"House plans" covers everything from a floor layout drawn in a free app to a hundred-page bid set. If you're buying plans to build from, the distinction matters: a builder can't price or build a house from a picture of a floor layout. This is what a working set contains, sheet by sheet, and what each sheet is for.
01See an example
Open an example of the sheets (PDF) — a cover listing everything a complete set contains, an undimensioned floor plan, and a front elevation, taken from a real plan so the drafting is exactly what arrives in the download.
It is deliberately not a full set. The dimensions, the framing notes and the electrical sheets are in the plans you buy and are not in the example, because those are the parts a house is built from. What it is for is seeing the standard of the drawings and the shape of the package before you spend anything.
02The cover sheet
The plan name and number, the headline specs — square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, stories — and an exterior rendering. Builders use it to confirm they're pricing the right plan; building departments use it as the cover of your submission.
03Dimensioned floor plans — one per storey
The most-used drawing in the set. Each level is drawn to scale with:
- Room-by-room dimensions and overall wall-to-wall dimensions
- Wall positions so the framer knows where everything lands
- Door and window locations with their swing directions
- Fixture placement for kitchens and bathrooms
- Stair locations and direction of travel
A layout with room names but no dimensions is not a construction drawing. If you can't scale a wall off it, nobody can build from it.
04Exterior elevations — all four sides
Front, rear, left and right, drawn as flat views of each face. These establish:
- Overall height from grade to ridge, and floor-to-floor heights
- Roof pitch and how the roof planes meet the walls
- Window and door openings in each face, at their real proportions
- Exterior materials and where they change
Elevations are what a permit reviewer looks at for height limits and setbacks, and what your builder uses to order siding, trim and windows.
05Roof plan
The roof seen from above: ridges, hips, valleys, pitch, overhang depth and the direction each plane drains. Framers use it for rafter or truss layout; roofers use it to take off materials.
06Electrical plans — one per storey
Outlets, switches, light fixtures and their switching, drawn on the floor plan. This is the sheet electricians price from and the one homeowners most often want to mark up — it's far cheaper to move an outlet on paper than in framed walls.
07Specifications and room schedule
The written half of the set: the room-by-room schedule with dimensions and areas, heated versus unheated square footage, and the construction specifications — the roof style and pitch, exterior material, foundation type, garage configuration and the assumptions the drawings are based on.
08What a plan set does not include
No stock plan, at any price, includes these — budget for them separately:
- Site-specific structural engineering. Foundation design for your soil, and framing sized for your local snow and wind loads.
- A site plan. Your house positioned on your actual lot with setbacks, drives and utilities. Usually drawn by a surveyor and required for a permit.
- Mechanical and plumbing design. Most residential builds run these design-build with the trades rather than drawing them.
- A professional stamp. Where your jurisdiction requires one, a licensed architect or engineer must review and seal the drawings. We cover where that applies.
Anyone selling you a stock plan who implies otherwise is overselling it. The question isn't whether these extras exist — it's whether you're paying $1,250 for the drawings before you get to them, or $249.
09What you get from us
Every plan on this site — whether you browse the catalog or have one drawn to your specs — comes as a single PDF containing exactly the sheets above: cover, dimensioned floor plan per storey, four elevations, roof plan, electrical plan per storey, and the specification and room schedule page.
You can see the floor plan before you pay anything. Design one, look at the drawings, and decide then.