Lighting floor plans take many shapes and come in all sizes.

Some are more formal and organized, while others are more freeform and pose unique lighting challenges. Variations in ceiling height, daylight and construction materials form a three-dimensional framework around the floor plan. Custom home lighting fixtures must be chosen based on their ability to harmoniously compliment interior surfaces and architectural elements. Otherwise, fixtures will appear too obtrusive and diminish the room’s aesthetic. The best way to design a superior lighting floor plan is to install low-profile functional lights and decorative accent lights at unique angles of incidence. Creating a multi-layered interior lighting design in this fashion will ensure decorative appeal and satisfactory lighting levels at once.

One of the most common questions we get about lighting floor plans deals with the actual number of lighting fixtures that a particular room will need.

The answer to this question is highly subjective, and requires a case-by-case analysis of each interior element to determine. Room sizes dictate the number of lighting fixtures and the wattages that must be used to provide general lighting. Factors such as ceiling height, the presence of natural light coming in through windows, and floor space itself play major roles in determining wattage and lumens levels. Hallways, for example, with tall ceiling eliminate the opportunity to plan recessed lighting because the angles are too steep creating objectionable shadows on objects of art. To overcome the effects of tall ceilings, homeowners are sometimes inclined to use the brightest lights to make sure that everything can be clearly seen. This type of lighting floor plan can cause more problems than it solves, however. Too much light creates either indirect glare or glare reflecting off glass and metal surfaces. It also creates a “flattened” look where everything looks two-dimensional. This works against interior decorating and is best avoided through a more strategic and selective blending of general and accent lighting. Floor plans can be illuminated in this fashion with multiple layers of house lighting that magnify important design elements reflective of personal taste and lifestyle.

Decorative lighting and use of chandeliers depends on the interior designer’s look and feel of the home.

Most floor plans are traditional or contemporary, and decorative lighting fixtures come in both types of styles to provide a visual compliment to their surroundings. Chandelier lifts, a real luxury are becoming more prevalent in today’s modern new home wiring plans due to taller ceiling heights and more elaborate fixture designs. They are useful during the installation of the fixture, for lamp changing and for cleaning purposes. If you are planning to have a chandelier as part of your lighting floor plan, it really should be done by a professional who can install it with a lift. This will allow you to do simple indoor lighting maintenance on your own and avoid the expense of service calls in the future.

Accent lighting is determined by the number of targets to illuminate such as art, sculpture or furnishings.

Recessed low voltage accent ccent lights add great value to any project, and magnify the elements of both contemporary and traditional-style interior décor superbly. Accent lights create focal points and are used to illuminate fine art, antique furniture, dining tables and plants. Accent lighting fixtures typically have small apertures which tend to hide the light source and minimize visual glare. They can also be used as an effective general lighting source in some contemporary lighting floor plans when planning your house lighting.

Although the lighting concepts are repetitive, every home takes on a new design depending on the floor plan.

It pays off in the long run to have your lighting floor plan developed by a professional lighting designer with extensive knowledge of interior decorating and architectural theory. Professionals like the consultants at Illuminations Lighting and Design know how to isolate key features that need enhancement through lighting, and they know where best to install lighting fixtures for functional and aesthetic effect.

Our areas of lighting expertise include residential, commercial, landscape, liturgical, building facades, and hospitality. We are fully equipped to produce CAD drawings, full specifications, custom lighting details, photometrics, energy code documentation, hand renderings, lighting control system layout and programming, and construction administration.



By: Russell Neal

About the Author:

When you’re looking to invest in a new property you know you need to make a very careful and calculated decision. This is going to be the biggest investment of your life and you will probably be living in it for quite some time. Estate agents paper details are all very well but they don’t tell a true story of how the property looks and feels. It doesn’t give you a way to visualise yourself or your belongings in the property.

Floor plans have become increasing popular with estate agents to give you a better idea of the layout of a property and are all very well if you can read them and have a good imagination. However, it still doesn’t really give you the chance to get a proper feel for the place. This is where 3D floor plans can be an invaluable aid. They give you chance to see not just the layout but the relation of the space and furniture as well as surrounding grounds.

3D floor plans are being used more frequently in lots of professions now and have proved the ideal tool, particularly for properties that are yet to be built. They are similar to traditional floor plans but give you so much more detail. 3D floor plans give you a much more realistic sense of the volume, flow and relationship of spaces. To look at, a 3D floor plan looks as though the roof of a property has been cut away and you are looking down from above.

