HPG-1752-1: The Remington

I grew up in the western part of North Carolina and left home after graduating from high school. My job moved me around for several years and my family and I finally settled down in Charlotte, NC and eventually I started my own business there. I always had a desire to return to my roots and build a home back there for when I retired.

I had been single for a few years and upon returning home for a school reunion in 2008, I met an old friend that I had not seen in over 30 years. She had retired and moved "back home" the end of 2007. We started dating and before long we realized we were meant to be together. That is when I got busy on house plans.

I looked at "many" house plans, but kept going back to this particular one of yours. We both agreed this was the perfect one. It had plenty of open space and was laid out just the way we wanted. We like the master bedroom with the large bath and walk-in closet (which we changed to one big closet instead of his and hers)and the other bedrooms on the other end of the house.

My favorite parts of this house plan are the open space in the living area, and the really functional floorplan layout. It fits our needs perfectly...

We started clearing the land in February, 2009, and we were married in March. We had a very good builder and things just fell right into place. All the lumber in the house came off my land. We made a few minor changes, such as extending the front bedroom out and the porch a few feet wider. The plans were so easily followed, the builder had no problem at all.

We made the 3 1/2 hour trip weekly from Charlotte to help work on the house. On December 23, 2009, we moved in and spent our first Christmas together in our dream house.

The house sits upon a hill that overlooks the Smokey Mountains and we can see as far as Tennessee.

I am retiring soon and we look forward to sitting on our porch and enjoying the view and our new home.

Thanks for allowing us to use your plan and we would highly recommend your company to anyone interested!

We had been trying to sell our small house in town for over a year. We had found 24 acres in the country, with a beautiful view from the top of the hill. We bought that property in September 2006, and my wife got pregnant in October. We weren't sure what we would do if the baby came before we sold the house, as we were already pretty cramped in 950 square feet with all of our stuff, and our 100 lb chocolate lab. In December, we got an offer on the house, and we closed in February. We had already been looking at house plans online and new houses in the area to get an idea of what we would want to build. After we accepted the offer on the house, we got serious about putting together the house of our dreams.

After weeks of poring over plans online, we selected HPG-1752, because we loved the layout and the classic, simple roof line of the house. We also liked the fact that, while the garage is at the front of the house, the door is on the side, so that it's not such a prominent feature that you often see on newer homes.

Some of the features that drew us to this plan were the open floor plan for the great room/dining room/kitchen, along with the master suite being separated from the other bedrooms, and we worked with our builder for several weeks after selecting this plan, to turn it into our dream home. After all the changes were made, the plan had grown to roughly 2000 square feet on the main floor, with a full unfinished basement underneath.

After we closed on the old house, we moved into the in-laws basement, excited about starting the new chapter in our lives! My Uncle Michael was the builder, so we were able to work very close with him throughout the build. We broke ground in March 2007, and the rain delayed us from making further progress for almost a month. After that, we were able to make quick progress, and Michael was able to tweak our changes on the fly. When it was all said and done, we moved into the house in August 2007, just five months after breaking ground. We had a big moving in party, and dozens of family and friends came to help us put the finishing touches on the house, hanging decorations, putting furniture together, and christening the place with our first cookout. Weve had several get-togethers here since, and the open floor plan allows everyone to be together in our huge great room, or the big, open, unfinished basement. The ceiling in the great room is even high enough to fly mini R/C helicopters around!

Our location is wonderful, on the highest hill in the area, with a great 360 degree view. The large yard is great for playing with my son and our dog. Over the last few years, weve been slowly making improvements to the place, getting the front yard reseeded in 2008 and improving our landscaping over the last 2 years. Weve planted an orchard behind the house, with apple, persimmon and pear trees, and hope to add many more trees over the next few years. We also planted a garden last year, built a deck on the rear of the house, and a swing-set in the back yard. Future plans are to continue to improve the landscaping with flower beds all around the front of the house, stepping stones from the front door to the driveway, finish the basement and add a patio to the walkout.

House Plan Gallery has been a great design team to work with and I would recommend their plans to anyone!

Construction began December 2008, and we moved into the house late April 2009. I had always wanted a split bedroom plan, and with our situation it gives the privacy that we so wanted.

My Mother has the "Mother-in-law suite" on one end of the house, and we have the rest. We are definately enjoying living in our new home, and would DEFINITELY recommend House Plan Gallery plans to anyone looking to build their dream home!

