Your current home isn't big enough; or maybe it isn't small enough. The layout of the kitchen leaves something to be desired. You're too far from work; too far (or maybe too close) to family and friends. Whatever the reason, you've decided to move on to a new house.
What makes someone decide that, with all the houses out there, to build something brand spankin' new?
Any number of things, really. Maybe you have that image of the perfect house in your mind, and nothing else will do. Maybe you've decided that you don't have the patience to do the little repair jobs that an older home needs to bring it to that "move in" condition. Or, maybe you've discovered that, in a tight housing market like today's, that there really aren't all that many houses out there.
In any case, you've decided to build new. You've got a few options:
Our first home was a tract home, and if you're not looking for something too out of the ordinary (Colonials, Capes, Raised Ranches, and the like) this can be an excellent choice. While there's still a lot for the prospective homebuyer to decide, like paint colors, appliance choices, and whether or not to choose option package "A" or option package "B", it's a much simpler process than building a fully custom home. As long as you're happy with something close to the stock floor plans, you can get a nice new home this way.
But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here. What, exactly, do you want out of a house? Think about your current residence. What rooms do you use? What rooms don't you use? Why not? Are there rooms missing? Are you sick of carrying all the laundry you generate on the second floor all the way down to the basement? Before worrying about style, think of the mechanics of your house first.
Once you know what you're looking for physically in your new home, what do you want aesthetically? Do you like a particular architectural style, or houses from a particular point in history? Don't just think about the exterior here - consider your interior finishes and fixtures, too. Do you like hardwood floors? Painted walls, wallpaper, or something else? Do you want a roomy shower or a large bathtub? If you don't know names, collect pictures - home magazines, real estate guidebooks, even your local paper can be helpful.
Finally, consider your finances. What are you willing and able to spend? What's your credit like? There are numerous financial calculators online that can help you with this number. Figure on a buffer for extras and cost overruns, too.
After you've gathered that information, you're in a much better position to figure out how you'll turn your ideas into a house plan. You'll be able to better tell if your needs will be served by a tract home, if there's an "off-the-shelf" house plan out there that works, or if you'll need to go the full custom route and hire an architect.
A word of warning if you fall into that last category, though: if you've never owned a home and been responsible for its maintenance, I would not advise building a completely custom home. I honestly believe that before you can really know what you need out of a home, you need to already have owned and cared for one. The opportunity to make potentially costly mistakes is much greater in a custom home, although working with an architect may help mitigate that risk.
Check out the Home & Garden section at your local bookstore, and you're liable to find a large collection of house plan books from companies like Home Planners and Princeton Plans. These kinds of books contain plans for houses in just about every style imaginable, and in just about every size from little bunglow up to gargantuan estate. It may well be that you can find something that meets your needs exactly in one of these books. If you can find something that's close, you might also be able to pay a residential designer or an architect to modify those plans for a much smaller fee than a full home design would cost.
An architect, on the other hand, is trained to take your collection of wants and needs and turn it into a house plan. Many architects also provide services like project management, and will do everything from gathering bids for you to taking a role in supervising the construction process, making sure their plans are turned into the house you've envisioned. All this comes at a price, however. Architects vary in how they charge, usually falling into one of three categories: an hourly rate, a fixed fee, or a percentage of the total project cost. Depending on the services provided, for a modest residence this could range from a few thousand dollars up to tens of thousands in the percentage cost case. When selecting an architect, contact local or national professional associations like the AIA to help in finding the right person for your ideas and your budget.
"That's all well and good, Dennis. What did you decide to do?"
As I've mentioned elsewhere, Kris and I fell in love with Victorian architecture before we were married. We also realized that to really get the home we wanted, we'd probably have to build it, rather than renovate an older home. We wanted Victorian architectural styles, to be sure, with all the gingerbread, bold colors, steep rooflines, and detailed woodwork. But we also wanted to know what was inside the walls of the house - to be more certain about the quality of the plumbing, the electrical work, the structure of the house itself. Our hobbies and lifestyle also tend towards features that just weren't available in turn of the century homes: computer network wiring, home theater, a gourmet kitchen, a room that could do double-duty as a darkroom, and so on.
So, we started collecting house plan books, and looking at all the pretty pictures.
Actually, we talked quite a bit about what we wanted out of a house. We already knew what style of home we wanted, but knew just about nothing else. A few years of being homeowners had changed what we thought we wanted in a house; not dramatically, but we knew much better now how we actually used our house, what we thought was lacking, and what we really liked.
We came up with a pretty simple list of requirements for any house we might build:
Armed with our requirements, we started looking at plan books. And looking. And looking...
After five years of hunting for just the right plan, we found something that was almost right: the rooms were a little too small, but with a little stretch sideways, and a little stretch to the back, it'd be just right. We ordered a copy of the plan, and took it to a residential designer to make the changes we wanted. For a few thousand dollars, we were able to get plans drawn up for exactly the house we wanted. The house ended up being a little larger than we had originally planned, but still within reason. You can check out the results yourselves in our Floorplans section.
Resources
Home Planners, Inc. <http://www.homeplanners.com/> - Home plans
Princeton Plans Press <http://www.pplans.com/> - Home plans
American Institute of Architects <http://www.aiaonline.org/> - Architect's Professional Org.