Furniture can be added as can colour and texture. You are given a much more accurate perspective of the way light enters a building and how much space there is once furniture is in. But these 3D floor plans are not just ideal for selling properties, they are perfect for all those involved in the process of implementing someone’s dream of creating a building, whether it be commercial or residential.

An architect is given measurements of what the finished project is hoped to resemble. He can then build a 3D floor plan from these on the computer, adding in as much detail as necessary, down to the surrounding area and even outdoor planting plans. Designers can then make any adjustments to the building plans that are necessary and that couldn’t be visualised simply from a 2D drawing.

3D floor plans are also very useful when it comes to gaining planning permission or funding for a building project. To show your prospective lenders or council leaders the plans in full blown colour so that they can gauge the impact on the buildings and environment surrounding your proposed building is absolutely invaluable and can make the difference between a yes and a no.

Property developers will often use 3D floor plans to market their properties before they are even built. Whenever you see a new complex being constructed, you can bet half of them are already sold. This early revenue often allows builders to access the funds to actually finish the project, buy more space or finish the proposed building to a higher spec.

These types of plans are not just useful for the bigger project but can also be used in an existing home to get a better vision when remodelling a room. The kitchen is probably the most widely used area of the home for this because so much has to be taken into consideration.

Given that the kitchen is where a family spends most of its time and the fact that it needs to be well equipped and planned out is probably what makes 3D floor plans useful here. Once established with pipe work and fuel, a kitchen cannot be altered on a whim and you have to make entirely sure you are happy with your placement. A 3d floor plan will give you a good indication of where everything will fit and on top of that, the ease with which you will be able to move around it.

There are many areas where 3D floor plans come in useful, from architecture to building, from designing to marketing and all will find it an invaluable aid.



By: Catherine Harvey

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Even after 150 years, the octagon house floor plan remains a curiousity of architectural design. The original architect, John Richards, first designed the octagon house just before the Civil War. Whether he was in competition with his fellow land owners and town leaders or was merely trying to impress Eliza Forbes, his heiress wife. The impressive structure he left behind still draws fascinated visitors to the elegant eight sided mansion in Watertown, Wisconsin every day.

The original octagon house floor plan, built in 1854, is a fantastic 5 story brick building with 57 rooms. It also contains forerunners of modern conveniences such as running water, central heating and ventilation systems. A 40-foot-high cantilevered staircase also graces the interior. The story behind the octagon house was that Mr. Richards made a promise to his wife, Eliza, to build her the finest home in the Midwest.

John Richards was most likely influenced by fellow designer, Orson Fowler, who was a leading spokesperson for the construction of eight sided houses. At that time, the octagon house was touted as being an efficient, economic and beautifully esthetic housing design that dated back to the ancient Roman architects.

There were at least 36 homes constructed from the octagon house floor plan between 1844 and 1905. All of these homes were located in Wisconsin. Octagonal houses continued to be built through the Civil War. After that time period, most octagonal houses were either torn down or remodeled until they lost their original shape.

John Richards’s octagonal house was given to the Watertown historical society in 1938. The house was in nearly mint condition and maintained with no electricity, no modern plumbing and not telephone – just as it had been when Mr. Richards and his wife lived there in the 1850s.

Tours of the Octagon house can be made daily May through October and directional signs are posted throughout Watertown. Summer hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. after Labor Day. Admission is $7 for adults; $6 for AAA members; $6 for children ages 6 through 12 and children under 6 are free.



By: Rebecca Welch

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The carriage house floor plan became popular around the turn of the century when families began moving from rural areas to urban and suburban areas. A general misconception is that most families lived in what could be called a carriage house, but the truth is that only wealthy families, the upper 5 to 10 percent, could afford to own a home with a carriage house.

The carriage house floor plan was typically 500 to 700 square feet and approximately one and a half stories high. Most were designed to match the exterior decor of the main house and built to house the groomsman, the horses, buggy, hay and the livery. If you had been a groomsman one hundred years ago, this would be both the place you lived as well as the place where you conducted your business. Even though the horse and buggy no longer exist as they once did, a carriage house in good condition is very valuable.

A piece of real estate with a carriage house attached to it can bring a 10 to 15 percent increase in resale value. The idea of taking a carriage house floor plan and turning it into a habitable studio or apartment first became popular during the Depression as a way to create a rental income or house elderly relatives. Carriage houses today are generally used for either a home office or mother-in-law flat or apartment.

