I will be meeting my builder and his architect to build a retirement home. I have had the land for a while and had a lot of time to think about what the house should be like. However, I would also like to explore possibilities I didn’t consider and give the architect a blank slate. What is the best way to approach them?
When we built our current home, we had a LOT of house plans that we liked. We had gotten them out of magazines. We also had ideas of what we wanted on our home.
I would suggest…
- Take a list of the things you want in your new home.
- If you have any floor plans you have either cut out of the Sunday paper, or drawn yourself, take those as well.
- Just be prepared to say yes to the things you want...and NO to the things you don’t want.
- Listen to ideas....there very well be some good reasons why something you want won’t work...or that something the architect suggests is a great idea.
I should add, we actually never used the architect to draft our plans because we found a set we liked in a house magazine and just bought those.
Have fun! This is your chance to get what you want.
How big is the house?
Make a list of rooms you want–living, kitchen, family, bedrooms etc., bathrooms, pantry. Porch? Media room? Office?
Cut out squares and arrange them in a semblance of order that may appeal to you. No need to make everything go perfectly together. Or you can draw circles on a paper.
The idea is to play with a general floor plan–Say you like the kitchen in the center of the home pretty much, and the family room connected etc. If you have rooms that you definitely want to look out on a view then keep that in mind.
Let the architect work on connecting those spaces together.
Have a good idea of the style home you would like.
Start a journal to keep all your ideas in–start with your list of wants. Keep your notes from the architect in it.
Good luck!
Not big, 1,000-1,400 s/f ish. 2-3 bd/2 ba. No other rooms needed or wanted, no dressing room, media room or office or family room, etc. LR Kitchen/dining in an open plan. It is a small lot. I am making the house as small as possible to have some outdoor space.
There’s a Building a Home forum on the Houzz/GardenWeb site which could be helpful. Several architects post there and have made suggestions about doing something called a bubble diagram to prep for a first meeting. You may prefer to do some browsing and searching, at least for a little while, before asking questions as a few people can be rather rude about questions they’ve previously encountered and helpful answers can get lost in the snark.
You may be asked about the orientation of your lot, the topography, climate, etc. Also, suggestions about designing for accessibility are typical, despite an occasional poster who claims his 99 year old mother still climbs stairs five times a day and thinks planning for mobility problems is nonsense.
You’ll also likely be asked if the person you’ve chosen to design your house is really an architect or just a designer or draftsman. Some builders have been known to refer to non-professionals as architects when they are not. I once made the mistake of not questioning a builder’s “architect” about his credentials. We were lucky to sell that house before the market tanked.
I didn’t know that. I have a feeling this is a real architect but will see. I will check the form. Thank you for the tip.
My husband and I have recently gone through the design process for our retirement home and begin construction next month. We have a 5 acre lot but limited the house to 3500 sq/ft. We also wanted some plans so we could shop around for a builder.
This is my advice:
- Do not go into a meeting with an Architect or Designer without having some idea of what you want. My husband is an engineer (commercial/heavy civil construction) but drew up some rough plans just to help give them an idea of what we liked.
The 2 architects we interviewed would have loved us to give them a “blank slate” but we had specific ideas of what we wanted in regards to style, # of rooms, sizes of rooms etc… We actually compiled a small portfolio of design ideas and one of the architects actually stated (a direct quote), “you guys are scary”. Both architects took our ideas into consideration but from our ideas it became their vision not ours. They also seem disinterested in when we told them we wanted to keep the size around 3500 sq/ft or less and they stated that they usually do much larger custom homes. They were off the list in a hurry.
They also wanted 20% of the building costs and had a lot of stipulations in regards to charges for change of order items. Since your builder already has an architect working with him, it might be a different experience.
We ended up with a Designer (Civil Engineering with a PE license) whom was very easy to work with, willing to listen to our ideas but helped us make the design better for our needs. He also charged a flat fee for his work.
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If is your retirement home, definitely consider accessibly as noted by the above poster. We opted for a single level home, with a wheel chair accessible shower (wide enough to accommodate a wheel car, no shower doors, handicap rails and a large shower seat) along with wide hallways and doorways.
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Be as specific as possible, especially if you do not have a set bid for the construction. My husband had me pick out granite, tile, wood floors, light fixtures, kitchen cabinets, even appliances (basically price point ranges) so our builder could give us the most accurate bid on the construction costs.
Best of luck.
Since you’re going pretty small, I’d suggest looking up Southern Living small house plans. There are many on the internet. You can see different layouts in your square foot range. You might find one you really like.
Google for Southern living–if you just look up “small house plans” you tend to get more of the “tiny” home variety.
As an architect, it makes me sad to hear about architects who wouldn’t want some input about their client’s tastes and needs. But the more honest and complete you are about what you want and need is, the quicker it will be obvious if you have a good fit or not.
Things I would ask in general is what they know about sustainable design and green building. You don’t need a LEED certified house, but you want someone who is keeping up with the current building science.
I agree 100% that you want your home designed for aging in place. That doesn’t mean grab bars everywhere, but don’t give yourself nasty 24" wide doors in the bathrooms and ask for blocking for future shower grab bars. I highly recommend a curbless shower.
Think about orientation. Do you want privacy from the street or do you like to be able to see what is going on? Do you want sun in the winter? Do you need protection from summer afternoon sun?
Think about how you cook. Even in a small kitchen you may want two separate work areas. I have a two page questionaire I give my clients about things to think about for a kitchen.
I know you don’t want a family room, but consider some kind of “away” space, so that if one person really needs to get away from the TV it’s possible. A small desk or seating area in your Master Bedroom may be all you need.
