The Plans

Nate, our builder, works with an awesome home designer named John who is talented, super nice, and very inexpensive!  This was exciting to us, since we thought we'd end up paying a ton for our house plans after checking w/ the designer who drew up the plans to the Utah parade home we love.  (He would've charged us about 4X as much as John did.)  We started working with John in early October by giving him a few drawings of house plans that Nick had put together (seriously, he did...Nick basically designed our house for us!). John then put together some basic plans and sent them to us.  We responded with likes and dislikes via email, then took a few hours to meet with him and Nate to discuss the plans.  This happened a few more times over the next few weeks.  It was quite the process - not terribly hard, but a little harder than expected. There are a lot of little details to decide on that you don't think about until you're actually designing.  It was fun, though, to do it as a couple and to be able to create a home that will fit our family's needs as it grows. 

Overall I'd guess that the process took us about 6 weeks or so.  Luckily we were able to base our original plans off of the Utah parade home, since we loved it so much.  We then tweaked things to fit our budget and our preferences.  Without those plans, it might have been super hard to even know where to start.  We were also lucky to be able to work with Nate and John, who were both more than willing to give their professional input as well as personal suggestions, but who were also very respectful of our preferences.  We now have a set of plans that we love and are so excited for.