Carriage houses are defined as a subordinate structure that have one or more habitable story and must have existed before November 1956. They may be used only as residences. Renovation of an original carriage house floor plan is not cheap, but in most cases it’s less expensive than building from scratch. The main reason that renovation is expensive is due to the fact that zoning regulations tend to be fairly strict and frequently inflexible.

Bringing an original carriage house into code compliance can be costly. Some things to consider are plumbing, wiring, stairs, and foundations because the original carriage house was intended as an out building and did not get the same consideration as the main house. Currently the most popular solution is to build one from scratch with the average cost running approximately $35,000. Uses can extend beyond an apartment or mother-in-law apartment to such things as a home office, art studio or even a retail shop. The modern carriage house floor plan can offer an excellent solution for the need to add extra square footage to your property.



By: Rebecca Welch

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One of the most wonderful things about house floor plan design is that the floor plans can be tailored to suit individual or family needs. House plans can be modified based on a standard modular design or custom drafted by an architect.

Obviously, the custom drafted house floor plan design is going to be the more costly option. If you have specific design requests, however, an architectual draft might be better able to serve your needs. Modifying a standard modular design can be accomplished with relative ease, but the modifications available may somewhat limited.

Another option exists for the hands on do-it-yourself type person. A number of house floor plan software programs exist to help design everything from house blueprints and landscapes to interior design layouts. Plumbing and electrical layouts can also be added to these computer drawn designs.

Regardless of which option you choose, when deciding on your house floor plan design the flow of house traffic should be an important consideration. The following questions should be asked when planning the layout of your new home:

1. Which room does the family congregate in most when they are together? Some families gather in the living room or den while others gravitate more toward the kitchen or possibly even the patio in the back yard.

2. Which door do family members use most when entering or leaving the home? While most families use the front door, there are some who prefer the garage door or a side entrance.

3. How close should the secondary bedrooms be in relation to the master suite? Couples with small children may choose to build the bedrooms closer together in order to avoid long trips down the hall in the middle of the night. Couples with teenagers at home may elect to build the children’s bed rooms at the opposite end of the house to the master suite. This approach will cut down on the noise level.

House floor plan design can be used at every stage of the building process to make certain that the completed home has the look, feel, and functionality that will serve well for years to come.



By: Rebecca Welch

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Who can tell me where am I able to download an easy to build little cabin floor plan on the web?

choosing a plan and layout for your new home should be exciting. There are thousands of small cabin floor plans from which to base your own little cabin floor plan.

You can download small cabin floor plans here

should you be thinking about using small cabin plans from which to base your own design, your tiny cabin floor plan will be 1,800 square feet or smaller. There are several things you must consider before taking a look at plans. The positioning of rooms, fireplaces, patios and windows can have a significant impact on how you feel about your cabin.

2nd, consider what you’ll do in each room of your little cabin floor plan. If you prefer to read in a specific room, you can concentrate on plans that provide window space for the sun to go into the room. 3rd, know how much room you will need. If you’ve a young kid, deliberate over how your youngster to roam freely thru your home. Fourth, consider the energy costs of potential cabin plans. Eventually, make sure that the cabin plans you are considering fall in your budget for the materials and work you will have to have the cabin built.



Look for aspects that you like in a cabin.

selecting the best plan for your tiny cabin floor plan is essentially about knowing what you want and planning ahead. They are either applicable for your requirements or not. Think about the placement of rooms, windows, the fireside and other elements. Consider how you and your folks will adjust to your new little cabin floor plan’s layout.

Where can someone find free or cheap tiny cabin floor plans to download on the internet?

specialised Design Systems ( SDSCAD ) offers a newsletter that gives away a free small cabin floor plan set of plans to anybody who signs up for the free newsletter. The set of plans is a complete set that can be used to get building allows and build the cabin. SDSCAD also has available a promotional package with sixteen other tiny cabin floor plans. It’s a very cost-effective package and all of the plans are complete plans to build a cabin.

You can download small cabin floor plans here

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By: Cary Everett

About the Author:

Evaluating which house plans best suit your family’s needs can be overwhelming. Thousands of house plans are available on the Internet, in a variety of Architectural styles, which allow you to have almost infinite choice and the opportunity to save thousands on your house plans.

