In our area, and I believe we're not unique, plans need to be "stamped" by a structural engineer or architect. It is my understanding that none of the plans you can buy online are Stamped, so all need to be taken to a local professional who can review them and certify that the plans meet local codes. From the Don Gardner website "Donald A. Gardner home plans are not stamped or sealed. At the time of creation, our house plans are designed to conform to the CABO One and Two Family Dwelling Code or the International Residential Code. National and local building codes vary with location and change from time to time. Consequently, it may be necessary for you to meet with a local builder, architect or other construction professional to review your local building codes and make any changes to the house plan these codes may require. If you are building in North Carolina or South Carolina, we offer additional sets of home plans (must purchase at least a five set package) with an engineering stamp on the structural pages. Please contact our Customer Sales & Service" If you're considering buying one of the plans you also need to know that all the mechanicals and HVAC need to be added in. After looking at online plans and realizing all this and knowing that every plan we looked at was going to need customizing, we ended up going with a local architect.

I recently purchased Don Gardner plans for $7600, after customizing costs and wouldn't do it again because it wasn't a pleasant experience. In fact, I just registered a complaint with the BBB after exhausted efforts to resolve my dispute with them. During the entire design process, we told our DAG designer one thing and she did another. For example, the original plan called for a bathroom near the rear entry of the room and, based on some changes we made, she relocated the bathroom to the far side of the house even though we expressed to keep it near the original location. After several versions back and forth, which you pay for by the hour, the house kept getting bigger so I had to design the downstairs to accommodate this request myself. The bathroom design was nothing like that of the pictures I sent her and it took several versions for her to get it near right. When the plans were finally finished, they charged me an additional $1400 for roof changes that I believed were a part of the original quote. Upon receiving the plans and submitting them to several general contractors for a quote, numerous errors were pointed out; some of which were quite costly mistakes. For example, in the downstairs and upstairs, we requested 9' and 10' fold away doors for our upstairs and downstairs great rooms, which overlook a gorgeous lake view, that cost $17,000 each. The designer put 8' doors in the plan and made them more narrow than we spoke about. Upon bringing this matter to her attention, she resent out a revised plan but only sent 1 copy when we purchased 5. Anyone with a brain and has built a custom home before knows that one copy of the plan is impossible to work with and, DAG does not permit you to copy their plans. To rectify the roof charges of the $1400, they gave me a credit and the CAD program so that an architect could change the plan and errors. Since then, more errors have been pointed out and, after attempting to get quotes from a number of GC's, the numbers were coming in so high that we went to speak to a local architect. He stated that DAG did not design the house to be cost effective in any way and used excessive cement driving the home price up to very high $ per square foot. When I asked DAG to make changes they wouldn't and they could care less that after spending the sort of $ I did on the plan, now I had to spend an additional $2,000 - $3,000 to be able to afford to build the home. When I learned of these issues, I asked DAG to refund me the difference between what I would have paid for the CAD program, around $3400, so that I could use the balance to fix the plan. They refused and have not responded to an email since then. I believe in this economy and for as costly it is to build a new home with inflation for commodities, they should work with their customers to not only make a home efficient and cost effective, but also make changes if problems are incurred. I will post the outcome of the BBB result, which might I add I have never gone to the BBB to register a complaint in my life. Keeping my fingers crossed that the issue will get resolved.

I'm curious to any of you who have actually built a DAG home, are you finding them "dark" like everyone seems to assume when they comment on these plans, are they thinking that no light comes in because of the covered porches? I'd love to hear your level of satisfaction with one of these one story homes with the various porches and covered patios in the back.

OP - I'm no architect, but we did once build a house on a sloping block with views. It was not a simple process because of the slope, I can tell you! It can be complicated putting a two-dimensional floor plan on a three-dimensional slope. So just bear that in mind. We in fact used an architect because there was no way a standardized plan would have worked in our specific location (it really was a very steep slope). Things that had to be taken into account included that doggone slope, and the views of course, but also orientation. The house was planned so that the windows and main rooms - dining, living, kitchen, more or less lined up with the trajectory of the sun, and were bright and well lit throughout the day. The kitchen which faced east, got the morning sun, the rest of the living areas got sun a bit later. Our back deck faced west, which meant blazing late afternoon sun - fortunately, the deck got reasonable shade from the forest behind us, or we'd have fried. The house also took advantage of the sea breezes coming up the slope in the afternoon, so great cross breezes which meant less (actually in our case no) A/C. Just things for you to bear in mind. You want to benefit as much as you can from all aspects of your location, not just the view.