July | 2014 | Coastal Hues

Two days after the engineering was complete, Mike finished up our architectural plans – design is complete! We are so happy with the way that the house turned out. Mike really listened to what we wanted in our house and it turned out so much better than we thought it could have ever turned out.

People always ask how big the house is. Well, it ended up being bigger than we really wanted the house to be at 4,500 square feet (we were hoping to only build around 3,500 square feet). The reason being is that we focused on the main level and made it exactly how we wanted it. Then because we have a basement, the basement has to be as big as the main level…so that made our ‘secondary’ level bigger than we had intended. (For example, if we had a second story, that level can be smaller than the main level – but we can’t do that with a basement). For that reason, we have a lot of storage rooms downstairs that we’re really not sure what to do with (besides store Christmas supplies). I’m sure we’ll figure it out over time though…we’ll have a lot of time to grow into the house and re-purpose spaces as needed.

Final Design – Cover Page (site plan + rendering)

Final Design – Elevation View

Final Design – Main Level Floorplan

Final Design – Lower Level Floorplan

Over the past month we’ve been working with an engineer providing the structural review for the house. After interviewing and getting quotes from a few different firms, we ended up using Rick Heide at Design Build Services. A co-worker of mine used to work at DBS and gave it stellar reviews. His pricing was extremely reasonable and I figured that since he came recommended that we should give him a shot.

Of course we had a few hiccups along the way; but I call it too many cooks in the kitchen. When you have 3 professionals working together (engineer + architect + builder) plus an owner who’s a civil engineer you’re bound to end up with some differences of opinion.

Well, the engineer calculations and plans are finally done today. That means that when we’re ready we can submit them to the County for review and that Mike can update our architectural plans to show the correct information. Then those plans will be wrapped up too!