Home and Garden Shows; Maximize your Experience:

Maximize your experience with these easy tips that will assist you in planning and budgeting your home improvement projects.

Obtain or create a plan view of your home. Often times if your home is part of a tract you can obtain a plan view of your specific property from the builder. If you are not the original owner you can create your own property profile by following the easy steps under "creating a plot plan and photo profile of your property." Once you have your plan view of your specific property, we recommend creating copies and a master file on your home and related projects, current and future. This will be of great value to you in planning all phases of your home improvement projects.

When attending a home and garden show be sure to take a copy of your master file with you to the event. This will allow you to converse with vendors on projects right then and there. If you have a rough plan as shown in our "preparing to consider a project section" Have these as well, you can utilize an accordion file folder with several slots. Any info you find of interest should be kept separate with whichever room it corresponds to. Having height and plan details with photographs will allow you to take advantage of the knowledge that is at one of these events. Typically the idea of the vendors participating in these shows is to get one of their sales people into your home and negotiate a project with you. It is impossible for someone at a show to even converse about a project if you don't come prepared. You will find that often companies have their best designers or reps at these shows and they are very willing to talk details with you if you have all the info.

 

Create an Exterior Plan View of your Home:

1. Obtain the plot plan of your property. This is usually one of the items you receive when you buy your house at the closing. If this is not available in your records check your records for the parcel and or tract number. Then go to your city building or engineering department and request a copy of the plot plan.

   A plot plan is a top view looking down of your property showing your home on it with dimensions of the home's size and location within the parcel.

2. Add to a copy of your plot plan the setbacks required by your city (or county). You should obtain this information at the same time as you request your plot plan from the planning, building, or engineering department. Add lines parallel to each property line on each side, front and back, to scale, illustrating the maximum building area.

3. Take photos of each side, front and back of your house and mark the plot plan with the photo name and location (arrow) the photo was taken.
   
   Sample Plot Plan
   Click to Enlarge

 

Create an Interior Floor Plan of your Home:

1. Make a rough sketch of the interior of your home showing all walls and doors.

2. Measure the house.

3. Make a scale drawing of the house. The easiest way for the unequipped to do this is to obtain a large sheet (24" x 36") of graph paper and draw all the walls on it in proportion-to scale. Usually a scale of 1/8" to the foot or 1/4" to the foot works well.

4. Take photos of each wall and close ups of cabinetry where appropriate. Mark the drawing with the number of each photo and an arrow showing the direction it was taken.
   
   Sample Plot Plan
   Click to Enlarge