it would be more labor intensive to fabricate the foundation. Can you imagine bending and cutting the steel to fabricate the beams in the foundation. Then consider the framing. Same thing. Just alot more labor for the complexity of the design. An enlightening exercise that I did recently was to measure the outside dimensions of a clients plans. In other words, we used a ruler and went around the outside walls on the plan and measured the distance around. I then sketched a rectangle with the same square footage of living space. The perimeter of the complex design was 60% MORE than the rectangular one. What does this mean? 60% more brick, 60% more windows, 60% more labor, and so on. What about the complexity of the roof? Hopefully, you get the picture. The shape has a big impact on the cost.
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