This page is the home page for my house designs. If you've been here before you might notice I have reorganized this section.
All my house designs are segmented into the following categories:
Take a look, you might like what you see.
As a hobby in my "copious spare time", I design houses using the Home Designer Pro 7.0 house design CAD program. I've been doing this since May, 2004, and I have about 40 completed designs as of June, 2007. On these pages are posted various graphic renderings of these designs, including floor plans. Scroll down, or click this handy link to navigate to the designs.
For a quick look at my favorites, go here. I hope you find these house design ideas of use. Feel free to borrow my ideas for your own design. All I ask is that you not use any of my images without attribution.
I have reorganized this entire section (in addition to updating the CSS style sheet for the whole website). Because things keep growing, I have broken up the house designs into 3 rough categories (in addition to the various "series"): Contemporary House Designs, Historic House Designs, and Original House Designs. Defying categorization, the Works In Progress page finds its own place.
I hope the new website background is less distracting.
Got back from Florida on Monday where we visited for my nephew's wedding. Needless to say, Florida is hot and humid in July. But we did take a leisurely drive down A1A (from Melbourne to Ft. Lauderdale), where I eyeballed the vernacular architecture with interest. I found the "Key West" style in abundance--one that I happen to like. I also found a lot of "McMansions", as well, a trend I don't particularly like. Seemed to be a lot of storm damage in various states of repair. In some places literally every other house was up for sale, many with signs announcing "reduced" prices. Also a lot of closed businesses, gas stations in particular. I guess no one wants to live in the path of a hurricane.
Well, after working diligently all week, I have finally posted Northwest #2, which takes its place on the Country Homes page.
As well, I have been working on several designs, in no particular order:
When I get a little more time I promise I will post WIP images of all these designs. Some of them I haven't worked on in over a year, being those I had begun with HD Pro 6.0.
Well, for the time being my problems with Trend Micro vis-a-vis Home Designer Pro seem to have sorted themselves out. The "failure to launch" problem was temporary, apparently. Then, I started having problems with Trend Micro finishing its launch sequence when booting up the system. It meant no scanning, and no updating of virus files. Bad pizza. Not entirely sure what I did to fix it, but that problem, too, seems to have disappeared (at least as of today). All I can say at this point is: Dude, WTF?
I still have system stability problems with something in the final rendering process. It interferes with the Windows XP Explorer--the Windows shell program. It (Explorer) goes into a tight CPU loop and stops responding to commands (such as clicks on the Start menu, launching and navigating explorer windows, etc.--you know, simple stuff). Needless to say, system performance degrades noticeably when this happens, even with a HyperThreaded 3.2GHz P4 CPU. You may not know this, but you can restart Explorer via the Windows Task Manager (and most of the time it restarts itself), but the best treatment is to reboot the system. What a pain!
And these are the reasons I'm having so much damn trouble getting things done. It's clear this can't go on.
Well, Northwest #2 is done, except for copyright-marking the images and building the page. That's about 3-4 hours work, which may be done by end of the week. Maybe.
I have been busy rendering away on Northwest #2 Finished.
This is about as complex as
Florida Cracker #1, and is taking about as long, too. I also seemed to have
developed a "problem" between my antivirus software,
Trend Micro, and
Home
Designer Pro. Specifically, Home Designer doesn't seem to want to launch
when the AV software is "active". Needless to say, this is an extreme pain,
though I only have to disable the AV software (as if that's nothing) in
order to launch the program. After that it seems "OK". Of course, OK is a
relative term.
Apparently there are still some bugs in the video drivers, since I am still having stability problems when I'm performing final renderings. I keep monitoring Windows Update and the EVGA website looking for updates. If I'm not doing final renderings I don't have too many problems (other than the launching problem--who knows when/if that will be solved).
So stay tuned for more developments.
