Triplex Plans Tags

Tiny homes giving formerly homeless people the opportunity to become homeowners? You bet! Tiny homes are now being built in a Detroit neighborhood where formerly homeless folks and people with low incomes can rent—and have the opportunity to buy—their own homes. These very small green houses are part of a...

It helps to have a large, open kitchen on the days when families and friends congregate in your home. If you plan on doing the cooking, you may need to set some boundaries, so you can pull bacon-wrapped shrimp out of the oven without guest interference. An island is an...

Bringing Exterior Material Indoors. This technique – using exterior siding, roofing or trim inside a home – has long been core to custom homes. Now it’s increasingly employed in mainstream housing to create a unified design theme. Using cultured stone to wrap the fireplace, the same stone used for exterior...

Site lines are something else to consider. It’s nice at a big party when you can see from one room to another, especially if you are the host. If there’s someone you really want to connect with, you may be able to spot when that person is free. Or maybe...

The size of your lot will determine the size and type of house you want. You couldn't build a mansion on say a quarter of an acre. On the other hand a one bedroom, single floor home would look strange on a lot that is two acres or bigger. Whether...

Thinking Ahead to Holiday Parties. It would be a mistake to design an entire house around holiday meals and parties that only happen a few times a year. That said, plenty of new party-oriented homes are built each year for empty nesters in markets such as Palm Springs, Phoenix, and...

Functionality And Aesthetics. Obviously, we don't just want to substitute one thing for another, we want the new home improvement to outshine the old room. We want it to work better for us and we want that "ah" factor too....

Metal Roofs. The metal roof, formerly relegated to rural reaches, is infiltrating suburban housing. Even corrugated and standing-seam metal roofs are receiving attention. See Plan 933-5. Though durable and inexpensive, metal roofs need to be insulated and soundproofed, unless you really love the sound of rain on the roof....

Sports parties are a whole other ballgame (so to speak!). When I edited Builder magazine, we often hosted super bowl parties in show homes. Even though the game was running on multiple screens, guests tended to congregate around one screen in particular so that they could, in effect, watch the...

Eye candy is fun. When you're looking at home design plans with photos, scrolling past stunning home after stunning home, it's easy to spend hours dreaming. But finding equally Insta-worthy options that are affordable to build (and that your builder will love) is possible, too....