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Lifestyle and Home Design Blog

Understanding the House Plan Approval Process: A Journey from Dream to Reality

Embarking on the journey of building your dream home is an exciting endeavor. It's an opportunity to bring your vision to life, create a space uniquely tailored to your lifestyle, and invest in your future. One key milestone in this journey is navigating the house plan approval process, which might ...read more

The Great Indoors Meets the Wild Outdoors: The Art of Blending Indoor and Outdoor Spaces

Once upon a time, in a world where walls could talk and ceilings could sing, a revolution was brewing. Homeowners were yearning for a magical union between the cozy indoors and the untamed outdoors, and architects were more than happy to oblige. This enchanting marriage of indoor and outdoor spaces ...read more

Seizing the Moment: Why Now is the Perfect Time to Build Your Dream Home

There has never been a more opportune moment to bring your dream home to life. The current landscape of the housing market, advances in construction technology, and a renewed focus on sustainable living are converging to create the ideal conditions for building a house. In this blog, we will delve i...read more

A Timeless Romance: Reviving Classic Architectural Styles in Contemporary House Plans

Once upon a time, in a world filled with charm and elegance, classic architectural styles enchanted us with their beauty and grace. Fast forward to the present day, and the allure of these timeless designs has been rekindled, capturing our hearts once more. Contemporary house plans are now delicatel...read more

Why Builders Should Have A House Plan Library

Having a large library of house plans is a valuable tool for builders. Not only does it provide more options for clients and allow for customization, but it can also help to save time and reduce costs. Here are the top six reasons why builders should have a large library of house plans: 1 - It allo...read more

Best Pool House Plans For 2023

If you're lucky enough to have a pool on your property, a pool house can be a wonderful addition. Not only does it provide a convenient spot to change clothes, but it can also serve as a place to relax and entertain guests. In this blog, we'll show you some of the benefits of building a pool house a...read more

The Complete Barndominium Guide for Beginners 2023

It seems like year after year there are certain trends that come and go when it comes to home design. Over the last few years we’ve seen the rise in styles such as Modern Farmhouse, Modern Cottage, Modern and even Cottagecore (more on that one later). While those styles are certainly still pop...read more

The Best Things To Do With Your Spare Bedroom

A spare bedroom is a valuable asset in any home, but it's easy for this space to become cluttered and unused if it's not utilized wisely. If you have a spare bedroom in your home, here are some smart ways to make the most of this space and turn it into a functional and enjoyable part of your...read more

The One Thing Designers Always Do Before Buying Furniture Online

It’s a familiar story. You spend months scouring the internet for the perfect sofa, coffee table, or accent chair. You decide to pull the trigger and click “complete purchase,” officially starting the six-month countdown to delivery. That fateful day finally&...read more

7 Simple Ways We Made our House Feel Like Home

Creating a home takes time, but feeling at home doesn’t have to wait. Today I’m sharing seven simple ways we made our house feel like home in the first year. This October we celebrated our first year anniversary of selling our previous house and making this one our “forev...read more

These 9 Serene Bedroom Color Palettes Feel Simultaneously Calm & Chic

You may take the occasional nap in your living room, practice self-care in your main bathroom, or even unwind after work in your sunroom with a glass of wine. But of all the rooms in a standard home, the bedroom is where relaxation is paramount. While we love a bold accen...read more

11 Designer Halloween Decor Ideas That Are Equally Sophisticated & Spooky

Decorating for Halloween likely brings to mind a very prescribed design style. We’re talking illuminated jack-o-lanterns, creepy cobwebs, orange bowls of candy, skeleton figurines, faux bats, and sheet ghosts swarming the front yard.  But as designers, we can’t help but challenge...read more

10 Best New House Plans for 2022

If there is anything that can be said about 2022, it’s that the year has been a rollercoaster in the real estate world. Fluctuating interest rates, housing shortages, and lumber price fluctuations have made the home building journey an interesting one. Finding your dream home already on the ma...read more

How To Create a Comfy Yet Trendy Workspace Area at Home

More people than ever are working from home today. In fact, studies show that nine out of 10 workers in America are currently planning to continue at least some degree of remote work since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent quarantine revealed to many businesses and their employ...read more

6 Ways To Make Your Home Smarter

As technology advances, options to make our homes smarter keep emerging. In 2022, people are finding several ways to make their homes smarter. Smart home products can help improve the safety and enjoyment of your home. From fingerprint door locks to nest thermostats, smart gadgets can make daily tas...read more