I finally finished Florida Cracker #1. What a bear this has been. Apparently all the details I placed in this design have cranked the complexity up by (what seemed like) an order of magnitude. Perhaps not that much, but it has at least twice as many "polygons" as the next most complex design. Don't worry if this explanation doesn't make much sense--I barely understand it myself.
Also finished a long-promised update to Post Modern #2. Some might think I over-decorated, but it doesn't seem too overdone, to me. Here is the original design. I like how the updated design came out.
Check out some updates to the Works In Progress page. I haven't spent all my time working on the above two designs. I have made progress with Suburban Traditional #1. It's better, but I am still not quite satisfied with it. On the other hand I have made really good progress on Northwest #2, which should be complete relatively soon.
Country Home #8 (at left) is another very nice design (also on the Works In Progress page) that's coming along nicely. This design probably fits in somewhere in the "vintage house remodeled to current standards" category. It's a very traditional Victorian Shingle Style design that (once you go inside) has very obviously been updated with today's sensibilities in mind. You know: larger bedrooms, multiple baths, updated kitchen.
You might also notice my new, wider renderings, courtesy of my new wide-screen flat panel display. I now have two monitors, which permits me to work on more than one thing at a time. This is particularly beneficial when performing 8-light renderings. Check out this posting on my blog for more information about this stuff. Despite the coolness of my new adapter and its extreme speediness, it has not been without some ... problems. However, as long as I am not trying to do multiple things while doing final renderings, the multiple monitor thing works pretty well.
So you see, I've been busy, and I'm not done either.
March has been a pretty good month for design progress. I'm not sure where the time came from, but check out Country Home #7 and Northwest #3, both added to the Country Homes Series page. I have also made progress on a couple other designs (Northwest #2 and Florida Cracker #1), but alas I haven't had quite enough time to finish. Furthermore, I expect that over the next few months I will be extremely unlikely to have much free time, at all. We'll see.
Several of the designs on the Works In Progress page are obviously designs that I will never finish (at least beyond where they are, today), so I removed them. I don't think anyone will miss them, either.
Things are coming along on Florida Cracker
#1, and I have just posted Northwest #3 and Country Home #7
(these are now completed) to the
Works In Progress page.
I have finished Northwest #1, which has been added
to the Country Home Series page. I have
also made good progress on Northwest #2
(and just started Northwest #3, as well--it's not quite ready for
posting, yet posted!).
Florida Cracker #1, at the top of the Works
In Progress page, is still coming along, and I am excited for the design,
but I am taking my time coming up with the perfect design for the
kitchen. There is more to do, of course, just not quite yet, it seems. A very
large, "traditional" suburban design (Suburban
Traditional #1) has also just joined the Works In Progress page. I have a
couple of "issues" with the location of the kitchen and dining rooms, but rest
assured I will work these problems out.
Getting married, then all the holidays toward year's end (plus a week's vacation in January to Orlando, doing the theme park thing) seemed to have consumed all my spare time. Then getting sick (with pneumonia, of all things!) was just about all I could stand.
All better, now. Whew.
Within the past week I upgraded my graphics adapter (from a GeForce 7300 GS to a GeForce 7950 GT), and now renderings that once took on the order of an hour now take about 5 minutes. No kidding. Regardless of the number of lights casting shadows, practically all of the renderings are on the order of 300-350 seconds (under 6 minutes). Of course, the new board cost a lot more than the old one, but so far it's been quite worth the cost. So I wonder, what am I going to do with all the time I've saved? Do some more house design work, that's what. Stay tuned.
What's new? I am getting married this weekend. Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't some interesting things going on in the house design department.
Country Home #5 is completed. I decided to work on another Florida design, so I have posted Florida "Cracker" #1 on the Works In Progress page. It's not entirely an authentic Cracker style, but it does have that certain Florida coastline look about it. It should be a pretty nice design when I'm done.
I haven't made much progress documenting my experiences with Home Designer 7.0. Lately there just hasn't been enough time, what with planning a wedding (mine) and with "go-live" activities at work. Yes, I work in software and we just went live with a new version of the application that I am responsible for. Well, me and a couple of coworkers.
