Have you ever driven by a house and thought, "UGH! Good LORD, what were they thinking?" I have. Chances are, the homeowner who built that house might have thought the same thing at some point. Thinking, "I imagined this turning out a whole lot better than it did." And, it probably should have.

 

Sometimes houses look good on the architectural drawings, but end up terrible in real life. But how is the homeowner to know that may happen, and how do they avoid that extremely disappointing reality? This happens often - today more than ever before - because people tend to not be able to see the reality of a finished product in drawing form. If you use Ai, then you can easily avoid this situation, and pretty much guarantee that you'll see the real picture early on. 

 

Of course, you must have properly designed plans of a house that WILL look good in the real world, first. But what about when your builder makes "approved adjustments" in the field - to save money - and you don't have the eyes of a design professional on what's being done? And even then, sometimes the "design professional," especially if not the right one, perhaps even the plan designer of the house, they can't see it either. That is a consequence of hiring the wrong person for the job. This is also a control problem, one easily corrected when you employ design observation. HausPlanned offers that one-on-one design observation.

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Now of course, I've also had a number of houses that I designed that look AMAZING on paper, but not so amazing after it was built. And each time there was usually the exact same reason why that happened. In the early years, it was admittedly, inexperience. Thereafter, it was always literally the dumbing down by someone else. Usually, by the home builder. Done so without my input as the designer.

 

Quite often homebuilders change things in the field - usually to lower cost - by substituting lesser quality products and/or finishes. The result typically lands on the house not retaining the "bang" that was in the design on the drawings. Lost due to uneducated simplification. The details can easily get lost or muddied, resulting in a, "Meh..." appearance. Very disappointing.

 

I've always hated seeing that happening. Particularly when a builder does it to one of my houses. You can actually see what I'm talking about in a few of the houses in my Gallery of Homes on this very website, built by other builders. The houses that I built, or directed, have always been built to PRECISELY follow the drawings as shown, or when necessary, as closely as possible. Of course we have simplified on some projects. But doing so foolishly without thinking about design is simply, foolish. And the result can be visually displeasing.

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To counter this from happening, I have elected to offer being more involved with my clients' homes during construction, and additionally have hand-pickled a select few homebuilders whom I work very closely with. Likewise, I design my clients' homes with clear understanding of budget, Menu, and expectations & reality of the build, to lessen the dumbing down possibility. This is invaluable, especially when working with familiar builder teams.

 

The design is ultimately a three-legged table. All three legs must work together and be the same length, or the table is not going to work properly, and WILL tumble. This all begins with smart, educated design principles, coupled with taste and good details. Designing with education and clear thought on cost, and identifying roadblocks that MAY cause substitutions, keeps the design intact. That's proper design.

 

HausPlanned does this, and does it the correct way. Thinking of the client and the budget from pre-planning through to dusting off the counter tops and placing the centerpiece. Knowing your subject is the key to success for a good, well thought out, home created from professional resources.