Ideal Homes Floor Plans - From Concept To Construction

The science of creating comfortable, functional and affordable home designs is an art that is perfected each and every day at Ideal Homes. Kent Dahl, our Director of Estimating and Design, explains the detailed process of taking a floor plan from concept to construction. Our product development team takes customer feedback and analyzes current market place needs to design new floor plans. We then work with architects, both internal and outside of Ideal Homes, to create the new home concept. "Once we decide we have a concept that shows well, functions well, is affordable and buildable, we start what we call, working drawings," Kent says. "This is where we take the concept from a rough idea to actual construction drawings, which are drawn in AutoCAD. This is what our trade partners and builders will use to construct the house. We will then build over 400 prebuilt options per plan for our customers to choose from to make their design process much less stressful and much more efficient." It takes up to two months for a new floor plan to go from concept to construction. Once we are ready to begin, we build a "spec home" with the new home design so that we can work out any kinks in the design plan. Sometimes it might not be obvious on mechanical drawings but certain aspects of the plan may need to be moved around or tweaked once new home construction begins. "A person would be really surprised by the amount of time and attention we put into every construction detail of our plans to ensure they will perform and show to the standards of the Ideal Homes brand," Kent says. The average life of an Ideal Home floor plan is around five to six years. It's our goal to redesign one entire product line a year to stay current and fresh as design trends change and evolve. Our homeowners provide tremendous input into what they want and need in their new home designs. "From the first time our customers meet with our sales staff to the time they finish up their personalization meeting with our design center, our customers are asked questions to ensure they are purchasing the right plan to fit their individual needs," Kent says. "Then, we take the feedback from those meetings, referring to our customer's likes and dislikes, and use that information to make our plans better down the road." "To take this even further, you should know we have a good majority of Ideal Homes employees living in an Ideal home," he added. "So what better way to get good feedback than from the people who not only produce the plans, but actually live in them."