I do have about 4 or 5 new designs in the works, though only one
(Country Home #5) is nearing completion. Completed! I have posted two
others, however, that are somewhat beyond the simple "box" stage. Check out
Northwest House #1 and
Northwest House #2, on the
Works In Progress page.
Prairie #12 makes it onto the Country Home Series page, and it most likely represents the last house design I will complete using Home Designer Pro 6.0. Assuming I get a resolution to the problems I am having with Home Designer Pro 7.0, (and as of mid-July, I have) from now on I will be running with the "big dogs" (actually, not) and working with the latest and greatest tools.
I have just posted two new completed designs, Prairie
#7B and Tract House #15. You should check
out both of them; there are some interesting things in these designs. I am
almost done detailing Prairie #12,
but that probably won't make it onto the site for another week (maybe by the end
of the Independence Day holiday, perhaps). Also check out
Country Home #5, recently added to the
Works In Progress page.
In related news, I have just made the jump to Home Designer Pro 7.0. As I write this, (mid-afternoon on June 30) I am awaiting UPS to deliver it. I can't say very much about it yet, of course, but I am anxious to see what new cool features have been added. In an editorial comment, I am heartened to see that they've decided to provide a running supply of content add-ins. And of course I want to explore third party add-ins, as well. In anticipation of this event, I have added a page where I will explore the new features and (attempt to) document as many "how to's" as I can.
Stay tuned.
I have finally posted "Sears Modern Home No. 173" on the Sears Modern Home Series page. This house is fairly small, as most of them were, but I've included a few nice interior details. The exterior is reasonably well detailed, as well, especially all the exposed rafters under the roofs. Each one had to be done by hand. Yes, I am that nuts.
With the addition of a fourth Country Home, aptly named Country Home #4, I have moved all four country homes to their own "series" page, also appropriately named the Country Home Series. Country Home #4, itself, is Tract House #5 that's nicer and better appointed than what I would consider fitting for the Tract House Series page. No, it's not (strictly) that I have a certain disdain for your average tract house, it's just that I tend to do designs that are probably not in the sub $200K budget of most subdivisional buyers.
Finally! Suburban Contemporary #9 is complete, and resting in its place on the Suburban Contemporary Series page. You should come by and say "hi". I also rearranged the Works In Progress page, mainly because SC #9 has been removed from it. Though I don't know why I had skipped it before, I added Prairie #10 to this page, as well. Take a look.
In a spurt of creativity and motivation, I worked through and completed the design that I had previously posted to the Works In Progress page as "Tract House #12". Well, it isn't a tract house, anymore. Instead, it finds life on the Miscellaneous Designs page as Country Home #3. It could really go either way, but I'm sticking with my decision. And in the place of the now finished design, I submit yet another unposted design, Tract House #11, which had been languishing in my unfinished designs folder until I got an inspiration and began to flesh it out.
Our selection grows again. This time it's Tract House #3A, which had been a nearly permanent member of the Works In Progress page. I have also made some progress on Suburban Contemporary #8 (a rather interesting design), which had become stalled for reasons I now remember: curved walls can be extremely difficult to align properly (and get all the adjoining walls and ceilings and floors and ... and ... to look right). I had forgotten just how much time it had taken to get the curved walls of Suburban Contemporary #15A to look right, after I'd spent ... a freaking eternity detailing the rest of the house. My advice: don't even think about curved walls in your designs unless you are a true glutton for punishment.
I have also added Tract House #12 (Country
Home #3) to the
Works In Progress page, but it's coming
along so well I think it will be finished, soon. It's trés cute!
Well, and while we're at it, I have added a couple of images of my more recent
changes to Tract House #5, (Country
Home #4) which will probably be "#5C" by the time I'm done with it.
I finished a previously unposted house design, Post Modern #6A. It's small, and simple, and I'm posting it because it has some things I like about it. Take a look.
