Selecting House Floor Plans

The Home Store offers over 450 standard floor plans for modular homes.  Most of our customers can usually find a few modular plans that come close to meeting their needs. If you select one of our standard modular home plans, it will save you time and simplify your work, since the design, engineering, and pricing have already been done by us. You will also save money, since our standard modular house plans are engineered to be built economically.

If you don't find any suitable modular home floor plans amongst the sampling we have put on our web site, please contact us to discuss what type of plan would better fit your needs.  We might be able to help you with one of our many other standard modular house floor plans.  If none of our standard floor plans for modular homes work for you, we'll be happy to help you design one of our custom modular home floor plans.  If you already have some custom modular floor plans in mind, we'll tell you if they can be built as a modular.  If your modular house floor plans cannot be built as a modular home, we will help you design one of our custom modular home plans offering similar features.

All of our standard modular home plans typically include a floor plan and an exterior elevation. The modular floor plans show the location and size of each room, while the elevations provide an idea of what the finished house will look like on the outside.  When looking through our selection of modular home plans, do not be misled by the pairing of modular home floor plans and exterior drawings into thinking that you cannot make adjustments.  In fact, each of our floor plans for modular homes can have a multitude of exterior looks, and each exterior look can be applied to many different modular house floor plans.  For example, all homes can have a garage and porch, even if the artist has not included them in the drawing.  Likewise, you can adjust the slope of the roof, add dormers and decorative gables, and opt for oversized roof overhangs if you choose, regardless of what you see in the drawing.

Finding the Right Plan

Before looking through our selection of modular house plans, first determine which features are most important to you.  Answering the following questions will help you clarify your priorities.

• What do like about the floor plan of your current home? What would you change?
• What types of floor plans have you liked in other homes, including model homes and homes of family and friends?
• What type of modular floor plans will fit best in your new neighborhood?
• What type of modular home floor plans will work best with the topography of your lot?
• What modular home plans will allow you to take advantage of the sun?
• What is your ideal budget? What is the most you can spend, leaving 2 or 3 percent aside as a contingency fund?
• Do you need all of the space finished right away, or will an expandable plan work best, such as one of our unfinished modular cape cod floor plans or raised ranch plans?
• Do you prefer one-story or two-story living?
• How many bedrooms and bathrooms do you need?
• Do you prefer an informal family room separate from a more formal living room?
• Do you prefer an informal eating area ("nook") separate from a more formal dining room?
• Do you need a study or home office?
• Do you want the laundry on the first floor, second floor, or in the basement?
• Would you like an exercise room?
• What other rooms would you like to have?
• Are you counting on a walk-in closet or pantry?
• How big of a kitchen would you like?
• How big would you like the rooms in your house to be? (Measuring all of the rooms in your own home as well as in model homes and recording this for future reference will help you immensely when designing a new home.)

When you find a couple of modular house plans that appeal to you, imagine living in each house. Visualize walking through it, entering first through the front door, and then through the other exterior doors.  Think about traffic flow and the location of various rooms.  Imagine greeting guests and hanging up their coats.  See yourself coming in from the car with a bag of groceries, or your children returning from their play in the backyard.  Visualize placing your groceries on a countertop or table before putting them away.  Make sure you have ample cabinets and closets in the convenient places; as best you can, count the cabinets and closets, noting their size.  Imagine serving a meal at the table, and what you will see when eating.  Consider whether the children's or guest's bedrooms are too close to or too far from the master bedroom.  Would you have to walk through one main room to reach another room? Are the halls too long? Think about the views through all windows.

Changing Plans

As you look over several of our floor plans for modular homes, keep in mind that each can be changed to fit specific needs.  For example, all six of The Home Store’s Whately two story modular home floor plans started with the Whately 1, and all seven of The Home Store’s Sugarloaf ranch house plans started with the Sugarloaf 3.  The optional modular house floor plans were created by making relatively minor and affordable modifications.  You can do something similar to virtually any of our standard modular home house plans.

You can also take one of our modular home plans and make it into an entirely different type. For example, you can turn most of our modular ranch house plans into modular Cape Cod floor plans by adding a steeper roof, a set of stairs, and rough mechanicals to the second floor.  You can also make many Cape Cod house plans that have an unfinished second story into a chalet by adding beams in the ceiling, railings for a loft, and trapezoid windows.  Although it requires a lot more effort and creativity, you can also make some two story modular home floor plans into a T-ranch by placing the second story perpendicular to the first story.  These small tricks can help you expand the possibilities.

Modular Home Handbook

For more ideas about how to design a modular home, purchase a copy of The Modular Home, by Andrew Gianino, President of The Home Store.  The chapter on designing a modular home will answer the following questions:

• What are the possible widths, lengths, and heights of a module?
• How can you combine modules to make different designs?
• What kind of changes can you make to standard modular home plans in terms of layout and exterior appearance and how do these changes impact on the cost of a modular home?
• How can you increase the size of modular home floor plans by making them longer or wider and how much does this affect the cost?
• How can you open up a floor plan in a modular home by removing interior walls?
• How do you create cathedral and vaulted ceilings in a modular home?
• What do you need to know when you select a modular home with an unfinished story, such as a Cape Cod?
• How can you use dormers to obtain the additional space you need as well as to dress up the appearance of your modular home?
• What do you need to know when you are building a raised ranch or split-level modular home?
• Can you build a house design with modules even when it cannot be completely constructed at the factory?