HPG-1601-1: The Courtland

My wife, Reba, and I knew that the day was coming when we would have to move from our house on 16 acres where we had lived for about 20 years. While we enjoyed the woods, it would just be too much work as we grew older.

Therefore, we purchased a 1/2 acre lot on a golf course about 6 years ago, but with no immediate plans to move. While I enjoyed golf, I assured Reba that I wouldn't move until she did! Over the last 6 years, we have looked at house plans, bought house plan software, and visited open houses for new homes. There may be a house plan we haven't seen, but it is doubtful.

In January of 2012, Reba decided it was time to get serious and see if we could sell our existing house. We then started cleaning out our basement and preparing the house for sale. Of course, during the process of preparing our house for sale we also had to get serious about finding the right house plan and a builder.

After many showings but no legitimate offers, we did sell our house in July. We also settled on our house plan from House Plan Gallery. We ordered the plans as a download and proceeded to get estimates from several builders.

We feel fortunate to have found Chris Austin and Central Construction Company LLC. We also appreciate the prompt responses we received from House Plan Gallery and the architect concerning some of the changes we were anticipating. We were able to move into our new house in January, 2013, and have been very pleased with the final product.

The house plan looks very good on the lot we purchased and we have had many compliments on both the exterior and the interior. After 6 months, there is not a thing we would change and we hope to live here for many years.

Dear Friends,

We got in early this morning to start sending the plans out for bidding and after reviewing the most recent modifications of HPG-19192-1, we felt we truly needed to take the time to write you this letter.

Your team has been such a pleasure to work with and we are blown away with the excellence and thoroughness of the work that has been done. The specs on how we want our concrete done, the span of lumber charts, the details on the cabinets, etc., is unbelievable. Your plans are the true example of excellence. That is so rarely seen anymore in residential work or even commercial work anymore! Hold your heads up and puff up those chests share the love and kind words throughout your staff.

My husband and I have three boys that graduated in 2012. All three were going to be going to college and looking to move out in the next few years.

Our home at that time was two story and more home than we wanted for ourselves when the children were gone. I had seen craftsman style homes on t.v. and loved the look of the them. I knew that building one was the only option because that style was not a well known house style in our area.

I had an idea of the floor plan I wanted so when I saw this plan I knew it was the one. The exterior of the picture was not what I had in mind but I knew that I could add my own touch to make it ours.

We decided to change very little with the floor plan it was pretty much what we wanted. We loved the open kitchen/living room. I could see our family enjoying many visits and holidays with such an open area. The master bedroom and bathroom are a great size. We did how ever get a larger master closet when we elected to do without the outdoor storage closet. Doing this allowed us to also have a larger utility area. The additional bedrooms were a nice size and we liked the idea that they were on the opposite of the house with its own bathroom.

The exterior was what I feel to be the major change. We added a lot of extra touches. We stayed with the siding as shown in the picture. We elected to do shaker siding on the dormer above the front porch to add the craftsman appeal. Stone columns were built on the front porch half way up with cedar posts going up to the ceiling. Bead board was placed in the ceilings of all porch and patio areas. Gorgeous cedar trim was placed around the front and side window. An eye catching mantle trim was placed around and over the front door.

We were able to achieve the craftsman style we had hoped for.