Skip to content

Pre Fab Home Plans Make Building Your Dream Home Easier

Building a home? These predesigned plans could save you money and heartache

By Danielle Hayden November 16, 2018

perch1

This article originally appeared in the November 2018 issue of Seattle magazine.

This article appears in print in the November 2018 issue. Click here to subscribe.

After designing a Texas home in 2013, Austin-based architect Tim Brown says he was contacted by hundreds of people wanting to buy the plans for it. Brown saw an opportunity: “I thought, there’s got to be a way to bring a personal design to someone who wouldn’t hire an architect directly,” he says of the 2016 genesis for Perch Plans (perchplans.com), his line of customizable predesigned home plans.

Buyers can choose from eight designs in two flights, Modern Farmhouse and Maison Provincial (a new flight will be added in early 2019), with plans costing roughly one-twentieth of a custom design fee. Here in Washington, Brown has sold plans for homes being built in Langley, Bellingham and Hockinson; a Bainbridge Island home—built from the first Perch plan ever sold—was completed last month.

Creating your dream home can be stressful enough. Brown hopes that Perch Plans can make the process a little bit easier.

Follow Us

Blueprints for Building Community

Blueprints for Building Community

After tragedy struck a local restaurateur family, one of their daughters stepped in to complete the design for her brother’s unfinished home.

Although he was just 35 when a heart attack took his life, Khoa Pham’s imprint on Seattle’s international district was such that the city quickly designated April 21 as a memorial day in his honor. With his rescue pitbull, Pinky, by his side, Pham cut a colorful figure through Little Saigon and became well known…

Tuft Stuff

Tuft Stuff

Tuft Ruft turns fiber art into a social, hands-on experience in Pioneer Square.

It all started with a bout of pandemic boredom. Like many, when COVID-19 hit, recent graduate Carrie Xiao found herself stuck at home, with extra time on her hands. One day, while scrolling social media, she discovered tufting: a textile manufacturing technique that creates a garment or rug with a “pile,” or raised surface. After…

Collaborating Cultures

Collaborating Cultures

Looking to build a home to welcome family and friends, one Kirkland couple turns to a sister to design a modern house with influences from the wife’s Thai heritage.

For many years, when homeowners planned to build or remodel, architects and designers advised them to think first and foremost about resale value. From the number of bedrooms to the materials, appliances, and finishes in the kitchens and bathrooms, homes were often treated solely as an investment, with an eye to future sales. In recent…

Whale Of A Remodel

Whale Of A Remodel

The transformation of an Orcas Island home takes advantage of remarkable views

For many years, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders entertained his Orcas Island neighbors with breathtaking acrobatics in his vintage airplane. Anders and his wife, Valerie, had purchased a five-acre compound on the isolated western edge of the island for its mesmerizing view, a subject he knew something about. As a member of the first human…