DIY Network

Getting to Know Your Future Home

Blueprints and Plans

While seeing your home on paper isn't nearly as exciting as seeing it complete, it's a good idea to get familiar with the plans and construction documents for your home. Every home is built from a unique set of plans, traditionally called blueprints. An architect draws the plans for each home and for the layout of the community, and the local municipality approves them.

Note: Plans are used primarily by site supervisors and subcontractors before and during construction. But you may use plans to understand the structural choices for each model available in a community, as well as where a specific home site will be located within the community.

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Elevation Drawing

A set of plans usually contains many, very detailed components. For this discussion, we'll focus on elevation drawings, floor plans and site development plans.

Elevation drawings show the home as it will look when you're standing directly in front of it. Four views of the elevation are usually shown:

1. Front elevation

2. Rear elevation

3. Left-side elevation

4. Right-side elevation

Elevation drawings are useful in helping you visualize what the home will look like from the outside. They often contain details for exterior doors and trim, window sizes, roofing materials and facade materials. They also can show structural choices that are visible from the exterior, such as additional windows, porches, decks and roofs.

Floor Plan

Floor plans show the home as if you were looking at it from above, with the roof lifted off. As a rule of thumb, items on a floor plan indicated by a solid line are those that begin at the floor level and extend 4 feet vertically. Items shown by a dotted line are those above 4 feet, such as features in the ceiling. For example, kitchen cabinets standing on the floor are indicated by solid lines; kitchen cabinets hung above the countertops are shown using dotted lines.

A separate floor plan is included for each level of the home -- the basement, the first floor, and the second floor, as appropriate. Each level typically is shown on a separate page of the plans. Each level contains details such as room names and dimensions, locations for walls, doors, windows, and other features. To determine the approximate size of each room, read the dimensions directly from the floor plan; do not use a ruler to measure for yourself. Also, consider the dimensions printed on the floor plan as approximate, not as exact.

Site Development

The site development plan shows the layout of the community, including streets, utility lines and individual home sites with dimensions and setbacks, which is the minimum distance required by the building code between a building and property line.