When Thomas Kincade’s paintings first started showing up in galleries years ago, I’d imagine myself living in one of his cottage homes near a babbling brook. His namesake is now so commercialized I don’t necessarily think I’d feel this way today. However, the cottage style house plans in his paintings still make me feel warm and fuzzy. Perhaps I read too many fairy tales as a child. Nevertheless, I am still fascinated with cottage-style homes of all sizes. To clarify, cottage really isn’t a style of its own. The term can apply to many styles of homes, but usually describes comfy or cozy plans (quite subjective, I suppose).
A house plan site that has drawn my attention lately is eplans.com. Their site is easy to navigate and allows you to select the features you’d prefer and style that best suits your needs. For a small fee, you can receive an estimate of what your house plan would cost to build, a service many companies don’t offer.
Some of their plans include actual photographs, like the Craftsman below, while others include an illustration.
Another nice feature of this site is you can choose plans that fit within your budget. So if you can only afford to build a house that is under $200,000, you select the minimum and maximum cost variables and only house plans that fall within your range will appear within your search. Quite helpful for people like me who are hoping to save money though building my own home.
Now if only I could find land to build one of these fabulous plans, I’d be set.
Have you thought about building your own home? How far have you gotten on your plans? Do any of these ideas inspire you?
20 Comments
Your picture looks great! I would love to build a home. I would make sure it would be inexpensive to operate and perhaps off the power grid. Solar powered etc. The two things that stops me is the cost of land and cost over runs.
@Krantcents – Off the grid would be amazing. I found one prefab company that specializes in that type of model, I’ll have to post further about how to do that. But, yes, land cost is a big deciding factor for me too.
This picture looks really nice. It looks like you can put an in law apartment over the garage. That would be great to help with kids.
I would love to build a home someday. My plan is buy a tract of land on the Big Island and build a few wooden stilt houses. I know, it’s a bit different than your cottage. 🙂
@Retirebyforty – I love the idea of a loft or apartment above the garage for an office. That way I’m “going to work” without actually going very far. 😉 Building a home on the Big Island sounds great, and I’m pretty sure I found a prefab company in Hawaii that builds eco-friendly homes. I’ll investigate my posts and email you a link.
Dreamy home! We’ve lifed in several newly built homes…but the builders did everything and we bought when they were completed. I really like the idea of the new “small, energy, efficient” homes. There are so many really cool small designs.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I have an idea for you. Move further inland, where land is cheaper. There are even some really awesome prefab homes coming out!
@Barb – Yes, inland is less expensive. I need to investigate a few cities and figure out what would make the most sense financially and lifestyle wise. Thanks for that tip!
I eventually plan on having a home of our own built, but it’s a matter of building up the finances for it. Of course, this month, I made a huge step toward that goal of building up the financies as a total of $6,141.88 went to countable savings (most of that from tax refunds, even with claiming “EXEMPT” on the Federal W-4 form).
@Ronald R. Dodge – That’s an incredible boost to your savings fund! I’m obsessed with architecture and hope to build my own home someday in the future. 😉
@IPA – Building a home is a dream of mine, but I can see where it’s a bit of a scary prospect, so I can totally see why your wife isn’t too crazy about that idea. Maybe after some research and cost analysis, including a padded budget to account for over-budget issues, she may be more open to the idea.
That place is dreamy. These days I dream about having a little more land than the .2 acres we have today. Craftsman is so cool.
Our cottage is a simple cabin on an island that is shared with 2 other cottages. It is open concept and has more curtain walls than it does wooden walls. There are big gaps at the top of the “walls” and it is heated by wood heat only. Not overly accessible in our Canadian winters until the lake freezes, the lack of insulation is problematic. However, we love being their whenever we can get there. The seclusion, the lack of phone or TV – just music and our boardgames and the company we keep. We have a small bunkhouse as well on our 1/2 acre of rock, minimal dirt ground cover and tons of pine needles. The lake is clear (and has a 10 mph speed limit!) and quiet.
We love this place like no other.
Oh, I can see myself living in that house! Love the picture.
I dreamed about building our own house but heard nightmares and horror stories about contractors. So, I am not sure we will ever build.
@Aloysa – Yes, I’ve heard about nightmare stories too. I think the biggest thing is doing enough research to know how to speak with contractors (or better yet, having a friend who is a contractor.) I’m not quite ready to build my own house, but I too love that photo of that Craftsman. 😉
What a wonderful picture. I really don’t have the desire to build a home as I usually am drawn to more older, traditional style homes. (Which my current home is not.) But how great that you can specify what your budget is and get a house plan that would work for you.
@Everyday Tips – I liked that feature as well, entering the budgeting portion. The home I featured is probably well above my budgeted amount. 😉
@First Gen American
I second that! I have a very small plot of land too, but I would now like 1/2 to 1 acre at least…
I always imagined myself living in a small log cabin (or small cottage) in the woods with mountains and a pond/lake beside the home.
Let’s see… I want to create a Writing/Craft Cottage out of the old summer kitchen behind the house, but that’s more of a renovation than a building plan. I do want to build a small office over by the creek. I was thinking either limestone or log cabin style, but definitely cottage-styled either way. 🙂
@Jessica07 – There’s a great company called Modern Shed that is known for backyard offices made from sheds. I want to say that I wrote something about that a while back – check my home plans page if you’re interested in finding small shed ideas. Good luck to you!