Properly Planning Your Kit Home Project

What this episode covers

Show Notes: Proper positioning your home on your land adds to the home’s value and enjoyment.  Setting the floor plan up for entertaining and family enjoyment.  Can a home be “wheelchair friendly”, ADA compliant?  Cathedral ceilings add to the style of the home. Transcript: Interviewer: Hey everyone and welcome to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me as always is the President and Founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want exactly as they want across the nation and worldwide since 1993. Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you doing my friend? Steve Landmark: Excellent. How are you doing today? Interviewer: Good.  I thought today we might hit upon the topic of design ideas and just the best – the way to get the best home possible when you start out and start thinking about how you want to plan your home project. For one thing, we always talk about facing windows the right way, things like that. So I would like to get your opinion on how best to take advantage of let’s say the views around your land. Positioning the home itself on the land with windows, porches, things like that. So why don’t you run by some ideas for us on how Landmark can help us make that happen. Steve Landmark: Yeah, we’re very flexible in the planning processes. But I think the point that needs to be made is typically a land will have a focal point, whether it’s in a city lot. Maybe it’s just the location. It’s easy to get somewhere. Maybe it’s literally a focal point of a mountain range, a waterfront situation or whatever it is. So it’s good to take time in the planning phases to make sure that the value of the lot is achieved and the lakefront or waterfront lots, you’re probably paying a premium compared to a lot without a view. So a lot of people want to take advantage of that and sometimes people come in and say, “Hey, here’s the plan that I want. It’s not taking advantage of the view.” So we always like to work with people to see what the site is like. What are you achieving there? Is it just flat land? An ex-cornfield in the Midwest? Is it a city lot, a 50 by 100 where you’re pretty restricted on what you can do? But also what is a view if you are in an area with mountains or water or trees or sunsets and sunrises, whatever it may be? So we could take advantage of that so that people’s enjoyment of the land and the home is improved. But it will also help in the resale value. Amazingly, a lot of those things will also affect the energy efficiency. You know, I brought up the sunrise. If you’ve got a very strong Southern-facing home, it’s going to affect the way your home is insulated and the heating systems. So there’s a lot of details that we’ve got to tie together to make sure that a house design is proper. It’s the comfort – you know, you liking the floor plan, being able to get in your driveway easy, trying to get in your garage easily. But also the energy efficiency of it as well. So that’s an important thing for people to take a step back and we can help them with that. But to be able to go through and say, “Hey, what’s happening here?” and some people can envision it. Others will need a little more help. But that’s pretty simple to do on the design phases. We can sort different details out, make suggestions on window sizes, make suggestions where to put porches, where to put garage entries and different details like that so that the property flows well. It makes a more comfortable living. Interviewer: Yeah, that makes sense. Now, I’m sure this has probably happened a few times. Maybe a lot of times. I don’t know. But what if someone comes to you and says, “Look, we like to entertain.” We want to design a house about – around – like say you have big family events. You know, people getting together a lot or you’re the kind of family that likes to barbe...