• It is better to have a firm grip on what you expect from your house even before you design house plans.house plans image by Stephen VanHorn from Fotolia.com
  
  You need to ask yourself a busload of questions about what you expect from a new home before you head to the architect to draw up a design. If you arrive at the architect's door or start building the home yourself with a well-detailed plan in tow, you will save yourself time, money and headache pills. Specific questions are the best, so think well before you start your design.
  
  

House Style

• Decide what style of house you plan to design. Among the more popular styles that have withstood the test of time are the Victorian house, Cape Cod cottage, Georgian townhouse and Spanish-style home. This step will usually automatically determine the material with which your house will be built. If not, an important step will be deciding on brick, wood or another building material.
  
  

Size and Space

• Once you've got your style in place, you then must consider the element of size and how the space relates to it. This means determining how many bedrooms your house will have and how large they will be. When deciding how many bathrooms you need, consider installing a private one attached to the master bedroom. All bathrooms will contain either a tub or shower or both or none.
  
  

Kids' Bedrooms

• If you have kids, you need to decide if you prefer the security of sharing bedroom walls with them. If you prefer privacy, then you can place the extra bedrooms on the opposite side of the house.
  
  

Connected Rooms

• Ask yourself which rooms you want connected to each other either by space or a passageway. You may want a kitchen that opens directly onto the living room, or you may want a partition wall with an opening through which you can pass food to someone else. Determine what works better for your needs: a living room in the middle of the house, or situated at one end so loud sounds won't disturb those who are sleeping.
  
  

Power Options

• Find out if you have the option to heat your house and cook your food with gas instead of oil or electricity. If the choice is yours, conduct a personal audit of neighbors to get an idea of the average cost of heating and cooking with gas and how that compares with other options.
  
  

Special Requirements

• Be sure to work in from the planning stage any special needs that you foresee for your house. Aside from the special architectural requirements for disabled homeowners, you should work into your design plans any extra needs like built-in shelving for a home office, a huge window for an artist's studio and a soundproof basement for the musician in the family.
  
  

Garage

• An important step in building your house plan is to decide if you want a garage or not. If you do want a garage, will it be for two cars or one? Keep in mind that not having a garage built provides that much more space to use as your interior. You should also be brutally honest about whether you will use the garage mainly as a car port, for storage or as a home workshop.