We specialize in designing custom modern farmhouses for growing families. Wo do not accept remodels, additions, or homes designed in other styles.

Most of our homes are single story wood framed homes with truss roofs, although we occasionally design two-story homes, homes made with ICFs, and hand-cut roofs for clients who request it.

No. We've chosen to specialize because specialization produces better outcomes than generalist work. If you want a Spanish Mission style home, a Tudor Revival, or a contemporary glass box, we're not the firm for you.

Our principal designer is a licensed architect with more than 20 years of professional experience and over 300 completed homes. A note on licensure since it confuses many people: architectural licensure is state-specific, and an architect's stamp on residential drawings is rarely required for single-family homes in most jurisdictions. What matters for permitting in most places is that the structural engineering is stamped by an engineer licensed in your build state, which we provide through our engineering partner currently licensed in 28 states.

More than 300 homes across two decades. We are very experienced in new home design and light framed wood construction techniques.

Our team works from offices in Arizona, Florida, and Oregon. About 90 percent of our clients live in a different city or state than our office, and the day-to-day work happens through video calls, screen shares, and shared files. We use Zoom, Loom, and Dropbox on a daily basis to keep our clients in the loop.

We do not accept projects in California, New York, or New Jersey due to their extreme regulations. After spending over two years trying to get a building permit for one small home in Southern California, we decided that life is too short...

Modern farmhouse, the way we design it, has a defined vocabulary: white siding (often board-and-batten or horizontal lap siding), black windows, black standing-seam or dark gray shingle roofs, deep covered porches, simple gable forms, and proportions inspired by traditional Southern agricultural buildings. We tend to avoid overly complex rooflines, purely decorative dormers, hip roofs and arched elements. Instead, we focus on keeping the overall massing and structure of the home simple, durable, and easier to build (fussy roofs leak!).

Inside, the layouts are contemporary — open kitchen-living-dining great rooms, generous bedroom suites, and the special-purpose rooms (mudroom, walk-in pantry, drop zone, dog wash counters, dedicated work from home offices and spaces for Zoom calls) that make your home feel custom. We work with our clients to find out what they've always wanted in their dream house, and what drove them nuts about their previous homes. Our goal is to create a home that is so loved, you'll want to pass down to your children.

We do occasionally design two-story homes, but more and more we notice our clients asking for single story designs.

Why? Most families building a forever home don't want to have to deal with stairs in their fifties, sixties, and beyond. Many of our past clients cared for special needs children or aging family members, and designing without stairs just made their lives easier by eliminating the "stair tax" of carrying laundry baskets, vacuum cleaners, new furniture, or luggage up and down stairs.

Our focus on single story homes means we can simplify the integration of HVAC systems and avoid uneven temperatures, steer clear of the wasted space stairwells and landings eat up, provide better noise isolation between bedrooms and common spaces, and avoid the chaos of seemingly small design changes on one floor having unexpected impacts on the floor above or below.

Our typical project lands between 3,500 and 6,500 sq ft of conditioned space. Smaller projects (under 3,000 sq ft) and larger ones (over 7,000 sq ft) are possible but less common for us. The amenity level we design at — larger bedrooms designed around queen sized beds at a minimum (typically with en-suite bathrooms), spacious walk-in closets and common storage areas, real special-purpose rooms like butler's pantries (the "dirty kitchen"), and garages that fit 22-foot-long crew-cab pickups with space to walk around them — sets a practical floor on the square footage of our projects.

No. We design for new construction only.

Our total fees for complete, engineered plan packages typically cost around $8 per SF of conditioned space. For a representative 4,000 SF single-story modern farmhouse, that's $32,000 total. On a typical $900,000 construction budget, our fee is roughly 3.6 percent of total project cost.

For context, generalist local architects working through the traditional AIA model typically charge 8% to 15% of construction cost, which would be $72,000 to $135,000 on the same project.

In our experience, by devoting more time and effort working with our clients during the design phase, we can eliminate many of the unfortunate change orders and field revisions that are common when plans are produced quickly and cheaply, leaving the builder to solve on site what should have been solved on paper.

The Visioning phase is the first step with every new client. It runs $5,000 to $7,500 and takes six to eight weeks if you are able to participate in regular design sessions and offer timely feedback. During this phase, we work with you — and every decision-maker in the household, at every meeting — through a structured programming process to develop a basic floor plan tailored to how your family lives, a 3D model showing the home's exterior form and proportions, a realistic square footage and amenity list, and a defined design direction for the full plans phase.

Many clients building in rural jurisdictions with minimal permitting requirements, working with competent builders whose in-house drafters can carry the plan through to permit, find the Visioning phase delivers everything they need.

About a third of our projects end at this stage.