Top Room Designs for 2021

The year 2021 has been one where we’ve got to spend quality time with our families in the comfort of our homes despite the pandemic creating havoc across the world. With more time spent at home, there’s been a flurry of interior designing ideas on the rise with many of us wanting to put ...read more

The Benefits of Building a Multi-family Home

A multi-family home is defined exactly how it sounds. It is 2 separate homes that share a common wall with separate entrances. These homes are often referred to as duplexes, tri-plexes, or townhomes.  So why would anyone want to build a multi-family property over a single-family home? Let&rs...read more

Things to do Before Building a Home - A Step by Step Guide

Building a house is the ultimate dream for many people. The process, however, can be a nightmare if you don’t know where to begin.  Do you start by finding a builder? Do you find an empty lot first? Should you have your house plan in mind going into it? These are the questions we are g...read more

Creating a Spa-Like Bedroom Retreat

Self-care is growing increasingly important, with more people seeking time to relax and take a moment to themselves each day.  Having a self-care routine has been proven to reduce anxiety and stress, improve concentration, relieve frustrations, and improve happiness. It can have a positive i...read more

5 Ways to Create a Spacious and Livable Space in Any Home

Do you ever wish you had a bigger home with more space? Most people do, but many people also have more usable space available to them than they think. Making your home feel more spacious and appealing to live in is absolutely possible. In fact, it's simple if you know how to. There are many tric...read more

Smart Ways To Beat Lumber Prices

As you probably already know, there is a massive shortage of lumber that has been pushing lumber prices and construction prices through the roof. Reports are showing that the average new home building prices have gone up between 15% and 20% in the past year. One of the supply chains we work with has...read more

Top High Tech Home Devices That Make Your Life Easier

Most homeowners are slowly having high-tech home devices installed on their property to make it easy to run their daily activities. These devices also save you a lot of money and time that you spend operating things around your house. But, what are these devices? Here is a list of the top four items...read more

Home Plan Cost Estimating With Advanced House Plans

One of the questions we get almost every day at Advanced House Plans is, "Is there a way to get a house plan cost estimate for your plans?". Luckily the answer to that question is now, "Absolutely.". For a few months now, we've been testing our Construction Cost To Build Esti...read more

How COVID-19 Has Effected Home Design Trends

With 2020 coming to a close, it’s no surprise that the way people live and work has been dramatically changed due to the pandemic. Some of the changes that we have had to make as a society may never end, such as working from home.  We have written past blogs about how backyard offices ...read more

Having trouble working from home? Hello backyard office!

COVID-19 has changed the way many businesses will allow employees to work. Working from home has become more prevalent than ever.  Businesses now recognize the many benefits of having their employees work from home. Working from home has advantages for both the employer and employee.  L...read more

Best Affordable House Plans Under $250k to Build in 2020

Browsing house plans can be a daunting task. Even if you do find the perfect house plan, you have no idea of the actual cost to build it. You then find yourself trying to get a plan bid out by contractors and hope that it's still in your price range. This can be incredibly frustrating and can ev...read more

House Projects to Keep You Busy During Quarantine

During these trying times, it can be easy to get bored when you are trapped at home. Let's make that time more productive and upgrade the look and feel of your house at the same time? Here are 7 DIY projects that anyone can do while stuck at home. Paint a Room There is no better way to qui...read more

Working at Home? Sprawl Out In Comfort!

Working from home is more normal than ever now that the COVID-19 virus has made its mark on the world, and is still continuing to change everyday life. If working from home is new and foreign territory for you, finding the perfect spot to do your work can be rather tricky. Use the following tips on ...read more

Ten Ways to Redesign Your Home for the Summer

The weather's heating up, and with it, people are getting hot for the idea of redecorating.  Instead of settling for a new picture on a wall, or some throw pillows you hope will show off your personality, you can make more considerable changes.  Summer should be a time of fun, so why n...read more

Carriage House Garages

Lately, I’ve been thinking about space.  Not Outer Space.  Just…space.  Specifically, space we might need, or at least, space we might want.  Space to store our stuff.   Space to create.  Space to make noisy messes while we pound, paint, sculpt, saw, or sew...read more

The Best Storage Ideas to Reduce Clutter and Save Space

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “I have too much stuff and nowhere to put everything”? Chances are, if you’re reading this blog, the answer to that question is yes. We’ve all been there. Miscellaneous Christmas gifts from years past, hand me down items that are too sen...read more

10 Great Ideas for Mudrooms and Garage Entry Areas

My poor mother.   She loved a clean house.   Unfortunately, she had five kids who didn’t share her passion for order and cleanliness.  To make things worse for her, we lived in the country where livestock, mud…and more…were just a part of daily life.   Mom fou...read more

Is The Barndominium the future of Residential Construction?