My husband and I decided to build a home and we visited several Internet sites and found this site to have a huge selection and at a great price. This company was wonderful with communication, efficiency, and options. We wanted to make a few changes to the plan and it was done politely and quickly. The website was easy to use and the plans and staff very professional. We would recommend this company highly. We are in the house now and it has proved to be exactly as hoped.

My wife and I purchased a lakefront lot on a wonderfully pristine Texas lake in 2000 with the intention of eventually building a lakefront home with retirement in mind. We were operating on a 20+ year plan.

Two years ago my wife's parents approached us with a proposition. My father in law was planning on retiring in 2010 and was looking at their retirement options. While he wasn't in the position to buy a lakefront place that he wanted, he did have enough funds to help finance the construction of a home.

We worked out an arrangement in that we would build a house on our lakefront in which they would live out the rest of their independent years. My wife and I would maintain ownership and my inlaws would have a wonderful retirement lifestyle that they wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise.

It was a win-win for everyone.

We began looking at house plans and were initially looking for a modest, easy to construct home. Since I was acting as the general contractor and doing a great deal of the work myself as well, design simplicity was important. But so was efficient use of space. We sat down together and drew up a list of key "care abouts". Those key care abouts included full masonry exterior, covered porches, separate laundry room, open eating/living space, a separate master suite area from the other bedrooms, spacious garage large enough to hold 2 cars and a golf cart. We also wanted a safe room as tornados are not uncommon in the area.

My inlaws began surfing the web looking at various online designs and came across the HPG-1752-1 on one of the stock plan sites. It had most of what we were looking for, but needed a few modifications to suit our particular tastes and needs. I contacted the guys over at House Plan Gallery and discussed our desired changes.

I was unbelievably surprised when I found out that not only could House Plan Gallery make the requested changes, but that the modification cost was well below what I had expected!

After a few email exchanges outlining the changes, House Plan Gallery delivered the modified draft plans for our review within a few days, and after one more round of tweaks, House Plan Gallery delivered what I thought would be our final plans at an extremely reasonable price.

The first step in our construction process was site work. With plans in hand I met up with my site work subcontractor to lay out the plans on the lot. I already had a good idea where the house would sit and anticipated that we would need pad leveling to compensate for our gentle sloping lot.

The plans called for slab on grade construction. Imagine my surprise when shooting the elevations, that the lot dropped nearly seven feet from one corner of the house to the other. The excavation sub estimated that he would need to bring in 60 truck loads of fill as well as cut one corner down 3 feet. I nearly choked on the estimate for fill dirt. Off handedly, I asked how much just to dig a whole. His estimate for a hole was significantly less.

So right off the bat we were faced with a major decision. I could spend a large amount of money for dirt and end up with a 1800 sqft home sitting on very expensive dirt, or I could spend less money on a hole and potentially double the square footage of the house. Sure the basement would cost some money (so I thought), but I'd rather spend money on potentially usable space than dirt.

So back to the drawing board...

I contacted House Plan Gallery, and asked them what it would cost to modify our house plans for a basement foundation. Again the service was excellent, inexpensive, and fast. So now I had new plans with almost double the living area square footage.

Our plan of record was to complete the upper level as originally planned, and to finish out the basement at some point in the future. As I mentioned the house is in Texas. Curious thing about Texas is that not a lot of houses are built with basements. Since the frost line is so shallow, slab on grade is perfectly adequate.

But after a visit to the foundation engineer, I found out why else we don't build basements in Texas-expansive soils. I had a soil survey done as part of engineering the foundation and turns out my site had just about the worst expansive soil possible. This means tremendous lateral force is placed on basement walls as the soils expand and contract. The end result is a basement structure that my neighbors jokingly referred to as "Fort Hubbard". I have 10' tall, 10" thick poured in place concrete walls with a double layer of steel reinforcement, all sitting on belled, steel reinforced, concrete piers sunk 20' below the basement lower level. All of this sits on a concrete floor slab criss-crossed with 3' concrete beams. Since a tornado shelter was one of our "care abouts", it sits in one of the basement corners(under the garage) and is completely encased by reinforced steel to concrete per FEMA standards. The first quote from my concrete sub was for over $100K just for the bas...