When you find a house plans design that fits your needs and you order the house plans, its generally helpful to know how to read the blueprints that you will receive.

In reviewing your house’s blueprints, you can usually determine the general floor plan layout / how many rooms are included / and other general information. However, depending on the size/complexity of the home and the individual Designer’s style, those lines on a page can start to give you a headache. There are a few tricks to help you read your house’s blueprints.

First, you will need to determine the scale at which the home plan is drawn. In general, most pre-drawn house plans will have an visibile indicator on the blueprint such as “a quarter inch = a foot.” Once you know the home plan scale, you can really begin to understand the spatial relationships of the rooms.

Secondly, if you have some beloved furniture pieces, you may also want to make sure that they will fit in the prospective home. Measure them and cut them out to scale. You can then move them around the house plans, and get a better idea of what the space will be like when you have moved in your furniture.

Finally, you will notice reference to various construction “detail call-outs” on the house plans, which basically refer you to a given detailed construction drawing for a particular item. For example, a typical wall construction detail and/or cabinet elevation drawings. These are utilized in the home construction process to build the referenced item to the Designer’s intended specifications.

Stock house plans provide an excellent value, when compared to a corresponding set of custom house plans, and can be modified to…exactly…meet your needs.

For an example of what you would receive in a high quality stock home plans package, visit http://www.HousePlanGallery.com/join



By: Mark Mathis

About the Author:

People today are making home buying decisions with the help of the Internet. With most of home shopping done on the Web, sellers are vying to know what attracts them and how to sell their homes faster online.

If you are a home seller and want to sell your home faster, then you may want to include a floor plan in your marketing information. Home buyers are increasingly looking beyond the home pictures that buyers usually provide, and are keen on knowing more about the kind of home they are buying. This is because, unlike home photos that reveal only parts of a home, a floor plan gives the entire picture. There are several features that a floor plan reveals which a home buyer would like to ascertain before he decides on the house. A home buyer can check out if the home has the features he/she requires, whether it is split bedrooms, or a kitchen with a window, or its convenient location near the dining room.

So whether it is an apartment that goes on the market or a listing that is being placed online, home buyers need one important thing to decide – the home plan. According to one real estate agent, home buyers are so particular about seeing floor plans of the homes on the Internet that many request for the home plan to be faxed to them even at the initial stages of home buying process.

Home plans are popular requests from people who are downsizing too. These prospective home buyers would like to see how exactly their furniture would fit into a house with much smaller space.

By providing a home plan drawing to prospective home buyers, sellers can greatly reduce the time taken for deciding on the home. With the help of a home plan drawing, the home buyer can easily visualize the physical space of the home, especially with floor plans now being available in easy-to-understand three dimensional formats.

A floor plan goes in well with modern marketing tools and techniques. For instance, the Toll Brothers web site allows potential buyers to design their own homes by letting them experiment with the floor plan.

Imagine a prospective home buyer visiting 5 to 25 homes in a weekend. It can’t be said for sure that the person would remember each and every feature of the homes he had visited. For such a person, having a home plan in his/her hand would make it much easier to remember and help choose the home he wants. And home sellers who provide a home plan drawing to prospective home buyers have an edge over other home sellers.

Source: The New York Times



By: Real Estate Advisor

About the Author:

Today I want to talk to you about creating a Basement Remodel Design and then turning that functional design into a workable Floor Plan. The floor plan for the basement remodeling project will serve a couple of purposes:

1.) It will serve as the blueprint for the actual construction process that you will be undertaking.

2.) A floor plan is required by most townships code offices in order for you to obtain your building permits to begin your job

3.) Once completed, your floor plan will serve as a guide for estimating and ordering building materials for your basement finishing project!

I use a very simple computer software program called 3-D Home architecture to put together my floor plans. But you can use any number of generic “home planning and design” software programs to assist you with this. I have found these software programs at all of the “Big-Box” retailers such as Staples, Office Depot, Office Max just to name a few!

More about how I actually sit at my computer and design basement floor plans in another article! Today I wanted to key-in on actually walking around your basement and putting a functional plan together based on the preexisting design elements that are present in all basements.

I’m talking mostly about the locations of the following common basement obstacles:

* Stairs * Overhead water and waste-line pipes

* Windows * Overhead duct-work

* Exterior doors * Water and Gas shut-off location access

* Furnaces * Waste water clean-out cap access

* Water heaters * Steel beams overhead

* Water Softener * Steel support columns!

