I can’t draw a straight line they will often say, feeling that the task of putting down on paper what they can imagine as their dream home is far far beyond their capabilities.

Well, the good news is, you do not have to be Picasso to come up with a masterpiece.

I am going to discuss a few simple things you can do to get your ideas down on paper in a way that someone else, (possibly your designer or architect) can understand and interpret.

We have a section in our owner builder course on reading and interpreting plans at a fairly basic level, and we really believe this is a skill that is a must for owner builders, but getting your thoughts down on paper is a little different.

By the time you get to the design or planning stage hopefully you will have decided on what you like in home design. You should have looked at display homes, read through home magazines, found what you like and don’t like in friends or family homes. You should have a rough idea of how big a house you intend to build, how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms etc and we are going to assume you have your block of land.

Firstly, the overall design, layout and size of your home will largely be controlled or constrained by the block of land you intend to build on, it may even affect the type of construction you choose. So lets think about what you need.

Have you got views, which way is the block facing, do you want your living areas at the front, back or a particular side (elevation) of the house?

How many bedrooms do you want, is your family young and growing or are they approaching the age where they may move out? Do you want a media room, a butlers pantry or a florida room?

Once you have decided on the required features, try this.

Roughly sketch out the shape of the block, trying to keep some sense of scale and proportion. (using a scaled graph paper can make this exercise a lot easier) Using circles, rough out a layout for the new home, positioning rooms where you wnat them in relation to each other and on the block. Again try to keep a sense of scale if you can. (1:100 is good if you can get that to work on your paper size, where 10mm equals a meter) This is a fairly standard scale for a plan view of a house used in construction drawings.

Once you have fiddled around a bit and got a rough idea of the layout, we can start to firm up the design.

Have you considered the prevailing breeze, the location of the sun (morning and afternoon) and the slope of the block?

Does the design flow, and allow you to make the most of windows and opening to get a good ‘cross flow’ for ventilation and cooling?

Are the room sizes roughly appropriate, does the size of the home and type of construction match the budget you will have to work with?

These are all question you will have to consider in the design of your new home.

Until reasonably recently, the design of the roof could be problematic where an other that ‘normal’ layout was considered. Do not be too put off by this, these day, given the range of roofing materials and forming processes, a good designer can usually work within your requirements to come up with a roofing solution that will fit your design and budget.

If possible, involve the whole family in the design process, it makes for involvement and interest in the overall project, who knows, you may even get the kids to lend a hand on site!

Anyway, back to the design process. using your initial concept sketch as the basis of your design, on another piece of paper block out the design in straigth line format and see if the room sizes make sense. A good size for a bedroom these days is 4 meters by 4 meters, and I would not consider building a house with bedrooms smaller than 3.5 by 3.0 meters. (considering a typical house block of not less than 500 square meters.)

By the end of this exercise, you should have a rough sketch of your house floor plan, with rooms sizes and general layout considered. You may still change this several times in the design phase, but now you have something you can continue to work on and develop.

Next you need to start again, redraw the design, this time placing built in robes, linen cupboards, hallways, and open areas, you can even now start to consider where door openings and windows should be located to make the most of views and prevailing conditions.

Owner Builders generally know what they want and are pretty good at expressing their ideas to their chosen designers, but this exercise is aimed at helping ou to better create your layout that suits the land and your requirements in the new home.

Finally, using the aid of a sketch pad, scaled and graphed, put it all tgether in a final concept or sketch plan, take your time, include windows, opening walls, doorways, cupboards, position of fixtures like baths, shower recesses toilet suites etc. When that is done start to draw in paths, carports, free standing garages, landscapes areas and consider the roof line.

Now, that was not that hard was it?

Owner Builders in my experience are pretty resourceful and very capable given just a little help to point them in the right direction.

In the next couple of weeks, I am going to put up a screenflow tutorial on this design topic for my owner builder students, I will go through each of the stages on screen so they can follow through and get the basics.

Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, keep an eye on our website for more great owner builder information.

Best Regards and Happy Building

Rick Heaton

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