I have presented these designs in chronological order. That is, the order in which I designed them.
There is no real rhyme or reason to the styles or other factors. For the most part I simply started with an idea (like "narrow 40 ft. x 100 ft. lot" for the first design), and went from there.
I have almost as many half-finished or aborted designs as I do finished ones. I also have not tended to do much in the way of "decoration" on the exterior images, or placed furniture, etc., either. I also discovered that the CAD program doesn't handle (well) the changing of wall colors away from the defaults, so most later designs simply have some base interior wall colors, and that's all.
The house designs on this page are ones I did in the spring and summer of 2004 while I was "getting my sea legs" and largely still learning the CAD design tool. I still think some of them are pretty good, but they are not (in my most "humble" opinion) in the same league as designs I have done more recently.
If you like any of these designs, feel free to "borrow" them, but be aware that I am not an architect, and there may be some engineering issues that are as yet unsolved. That said, I believe all of them could easily be built.
You will quickly discover that I seem to like "night" images for the exteriors of my designs. I hope they don't appear too dark on the screen. They are not dark on my screen at home, but on my laptop, alas, they are a bit dingy.
Oh, and a comment about the numbering scheme: there ain't one. I numbered the plans based on the number of iterations (from a base starting point). On one plan, the "Prairie #3A" (see it below) it has even gotten a letter.
Blame the geek in me. Should I have started with 1000 and gone up sequentially? Would you have preferred I give them cutesy names, like "The Grandiloquence"?
Nah. Someday I might come up with a better numbering scheme, but for now it seems OK, for the most part.
The first house design. This is a narrow lot design built on a slab, with a pink stucco exterior and a gray, corrugated metal roof.
This house design is just your basic 6000+ sq. ft. contemporary Victorian castle. It's a nice, spacious layout, featuring a small apartment over the garage.
This is another narrow lot house design, and larger than you might think. This one would also work as a duplex design (perhaps even better), since the left side of the house is devoid of windows or other features.
This house design was an experiment in the so-called Mediterranean style. Stucco walls, Spanish tile roof, dark woods. This plan was originally a Prairie plan, but I altered to some good effect.
This multi-level house design works best when built against a steeply sloping hillside. It features a huge master suite (the whole right side of the house) and a two-story entry foyer. Also note the third floor loft bedroom/bonus room. Eliminate this room and you could have a three-story foyer and/or a loft over the family room (with spiral stair).
This coastal/beach house design features high shed roofs over the two upstairs bedrooms, capturing both the view and the light, airy feel of life on the beach. Yeah, we should be so lucky! The roof line is designed to resemble the sails of a sailboat. I like this design, because it's not simply a rectangle. The floors (as can be seen) jut out at angles; the roof lines are not all perpendicular.
This is a rather large hillside vacation house design, with the bedrooms in a separate building from the "main house". The main features of this house are the large decks in back, especially those that flank the third-floor "study" above the master bedroom.
I call this house design "The Prairie Experiment". I think it turned out rather well, even for an amateur. Of course, there's something wrong with every design ...
Forgive me if I don't enumerate every flaw. It still looks good.
This is my first sub-2000 sq. ft. house design. I chose a cottage style, with a combination brick/siding exterior. There's a slightly different floor plan with 3 bedrooms and a 2-car garage, but it's technically not a small house anymore. I think there are other variations possible.
This house design is really cool! To me it represents the essence of the post-modern era, with sleek, horizontal lines and a clean, uncluttered interior. Amenities abound, especially in the master suite. It features a sunken spa tub surrounded by a curving glass brick wall. The story-and-a-half vaulted dining room also features a curved glass brick wall. You gotta see this! I could live here in a heartbeat.
This house design is Prairie experiment #2, sorta. This was the other Prairie house layout that started with room boxes. I'm not sure I expected it to come together, since it was still called "Prairie Test" until I decided to add the lights and electrical.
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