Definitely the more pictures you have of things you like the better. I had one client years ago, who really loved clamshell molding and minimal trim. They had a 1960s split-level and it was actually quite appropriate to the house, though I hated it!
Somewhere between 10-20% is what you should expect from the architect. If it’s on the high end, they should be helping you choose stone and tile and drawing elevations and lots of details. I work with a lot of clients who want to do a lot of this legwork, so I tend to charge on the lower end.
Here in NYS you would absolutely need a PE or architect who can stamp the plans.
I like to google 'small modern homes" as they have seem to offer small spaces that live large.
You said you didn’t want an office, but I really think people need a dedicated hidden space for your office items and all that SS and Medicare paperwork 
. My SIL has her small desk top work surface, printer, file cabinet, mail slots, computer, charging station, etc out of sight in one of those shallow, but longer closets - The kind with the sliding doors like a bedroom closet.
One thing I would be clear on is your preference for ceiling height and treatment. It really impacts the feel of the room, in my opinion. Too low and the room feels small and cramped - too high and it’s hard to get the room warm in the winter.
@mathmom: We were pretty disappointed with the few Architects we interviewed but it all worked out great with the designer.
We are building in California and so the CA regulations for Energy efficient housing standards are pretty high and I agree that your Architect/Designer needs to be up to date with all the changes. Due to the recent Wildfires in CA these last few years, fire code standards have significantly changed requiring the house to have a 500 gallon water tank specifically for the fire sprinklers in the house. We even need a specific outlet in the garage for electrical charging vehicles and the contractors need to be able to sort and recycle 30% of the construction waste.
Wow, I know CA leads the way on a lot of this stuff, but that’s way more than we need to do! I agree about the ceilings. Our 1920s house has 8’-7" ceilings downstairs and it’s amazing how much nicer that feels than 8’-0". We have one section of our new kitchen addition that slants up to about 12 feet, and it’s nice to have one space that is special, but I have no need for the whole house to have high ceilings.
And when you get to the electrical and other boring stuff–go over the plans with a fine tooth comb–security systems, stereo,TV, cable, lighting (dimmers, what switch goes where and turns on whatever, closet lighting), generator, fans, HW heaters, AC units, heating).
Got septic? Where’s that going? Hopefully not where you planned on a big garden…
Figure out where all the electrical stuff is being stored (two of my closets turned into one for the AC handler and another for the electrical boxes which totally killed my storage plans). The architect plan said closet–but it didn’t last.
And one AC unit with attic access is in a closet which while nice–you can’t get to the thing without taking everything out of the closet. Ugh. Just didn’t see that coming…
Plus other “little” stuff–like where does the hot water heater go. Unbelievably at the time we built our house it was common to put it in the attic…uh, NO! What in the world were they thinking? (Caught that one thank goodness!)
Let more than one set of eyes go over your plans when you get them. You might have an architect but some other friendly eyes look for specifics. (all my friends ate this up anyway).
Think about your furniture if you have any “special” pieces you want to keep or feature. Measure the furniture and make sure it’ll have a home in your new house. It can be a matter of inches.
Make sure you have an idea of dimensions for a good room–don’t let someone draw an 8x8 bedroom and call it good. Know your furniture placement and some basic dimensions.
Many great ideas! I do have pictures, idea books. I hope those would articulate what I would like in the house. I guessing in the first meeting it will be about big ideas. How many times do you usually meet to complete the design? How long should I expect it should take? I would love to buy plans off the internet but it’s an odd lot and it will be hard to fit into it.
I am thinking 11’ ceiling in the living room and 9’ for the rest. I would love to finish the ceiling with wood.
Our first house and now the second has a cedar wood ceiling in the family room. Absolutely love it! Our first house also had wood beams (false) in the master bedroom. Loved that too!
“it’s an odd lot”…pay particular attention to how the sun strikes and how your house is situated on the lot. Nothing worse than having to close up the house because you’re blinded by the sun morning and evening.
The view is to the northeast and a little to the south. That and the lot dictate how the house will sit. Big windows facing NE and S. I will see if the architect has a better idea.
Have you gotten suggestions from friends for architects you like?
When we were building, we interviewed a couple. The first one turned out to be more a draftsman than an architect, although I think she was AIA. She sounded like she’d be willing to draw up plans we specified. We did not want that-- we were hiring an architect because we thought an architect knows more than we do about designing a house.
The second recommendation was a pair of architects married to each other. They made it clear that they wanted the design process to be a collaboration between them and us. We went and visited several houses they’d designed, and we loved them all. We hired them and never regretted it. They designed the house we would have designed, if we’d known as much about light, ergonomics, symmetry, and so many other things as they did. And indeed it was a partnership. We told them what we wanted, and together we all figured out how we could have as much of it as possible. We love our house.
Ask the architect to show the floor plans with possible furniture layouts. Though I love our house, I knew that the living room was an issue. TV/fireplace/sofa just don’t make a good grouping. I liked everything else about it, so we live with it. But if you are building from scratch you should be able to get it right.
We’re structural engineers and work with a lot of architects on residential projects. You’ve gotten some great advice in this thread. I will say that the biggest problem we’ve seen is budget. The client has an idea what she can afford, and then the project comes in WAY over that number. We actually have one client threatening to sue US because the bids came in too high! (That’s nonsense, because we don’t provide cost estimates for houses - we don’t know how much things like tile, commodes, wall finishes, etc. cost!)
It’s difficult in our area, because contractors are so busy that building costs are skyrocketing. So just be aware of that and really think about how much you can afford and let the architect know that upfront.