When I told my friends that we were going to build our own house, they thought that was crazy. They assume that I was just being impulsive again – something that I definitely have a reputation for. Nevertheless, we did not come to a decision rashly. We had been contemplating designs of houses for a long time, and have concluded that we couldn't find one that really worked for us.
When we first began to look at blueprints of houses, we had no idea that we would build our own. We were just simply looking at designs of houses as a way to get ideas for what our ideal house would be. We knew about what size we wanted, we had some idea about the neighborhoods that we were interested in, but none of the house plans that we had seen had looked quite right. Part of it was that we lived in an old neighborhood, and many of the interiors of houses were a little bit too closed for us. We liked the more modern, open design.
It was more than that, however. As we talked about designs of houses more and more, we realized that we both had a very specific vision that we had worked out over years. We knew exactly what our house design should look like, and so there was no reason that we should buy one. Although we didn't have the money to contract with a builder to create the whole thing, we knew that with a little bit of help we could probably build it ourselves.
My wife has some background in drafting, and this helped us to make a design of a house. Of the two of us, she is definitely a planner and I am the hands on one. She comes up with the ideas, I come up with the best ways to implement them. It works for both of us, and with designs of houses the specialization of tasks was almost indispensable. Designing a house, you see, is an extremely, complicated process. Just coming up with a floor plan takes a lot of work, but coming up with the structural design is even more difficult. People are so afraid of construction of houses that they never even contemplate making their own designs, but I am here to tell you that you can do it. Our house is beautiful, and according to the building inspector, it is completely structurally sound.