* Sump pump pits * Electrical wiring in the road

* Electric Panels (Load center locations) * pre existing plumbing in the concrete floor

Given the natural landscape of most basements, you will have a host of design obstacles to design your finished basement around. That’s what I want to briefly talk about today. If you can see your way clearly designing around these obstacles, you will more than half way to the finish-line when creating your finished basement floor plan.

Sounds like it might be easy, Huh? Well it is if you think creatively about each obstacle crossing your path. I have seen each of these obstacles a thousand times, and I still have to put on my thinking cap from time-to-time to design a creative and functional way around these design roadblocks!

By positioning the new basement wall around these “raod blocks” creatively, we will hide all of the “UGLY” eyesores throughout the basement. I could write for 2 hours here and would not even scatch the surface of the endless possibilities for designing my waqy around these road blocks!

More about actual design techniques in future articles here at EzineArticles.com!

Here’s to Living “Down Under”!

Edward Case

For Design Ideas and other Basement finishing info visit: http://www.1basement.com



By: Eddie Case

About the Author:

Log cabin house plans will be used to build a rustic cabin made of wood logs or log-like materials. Log cabin house plans can be simple four-corner structures that remind us of the old shelters of long ago or the log cabin floor plans can be used to build a modern sophisticated structure.

When one thinks of living in a cabin, images of the crackling fireplace combined with your favorite beverage and great conversation with family or friends come to mind. Today, log cabin floor plans can be well-built, economical plans that allow you to build your own small home from the plan that you have purchased. Log cabins come in a variety of designs, sizes and intended uses. Often used as small vacation homes, they can be comfortable rustic cottages that blend harmoniously with the woods, mountains, near a stream or anywhere that peace and tranquility are the rule.

Here are five tips for having those log cabin house plans that will provide you that dream:

1 – Create Your List of Needs and Wants – your needs are items that you must have to function every day while wants are the items that are not required every day but would be considered luxury items. When you add in the extra costs of the various wants to your log cabin floor plans, you may discover that having less provides you more enjoyment for your home.

2 – Consider a 4-Corner Cabin House – if your budget is tight, a structure with four corners and simple roof system will be the least expensive one to build from your log cabin house plans. Each additional corner adds to the finished cost as do hips and valleys in the roof. The trade-off for simplicity in the design of your log cabin floor plans may provide you a larger home for the same price.

3 – Use a Pier System Foundation – check your local building code or with a local builder to see if your site allows the use of a pier foundation. This foundation will cost significantly less than a more expensive crawl space, slab or stone foundation. The finish of the foundation is not a major visual element once the landscaping has been completed.

4 – Be Careful Choosing Your Design Based on the Cheapest Price – the cheapest bid may not be your best option. When you are evaluating overall bids, if you decide based only on the amount of the bid, you may be in for a surprise later. You will want to be sure that if you are going to have a contractor build your log cabin house plans for you, that he or she has sufficient experience in the kind of work they will be doing for you. A professional contract can be somewhat lengthy if it covers the important obligations of you and the builder. You will want your attorney to review the contract to be sure it is fair to both parties. Do not sign a contract that has too much left out or if it is too one-sided, favoring the builder.

5 – Use In-Stock Plans – custom log cabin house plans created from the beginning cost considerably more than stock plans. Find stock plans that you like. If you need to make changes to stock plans, it is much more cost-effective to modify existing log cabin floor plans to fit your needs and design. Also, be aware of the materials to be used in your construction. Choosing standard in-stock building materials like window and door sizes, trims, fireplace and cabinets in the kitchen and baths will save considerably over the costs of custom sizes.

If possible, visit local log home builder shows. You can talk with log builders, see their floor plan designs, talk with other persons interested in building and learn more about the building process. Go online and purchase log cabin house plans books and magazines. Search for plans on the online plan services websites using the criteria needed for your project. As you search online for great plans, keep a notebook of your ideas when you see features in plans that you would like to have in your home.

And finally, relax and have fun! Make the planning stage an enjoyable educational experience as you organize your ideas. No matter whether you are just starting to organize your thoughts or are well along in your log cabin house plans design, learn as much as you can about creating your own log cabin floor plans design that will give you, your family and friends much enjoyment and pleasure for many years to come.

Copyright 2007 InfoSearch Publishing



By: David Lee Buster

About the Author: