Before you spend an enormous amount of money on an architect and allow him to conceptualize your dream home, try to draw your own floor plan. It’s actually very easy to do. Although you may ultimately need an architect to get it just right, the rough concept should be all yours. It will help you solidify ideas with whoever you’re building your house with. Best of all, it doesn’t cost a dime to change your mind!

Two Simple Tools

To draw your floor plan you need two simple tools. You need a pencil with an eraser and a pad of graph paper. For less than five dollars, you can start creating that dream house concept. You can even conceptualize 50 dream homes! You might call this the five dollar architect.

Communication

Before you start your drawings, make sure you communicate with your building partner. Do a little blue sky dreaming. What do you want? Do you need a game room? Do you want a multi-level home? How many bedrooms and bathrooms? How many square feet would you like your new home to be? Once you’ve got some general ideas and agreements together, start drawing.

One Graph Square Equals One Square Foot

See the beauty in this? For every square foot you need, you’ve got a perfect little blue square on the paper. It might be that you draw the general house, then turn the page and draw out each room. You could use it to draw porches, garages, pools, general landscaping ideas, even plumbing diagrams. If you draw out a living room, and you know how many square feet a couch, entertainment center, chairs, etc. take up, you can draw them in and see if you’ve conceptualized the right size room. Draw in doors and windows to get a feel for wall space. Things will really start to come together for you.

When you’re ready, take your ideas to an architect and start your project.