Home Design Plans

House Styles Directory

There’s a lot of home design plans to choose from: French country, Farmhouse, Country, Colonial, Ranch, Mediterranean to name but a few.

Generally house plans sites give you a little bit of information about a house style. I think there's much more to say so I've included..

  • The architectural features of each house style.

  • A list of factors to consider when you're thinking about using any particular style. I discuss things like how flexible and scalable the style is, the types of lots that are suitable for the style and the cost of construction.

  • A little history of each style.

Reviews

Here’s a few tips on selecting the appropriate home design plan...

Choosing a style of home design plan

First of all take a look at your site, or more to the point, the homes that are around your site (what a great chance to go and say 'HI' to your neighbors!). In fact you need to get to know the houses in your neighborhood as well as the people. Houses in the surrounding area will probably share a similar style and while you don't want your home to be ordinary you don't want it to be extra-ordinary and stand out for all the wrong reasons either. Neighboring homes will have been built to obey zoning laws so if you select a similar style you’re less likely to run into any issues in this area. They’ll also have been built with materials that are suitable for the area’s climate.

So – when you’re looking round, is there a general home style happening? Note down things about the style of surrounding houses such as:

  • Are the houses generally one or two stories or taller? Is the bottom story bigger than the stories above? Is the first story at ground level or is there a basement peaking up above ground?
  • Are the front doors in the middle or off to the side? What are the entrances like? Are there balconies or porches, steps perhaps?
  • What size are the windows relative to the houses and co the windows have a similar design? Are there dormer windows coming out from the roof?
  • Are the fronts of the houses flat or are there lots of ins and outs?
  • Is the pitch of the roofs steep or shallow or indeed flat? Are the roofs simple or are there lots of dormers and hips?
  • Where are cars parked? If there are garages, where are they and what do they look like?
  • Do the houses look like they were built about the same time?
  • Were the surrounding houses all built by the same builder? If so it might be interesting to look them up, or try the local library or nearest friendly fact to find out the history of the neighborhood.
  • What materials are used on the walls and roofs?

Have a look at the house styles in these pages and see if any of them fit in with the home design plans that have been used to build the existing homes in your area.

Whatever the qualities of the individual buildings, however beautiful or elegant they may be, our first reaction is "They don't fit in." Such buildings are at best curiosities; at worst they simply look silly.

Witold Rybczynski

More house styles for you...

Here's some more house styles for you to look at.