kieranc

DIG5050: Cool, thanks for the tips!

Thanks for the reply! Yep, planning commission office is on my to-do list. Have to take a vacation day to get there during office hours! I have no HOA. I was thinking of getting HD Arch first too. Glad that's your suggestion. EDIT: Oops I had them mixed up: At half the cost, I was actually thinking of starting with Suite over Architectural. What do you see as the big benefits of Arch over Suite? What's the best way to start with the software? Should I CAD up the existing house as is, then go from there, or is that not necessary?

I'm just getting started with this whole thing, but would like to try to design our house addition / remodel myself. I'm a mechanical engineer so pretty adept at CAD (Solidworks and many others) and general DIY stuff, but have very little knowledge of contracting and architecture. Our concepts for our addition are really pretty plain & simple so I thought we might safe several thousand $$ and at least give this a try. Worst case is that I get some decent plans and have to hand them over to an engineer or architect to finish out for permitting. Best case is I can make finished plans myself that are ready for permitting review. Is this possible? Or do I have to have a licensed engineer (I'm not licensed) sign off on the designs? I thought that if one stuck to standard building codes that engineering wasn't always necessary. A little background: We have a 4-bed, 3 bath, 2000 sf single story ranch house which was almost totally rebuilt from a fire 2 years ago; we bought it after the rebuild. So ~80% of the construction is modern/new, but to a 1960's design as they kept the same overall design of the house. I have all the paper plans for the house (no electronic versions) from the rebuild, including all electrical, hvac, etc. as well as some sheets showing the original pre-fire layout too. I've attached a photo of the house from Google streetview. We'd like to add on a bedroom and family room for a total of 600-700sf of additional space, with a little bit of reconfiguring of two existing bedrooms, and maybe reconfigure the entryway as well. No new plumbing in the addition, or in the remodeled area. The addition would come off the front and right of the house as viewed in the image, kind of mirroring the garage more or less. So, where to start? Should I use HD and essentially digitize the existing plans, then work from that? Is that more work than necessary? Do I only need to CAD up the parts of the house that will be changed? If I were to splurge for Chief Architect instead of Home Designer, would anything be easier/better? To be clear I'm not planning to build this myself, just design it. Thanks for any/all tips and advice!