Recently I got a phone call from a guy planning to build a house in Electric City. He told me that he would be in town the following Friday and wanted to meet. He also told me that he was going to meet with two local drafting businesses who also produce Spokane house plans that day as well.
When he showed up he informed me that he had been to one before me and had a meeting scheduled following ours with a third draftsman. We talked for a while and he showed me all that he had prepared which was unusually extensive and accurately drawn out on a software program he mastered to create his design.
This was the second home he had built and so he knew what he was doing and I told him his efforts would save me a whole lot of time and I gave him what I thought was a fair price. He quickly told me I was hired and that he would cancel his next appointment.
When he picked up his plans the following Thursday, I had to ask what the first drafting company had quoted him. I was shocked when he said they wanted $3,300. No wonder he hired me on the spot. I made my $50 an hour and he saved $1,800!
(click to enlarge)
This is what Gary had worked up. He mastered a free house design software program for the floorplan and hand drew the exterior elevations like the one above for all four sides. His drawings were accurate and so I was able to resize them in my sketchup progam so the were actually to real scale. It made it very easy for me to his job quickly.
The video is quite long but you can get most of the idea in the first few minutes. It is also quite unprofessional since I am just learning to edit video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9IPJSEat2E&feature=youtu.be
