The upstairs on this plan is two bedrooms at about 12 by 12 feet, a shared bath, a second laundry, and a sitting room of roughly 11 by 20. The three living spaces among them come to a little over 500 square feet out of 3,382 heated. Everything else, master suite included, sits on the … Read more
The median new American house peaked at 2,467 square feet in 2015 and has been shrinking since; the 2024 batch of completions came in at 2,146, and the fourth quarter of 2025 landed at 2,183. Household size did not move to explain either number. What follows is the arithmetic worth running before you sign a … Read more
Plan 86421HH puts five bedrooms in 4,125 square feet and leaves three of them upstairs. Everything a household uses in a day — the master suite, a second bedroom, the office, the laundry, the kitchen and the room it opens into — sits on the ground floor, and the second storey is bedrooms and nothing … Read more
Three bedrooms in 2,616 square feet is a low count, and plan 25962GE spends the difference where you can stand in it: covered outdoor floor on more than one elevation, a family room that goes up seventeen feet, a walk-in pantry and a laundry either of which would pass as a small office. The shell … Read more
A wraparound porch gets sold as outdoor living space, and at six feet deep it is not one. Plan 421042HFC runs its porch around all four elevations at exactly that depth, and the trade is deliberate: cover and shade on every face of the building instead of one deep outdoor room at one end. What … Read more
A bungalow is supposed to be one storey. Plan 72059DA is listed as two, and the second one is a single room, 15 by 16 feet, at the top of one stair. Everything else — three bedrooms, the owners’ suite, both full baths, the laundry — sits on the ground floor, under a roofline that … Read more
The covered patio across the back of this plan is drawn in three bays, 19 feet, 19 feet and 14, which comes to 52 feet of roof and is about as much sheltered outdoor room as the great room, dining room and kitchen occupy laid end to end. Plan 744525ABR is a one-level modern farmhouse, … Read more
A 12-in-12 pitch is not a style decision. It is a decision to frame a second storey and then not finish it. Plan 16925WG is a one-level house of 2,510 heated square feet, three bedrooms split to opposite ends, sitting on a slab, with a staircase in the foyer that climbs into 540 square feet … Read more
Two bedrooms. That is the number that explains this plan, because 623311DJ carries 2,813 heated square feet and puts almost none of it into sleeping. What it buys instead is a cathedral core, a kitchen open on two sides, and a covered deck running the length of the building on three faces. This is a … Read more
A wrap-around porch and an outdoor fireplace get searched for as though they were one space. On this plan they sit at opposite ends of the building, and the fireplace is the private one — the drawing puts it on a covered patio opening off the primary suite, not out front where the rocking chairs … Read more
