I am also an architect

Yes, I am pulling a bit of George Costanza here, but with no false modesty, I am proud to say that I did pretty much the whole design of the house myself.

The final plans were obviously done by professionals, but the basic floorplan and kitchen layout were the result of the sleepless nights when I worked on them for fun not even sure if they would ever come to life. This is how I did it and you can follow the same process.

STEP 1: SELECT STYLE

When building an accessory dwelling unit ("ADU"), you are supposed to match the style and the structure of the primary house (and your community), so that the new structure would not stick out like a sore thumb. I am a fan of modern architecture and would love to build something modern and minimalistic, so I actually considered doing this, but I am glad I did not, because it would look really weird (not to mention potential issues with the county). 

STEP 2: PICK SIZE

At the very beginning, I wanted a tiny home (in the 500 sq. ft. range), but after doing some math, adjusted for the fixed costs, it did not make much sense (it would be more expensive per square foot to build a 500 sq. ft. house than an 800 sq. ft. house), so I went ahead with the maximum my lot allowed trying not to cut my backyard by more than half. I ended up with a 749 sq. ft. floor plan, the largest size that allowed me to avoid paying additional fees.

STEP 3: FIND A PLAN

I really did not want to do a custom-built home, so checked a number of alternatives from container homes to conventional premanufactured homes. Not many companies specialize in such homes but I was able to find a few. Unfortunately, there were two problems. First, most of their models would not fit within my dimension constraints (most were too long to fit on my plot). Second, surprisingly, they would be more expensive to install than building a conventional custom home. 

Now, knowing the approximate size and dimensions of the home, I searched the Internet for home plan ideas. I had specific requirements:

• Roughly 27' x 28'.
• Two bedrooms.
• 1+ bathroom.
• Living room.
• Kitchen.
• Laundry.

It took a while, but I eventually found a home that gave me an idea of what I was looking for. It wasn't exactly what I needed but it was a good start.

I asked the company that was selling the floorplan if it could be used as-is for the purpose of getting a permit, and they told me that it had to be adjusted to comply with local regulations. I did not feel like wasting over $500 and just used a JPEG of the floorplan image as a starting point.

STEP 4: FINALIZE PLAN IN 2D

I tried several floor plan applications and ended up using Microsoft Visio. It's not perfect, but it's better than everything else I tried. I used a JPEG image of the original house plan as the background, adjusted the scale to set up proper dimensions, drew walls around the perimeter and rooms, and then started tweaking. 

Not the final design, but close enough.

The nice thing about Visio is that it can show the accurate dimensions, which is extremely important when you are trying to maximize every square inch of a limited space. You can also place images of cabinets, sinks, chairs, tables, couches, and so on, to have an idea what will or will not fit in the specific space. I had to study the building code a bit to make sure I have enough space for tight places (do you know how many inches from the edges of the toilet to the walls you are supposed to have? you will!).

STEP 5: FINALIZE PLAN IN 3D

A 2D plan was good, but I really wanted to see what the floorplan would look like in 3D. So I found SketchUp. It's not a trivial app to learn, but after watching a few tutorials, trying it once, not getting anywhere, almost giving up, and deciding to give it another chance, I was finally able up to transfer my 2D model into a 3D model, and I liked what I saw.

I used the free version of SketchUp and it was good enough for me to get an idea of what the house would look like in real life.

Although, it is not the most user-friendly app, SketchUp offers a few cool features that make it useful (e.g. ability to measure) and fun (you can virtually walk through the house).

NEXT: COMPROMISES

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FIRST: INTRODUCTION