I finished "Tract House #10" (previously at the top of the Works In Progress page), and in the process made it into Country Home #2. It is posted to the Miscellaneous Designs section. I also added Tract House #12, Post-Modern #8, and the St. James Rectory to the Works In Progress page.
I've made some progress on Tract House #5 (it is now 5A). Look for it to be finished and posted to these pages, fairly soon. As usual, so little time, so much to do.
In analyzing search strings that led web surfers to my site, it has occurred to me that I have not been very good at identifying pages with their subject matter. Specifically, every page that's related to house designs should include that key phrase. Even more important, Google seems to index images based on the text that immediately precedes the image (as opposed to image captions that might follow the image). Toward that end, I am slightly reorganizing this section toward the goal of improving its "searchability". We'll see.
Lately it has been all but impossible to find time to add content to this site, but I finally have three more completed house designs. First and foremost, check out Suburban Contemporary #15A, easily the most ambitious and detailed design I have attempted, so far. Then check out Tract House #4A, if you are interested. It's a small, relatively simple design. Last, but not least, I submit Country Home #1 for your approval. In fact, this design comes with some documented alternatives, so you even have a choice!
Though the content was done back in August, I have added and revised pages in the How To Design Houses section.
I'm not sure what (if anything) it will do for the traffic and/or visibility of this website, but helicadesign.com (a site offering information on, among other things, Contemporary Home Designs) has linked to me, and in retaliation (er, make that the "spirit of sharing") I have linked to them. I'm not selling anything on this website. All I offer are design ideas that anyone can use and abuse. All I ask is that if you use my images, attribute them.
Meanwhile, I have no time at all to pursue completion of any of the ten or so house designs or the How To Design Houses project design or my live case study. It's getting quite depressing, since I really enjoy this stuff. Perhaps, just perhaps, by mid-November I will find myself with time to devote to this. In the interim, we will all just have to use our imaginations.
I finally added Tract House #6A to the collection of completed tract houses.
In the spirit of sharing, I decided to put together a page exploring some of the gorier details of how I constructed the detailed living room interior of my latest (Suburban Contemporary #15A) design. To closely approximate what I've done you will need HomeDesigner Pro 6.03, at least, but some of the details can be done with HomeDesigner Suite 6.0. I decided to call this new section "How Did You Do That?" for lack of a better name. Take a look, if you really want to know how it's done.
For those of you who hit this page and don't want to spend time hunting for the good ones (good designs, that is), look below for the short list of my favorite work. Of course, that would be just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.
I finally managed to get all the images rendered for my latest finished design, the "Suburban Contemporary #13A". You should take a look at this house, it's a very nice design. I also posted an updated Works In Progress page (removing a couple of dead designs, and inserting a few new, "live" ones). Stay tuned, "Tract House #6A" is on the way, (probably) followed by "Suburban Contemporary #15". Then, I will most likely return to modeling some Sears houses. I have no fewer than 4 of them "on the drawing board", so to speak.
I am reorganizing the gallery of designs, again. The last time I moved all my "old" designs off this main page onto their own page. It's not that they aren't good or interesting, it's just that my ... technique ... has improved, and I feel compelled to always put my best foot forward, so to speak.
Well, in that vein, I have decided to break the designs apart into sections. I have started modeling the Sears, Roebuck & Company "Honor-Bilt" mail order homes, and since I am now working on my 4th such design, they will be placed on their own page, together. The "Suburban Contemporary" series of designs (now numbering more than a dozen, though all are not yet completed), will be on their own page. Then the "Tract Houses", now about 5 designs (uncompleted, except one) and still growing, will be organized together. Lastly, whatever remains that can't be easily categorized will be thrown together on a "Miscellaneous" page.
I think this will improve things, somewhat, but if not, at least I'm trying.
In order, here are the handful of my design favorites on this site:
If after perusing the designs above you still have an interest in seeing more, then visit the pages, below, to see everything I've done.
These works are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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