Designing your own house or rely on an architect?

When I brought my first house we went to the store and designed our own kitchen with help from the people at Home Depot. Then when everything was delivered to us both my husband and I put the kitchen together. Put up all the cabinets, put in the applicances, and designed the floor and walls ourselves. Now in our third home we designed the whole house on paper first then we went to the architect to get help with getting the blueprints and finalizing them. We then had professionals come in and build the house itself. If we were in the same area at the time we probably would have helped out with the labor because we love doing all that type of work. However, I was in another state trying to sell my second home and my husband was in Hawaii working. We love taking on new tasks it keeps us moving and keeps us younger. We now have outdoor projects that we will be doing this year at our third house. Like putting in a new patio, driveway and sidewalk. Can't wait to get started.

The designing of the house is something that you can quite easily do. It would be better I think. Your home is in your imagination and the architect does not have access to that. It would be a good idea to let an architect check your final plans and design, to ensure that the structure and planned building materials adhere to current building regulations.

I think it is always good to design the home oneself. I think you can try different softwares like 3d Home Architect to design your home and also to design the interior of your house.

Don't forget about Radon.

when we bought our first house,my husband and i intend to take this one as our wedding house.about the designing of the house, we all know little ,so we ask a familiar architect who is a good friend of my husband to design our house.the architect can express his ideas fully and we just give the money.although this is a easy way,it must not be the best way for you in my opinion.after my entering,we are aware of some suggestions should be mentioned before the designing.so, you can share your ideas with an architect,or you can do it by yourself if you can.cos you will live in this house not anyone else.

you should design it yourself because you have to live in a house, its your house. . no one can understand your comforts better than you. my mother is not architect, still she designed our house n it is mind blowing :-) moreouer the office of my father is designed by architect but still its not that satisfactory. decision is yours now.

We made a plan, and my husband started on the basement, got it roughed in, but he got als so had a contractor do the upstairs so that he would not move out. He had designed what he wanted and gave it to the contractor who suggested improvements, what to do with the bathroom, etc. So it was a joint effort. But now he is gone and the basement still is not finished.

I would have to say that I would rather design my own. I have some experience in residential construction, and I have a friend who is a licensed contractor, so between the two of us, we could design a very nice house. I would go through an architect to get the blue-prints done, but the design would be my own, and I would do a lot of the building myself, especially during the finishing stages.

No, I would not know how or where to begin. I woulld like to see plans from an architect and visit a few places first before employing him. I would have an input about some of the design and there would be certain specifications and requirements. I wish you luck in designing a house - you seem to be multi talented man yes, I rely on prfessinals especially when it comes to electricity and plumbing but since this old lady is thinking of studying at College to get a realtor's licence then I suppose that I may be described as willing to take on new tasks. Great post my friend

I designed my house but asked for professional approvement. The architect ,for a very small fee, gave me some points which proved interesting on the whole. My husband and I built it later with a crew of workers.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcsUfYBHhm4 may contain a couple of useful lessons.

I would like to invite a architect to help me. Because I am a layman compared to a architect. Why not let a professional person do what they are expert in?! :) But before the architect's designing, I will tell him what I really want. If possible, I will spell out all the detail requirements and explain them fully to him. I will let him know my individual preference, my habits and customs. And the final design drawing should be approved by me.

If it's just the interior of the house, I don't rely on professionals since I it can be done on my own. The Internet has a lot of home decorating ideas and virtual home decors that I can use so I don't have to pay for something extra.But the installation and stuff, I will have to ask someone to do that. But if it involves the exterior part like pipings and electrical and all sorts of stuff I don't understand, then that's the time I will hire someone who understands it better than me. I want a stable after all :)

Hi there Urban! I LOVE this topic. I too am dreaming of building my own house. I want the house to be the fruit of my own labor. But ofcourse we have experts in this field and they are called architects. The help the architect can give is expert ideas of the foundations of building the house. The best materials to use, the best contractor, location and all that jazz. But if you can learn all these in the Internet and have a friend architect at least, you can save lots of money from the expert's fee. So experiment, explore, have fun and good luck! Thanks for sharing :)