Choosing a Construction Site and House Style

Home » Web Guides » Homes » Home Building

In This Guide

Most Popular

Home Building

Building your own home is an often exciting, sometimes exhausting experience. It’s also a perfect chance to have a home that’s designed the way you want it to look. But whether you’re hiring a general contractor or doing most of the work yourself, it takes a lot of forethought and planning. The sites highlighted in this Web guide can help you find inspiration to create the home of your dreams and get much-needed help to ensure you don’t miss one of the many details that accompany this endeavor.

Expand All Guide Sections

Steps to Building a Home

Home building may seem like a complicated process—and it is—but we’ve found some ... read more »

The Cost of Building a Home

The cost of building a home depends on a multitude of factors, including what type of home you ... read more »

Choosing a Construction Site and House Style

One of the earliest steps in building a new home is deciding what type of home you want and where to build it. With an abundance of home styles and locations to choose from, the options may feel overwhelming but the Web sites we’ve found can help you make some decisions.

Dulcinea's Insight

In the book “Inside the Not So Big House”, you’ll find tips for creating a well-designed home with all the elements you’ve always desired. The focus here is on the quality of your home rather than its size.

If you’ve ordered a custom-built home, the Web site of the company you’ve purchased the home from may also contain advice about finding the right home site for the type of home you want.

Choosing a location for your new home can be about a lot more than finding a suitable building site. For Web sites that can help you select a good community or neighborhood, see the “Deciding Where to Move” section of the findingDulcinea Homes Web Guide.

Dulcinea's Picks

For help choosing a building site …

Homeplans.com is part of the Move.com network. Look for helpful advice about choosing a home site, including some of the most important factors to consider. Also see the great checklist page; find or design the home of your dreams by making a handy list of your personal specifications to draw from.

go to site »

Amazing Plans provides a list of factors to keep in mind when choosing a home site, including property taxes, zoning requirements and limitations, and the availability of public utilities.

go to site »

The Ohio Department of Health offers a short PDF article that focuses on assessing how you would deal with household wastewater at a particular home site.

go to site »

The University of Florida IFAS (Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences) Extension explains that soil has different properties, thus posing a unique set of considerations that may apply to home construction at a particular site. Some of the information is specific to Florida but most of it will be valuable to any reader.

go to site »

Efficiency Vermont provides suggestions for the type of home site you should choose if you are looking to incorporate “green” elements into your new home.

go to site »

To review home styles …

Realty Advocates explains the history and various aspects of several types of housing styles, including Queen Anne, Mediterranean, and “Classic Box.” Expect to find basic illustrations rather than full-color photographs of each style of home. The site is hosted by a California real estate agency and thus the information is geared toward local readers, but many of the house styles described can be found all over the United States.

go to site »

Jamaica Plain Real Estate reviews the elements of many popular housing styles seen in New England (and many other parts of the country), such as Cape Cod, ranch, and federal styles. Color photographs show examples of each architectural style.

go to site »

B4UBuild.com has a photo album that shows the construction process for a few different types of homes. Though a majority of the photos show a particular home in an unfinished state, there are still one or two finished pictures that can give you a good idea of what a particular home style looks like.

go to site »