When Chip and Joanna Gaines built their "barndominium", it peaked a lot of interest in that building style. Not only is it an efficient way to build a residential structure, but it also has that farmhouse charm that Fixer Upper is known for. The question we find ourselves asking is, "...read more

Top 5 Finished Basement Ideas

If you are fortunate to live in an area where you can have a finished basement you have probably dreamed of making the basement into your own retreat. Unlike the main level of your home plan where you need to be practical and have things like a kitchen, dining room, mud room, bedrooms and living spa...read more

Is the kitchen work triangle still used in modern kitchens?

The answer to that question is...kind of. Today's kitchens have evolved over kitchens in the past. Whether you own a small home, empty nester home or luxury home we all live in our kitchen and want it to function for how we live and cook. What are the kitchen work triangles design principles?...read more

What is a standard garage size?

Garages come in all shapes and sizes. Choosing a garage size will depend on what you use need to use your garage for and whether it will be an attached garage or a detached garage. Are you building a detached 1 car garage? If so, let's think about what you will be putting in it. Is the space ...read more

9 Reasons to Buy a Professional Set of House Plans

Are you thinking about building your own dream home? Do you have a style in mind for the house you want to build? Get ahead of the game by purchasing a quality set of house plans. If you think you’re going to save a ton of money by doing your own hand sketch of a house plan, or having a fri...read more

Ranch Style House Plans

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.   We’ve all heard that saying, and even though it might be sort of a pathetic mindset (never being satisfied with what we’ve already got), I admit I sometimes think that way too.   It’s not that I&rsquo...read more

Choosing the Right Sized House Plan

Food. Flavor. Texture. Aroma. Combined, they are my weakness – my kryptonite.  I love the experience of tasting just about anything, be it sweet, savory, tangy, bitter or sour.  As a result, I’ve pretty-much transformed my bathroom scale into a climbing, diving, world...read more

Mediterranean Style House Plans - Relaxed Sophistication..Inside and Out

Growing up, my favorite part of every summer was our family vacation. Each of those two-week trips were adventures into the unknown, as neither my mom or dad cared to be constrained by annoyances such as planning – or heaven forbid, making reservations. More than once, in fact, a coin toss a...read more

Modern Farmhouse House Plans - Simple, Sensible, No-Fuss Sophistication

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re living in a crazy, complicated, fast-paced world.   Most days, I have no problem going along with life’s frantic flow.  Eventually, however, I always have to take a step back, away from the mayhem and allow myself to re-center. Th...read more

How To Read House Plans Elevations

Understanding blueprints - don't people go to school for that sort of thing? We're breaking down a typical construction set of house plans to help you navigate your way through the complex web of lines, symbols and terminology of plans. (If you are new to all this, try our helpful primer&...read more

How To Read House Plans The Construction Set

Interpreting a construction set of drawings for a home can be daunting. With so many lines, symbols, and notes, it can be easy to get lost and to feel overwhelmed in trying to "see" how a home would be like in the real world from a complex web of information. In this new weekly series, we&...read more

Six Ways To Make Your House Plan Energy Efficient

Few things in life can be as exciting -- and equally daunting -- as building a new house. Throughout the design and construction process, there are multitudes of decisions to consider that will affect the final cost. "Final cost." It's a phrase we associate with the sum total of all...read more

The Courtyard

Home Design's Oldest, Simplest and Most Affordable Luxury It had been a difficult day at work. The boss was upset. Your co-workers were being difficult (as usual) and business was slow. But at last, it was time to go home and leave the headaches of your job behind. So...finally...after enduri...read more

Two Master Bedrooms, The Floor Plan Feature That Promises A Good Nights Sleep

I'm a crazy sleeper (if what my wife says is actually true). Allegedly, I snore...but besides that, I've been known to hide from assassins (in our bedroom -- at 3:00 am) and one time, I nearly broke my foot while kicking at an attacking goose (in our bedroom -- at approximately the same hour...read more

Looking Beyond Front Elevation Styles

The Kiwi Principle Picky eaters.   We've all known them.  Many of us have attempted to feed them.  Perhaps some of us still are them.   When I was a kid, I was anything but a picky eater.   If it looked remotely edible, I devoured it...read more