If you’ve spent some time shopping for the ideal house plan or multi-family home plan, you’ve probably realized by now that finding the perfect design can be quite a challenge. There are many things to consider when it comes to purchasing a house plan such as the architectural style, floor plan, special features, square footage, and overall dimensions. Perhaps the style and floor plan are just right, but the design is too wide for your lot. Or maybe there are enough bedrooms, but your family could use and extra bathroom. Perhaps you need deeper garage bays to accommodate your boat and oversized SUV. While you may find a house plan that you really like, it might not quite satisfy all of your needs. One of the most common questions we receive from our customers is, “I like this house plan, but I need to make a few changes. Can you help me?” The answer is, YES! We are more than happy to assist you with modifying any house plan published on our site!

The House Plan Shop offers a modification service for customers who wish to make changes to any house plan or multi-family home design published on our website. This will ensure the home will accommodate all of your needs, fit your lot, etc. Our modification team can provide a free modification quote for all of your desired changes before you purchase your house plans. Our modification service is easy to use. Just follow the steps below to receive your free modification quote for any house plan published on our website:

1. Determine what changes you want to make to your desired house plan.
2. Complete and submit our modification request form for a free modification quote. Be sure to include the plan number you wish to modify along with all of your contact information. Next, describe your changes. Please include as many details and specific ideas as possible. (The more details you provide about your changes, the more accurate your quote.) When you describe your changes, do so as if you are looking at the floor plan from the front of the house. Use key words such as, “on the right,” “on the finished lower level,” “in the front left corner,” and “on the second floor.” Use the same titles and labels shown on the floor plan when you refer to rooms and spaces as you describe your changes. If the floor plan says “family room,” refer to “family room” rather than “’living room.” Include specific dimensions whenever possible. When referring to measurements running left to right, use the term “width.” Use the word “depth” when referring to measurements running from front to back. Finally, include any sketches you may have that illustrate your desired floor plan modifications. Sketches can be hand drawn, or you can print the floor plans from our website and draw your changes on the floor plan.
3. Our modification team will email your modification quote to you within a couple of business days. The quote will list the cost for all of the modifications noted on your modification request form plus the cost for the PDF or CAD file of the original plan. The PDF or CAD file will be necessary to legally change the original copyrighted blueprint. The total cost of your modification project will be the combined cost of the modification fees and the cost of the PDF or CAD file listed in the quote.
4. If you wish to move forward with your modifications after reviewing the quote, follow the instructions outlined in the emailed quote. Purchase the original PDF or CAD file, arrange payment for your modifications and proceed with your desired house plan changes.

Additional Information

Some of our most common modifications include the following:

• Flipping a floor plan from left to right (mirror reverse or right reading reverse)
• Changing the garage door location from front-entry to side-entry or vice versa
• Adding square footage
• Changing a foundation type
• Modifying the exterior elevations such as adding dormers, a covered porch or changing the façade from siding to stone or brick. Hamilton Eavestrough and Siding Installers can help you with that.
• Making adjustments for handicap accessibility
• Converting wall framing from 2×4 to 2×6
• Redesigning the layout of a kitchen, bath or laundry area
• Designing a finished basement for a house plan that has an unfinished basement

Some commonly requested changes that we cannot provide:

• Creating a new house plan by combining two other house plans (due to copyright laws)
• Adapting a house plan to meet local building codes
• Engineering a house plan to meet local building codes

Other Important Information

• All modification requests must be submitted in writing using our Modification Request Form. Sorry, we do not accept verbal requests.
• The blueprints for the house plans published at www.thehouseplanshop.com are drawn to meet national building codes. Modifications are not drawn or designed to meet any particular city, county, state or local building codes. We cannot guarantee all revisions will meet your local building codes. It may be necessary to hire a local residential design professional to review the modified house blueprints to ensure compliance with your state, county or local building codes and requirements.

This article brought to you by The HousePlanShop, LLC, the home of the best selling house plans from the best designers!

Tags: floor plan changes, house plan modifications, modifications

My husband and I have been looking at a home plan online that we absolutely love! But, we know we can improve it just a little bit in a few areas to better suit our needs and lifestyle. With this being our first building project using tools we found online at forsale.plus ikea, we are learning a lot. Take for instance what we learned about making changes to our floor plan. Our builder told us the modifications we want to make are fairly simple and easy to handle (making the master bedroom walk-in closet a couple feet deeper and changing the rear screened porch to a covered patio and adding an outdoor fireplace.) However, he cautioned us the building department would have to approve our changes. The changes are nothing major in our eyes, but after calling our building department we discovered they require any changes to be drawn on the blueprints before the plans are approved for building permits. Making changes after the plans are approved will cause issues with the building inspector.

So, this looked like a roadblock to us until I contacted The House Plan Shop. We were happy to learn that we have a couple of choices when it comes to modifying our house plans and either choice seems fairly easy. (Looks like this won’t be a roadblock anymore, but rather just a little hill to climb.) The representative at The House Plan Shop told me we can submit a modification request to their customizing department. If we like the quote and the time frame for making the changes works with our schedule, they can handle all the changes. A designer will go over the changes with us and send a preliminary sketch before they begin modifying the plans. Our other option is to purchase a CAD file or a reproducible master and have a local residential designer, architect or even our builder (if he feels comfortable) make the changes for us. Either way, it doesn’t seem like making the changes to our house plans will be too difficult. That’s a relief!

I am happy to find that wanting to change our blueprints is not going to be a setback for us and when we hand over the foundation forms to the contractors there will be peace of mind for both.

This article brought to you by The HousePlanShop, LLC, the home of the best selling house plans from the best designers!

Tags: customizing, house plans, modifications