The $8 per SF all-in fee covers the full design and documentation package for your home, with the structural engineering bundled in. Deliverables include the complete Visioning package, refined floor plans with additional detail, exterior elevations, building sections and wall sections, foundation plan, shear wall plan, framing plan, roof plan, reflected ceiling plans with electrical and lighting layouts, mechanical and plumbing layouts (including Manual J/D/S HVAC reports), door and window schedules, structural engineering stamped for your state (within our 28-state coverage area), and engineering coordination. We manage the structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design on your behalf to ensure that they are consistent and coordinated with the architectural plans.

Mostly interior design and specialty engineering. We don't select interior finishes like paint colors, wood flooring selections, or tile colors and patterns for bathroom walls. We don't choose the specific brands and models of lighting or plumbing fixtures. We highly encourage you to find a competent, experienced interior designer.

We also don't provide on-site construction administration (site visits) on most projects, although that is available as a paid add-on service where travel is feasible. Our plan packages also don't include specialty engineering or site design such as land surveys, topographic maps, pool design, landscape architecture, or geotechnical/civil/septic engineering — these are best handled by local specialists who have expertise with your specific site conditions.

Two reasons. First, square footage is transparent — you know what you're paying before construction estimates come in, and the fee doesn't go up if your construction cost goes up. We don't make more money if you choose higher end countertops.

Second, charging per square foot keeps our incentives clean. A percentage-of-construction fee structure pays the designer more when the home costs more to build, which can incentivize a designer to design overly complex plans.

Also, we see construction costs varying widely across the US, sometimes by as much as $150 per SF for similar levels of quality. It doesn't make a lot of sense to charge drastically different fees to clients just based on their ZIP code.

Because hourly billing rewards the wrong thing. When a designer is paid by the hour, every extra week the design takes earns them more money — the slower the process, the bigger the invoice. That's a backwards incentive, and even when a firm doesn't consciously act on it, there's no shortage of tasks that can absorb billable hours without moving your project forward.

Hourly billing also makes your total cost unpredictable at the start, which is exactly when you're trying to estimate your total budget. Our fees are fixed and agreed before each phase begins, so we only benefit by working efficiently — and you know the full design cost before we draw a single line.

We offer pay as you go pricing, with a fixed fee we both agree to prior to beginning work. We don't charge hourly, or surprise you with unexpected engineering invoices.

All of our projects begin with a paid Visioning phase to establish the basic floor plan and 3D design, and for clients who need a complete set of plans with engineering, we break the Construction Documents phase into two or three installment payments, depending on the complexity of the home.

We've intentionally set a transparent, predictable fee structure so there's no haggling, no opaque rate negotiation, and no incentive misalignment.

Our fees offer excellent value for money. We can provide a higher level of service when our clients feel the extra attention is warranted given the overall investment they are making in the project.

Our full design process has two stages.

During the Visioning phase, we start by identifying your goals and developing a programming document listing all the spaces and features you want to include. It's important to identify your goals before we draw anything. Once we have a good idea of what will make your project a success, we then move into creating the overall floor plan and 3D massing model.

For clients who need a full set of detailed, engineered plans, the second stage builds on the plan you've selected. By this point you've made the big design decisions; the second stage is about us finalizing the technical details so the home can actually be built.

We work with our engineers to design the structural system and make sure it's coordinated with the architecture and the mechanical layout — no surprises during construction when an air conditioning duct needs to pass right through a glulam beam. We work with you to make sure the light switches are where you'd like them, and that the electrical panel has the correct circuit breakers for the appliances you've chosen. The goal is to get the important decisions into the drawings so that during construction, our clients aren't bombarded with technical questions, and those decisions don't fall to a subcontractor in the field who is in a rush to get to the next job.

No two clients are alike. Your style of decision-making and your level of attention heavily influence the design timeline.

Having said that, with an attentive client who has clear goals, we can usually complete the Visioning phase in six to eight weeks from kickoff to delivery. This assumes a regular pace of design meetings, as well as timely feedback and decision-making on your end. Some couples move faster; some take longer if work travel or family commitments slow the cadence. We can flex the schedule to your availability within reason.

For clients who need a more complete set of plans, we provide a customized timeline estimate for their specific project based on the complexity of the home and our engineers' current workloads. On average, if the design doesn't stray from the Visioning phase, it takes between five and twelve weeks to complete a well-coordinated set of fully engineered plans that includes mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and structural design, along with detailed sections and assemblies.

Over 20 years and hundreds of projects, the pattern is consistent: the biggest factor in how long a design takes is how decisions get made on the client's side. The technical work usually runs on a predictable schedule when the teams have a history of working together. What usually extends a design timeline is circling back to revise earlier decisions, or adding new rooms and design elements late in the process, after a lot of the work has already been completed.

Just to give some real world examples illustrating the extremes: we once took a three-bedroom home from kickoff to fully engineered plans in under a month for a decisive client. At that same time with the same design and engineering team, a similar project was in our office for over two years while we revised the kitchen & living room layout over and over again at the client's request. By the end, it was hard to tell if version 27 was really any better or worse than version 8.

That's a little like asking how long will it take to drive to dinner — it really depends on where you're going. We've seen rural counties issue same-day building permits with nothing more than a one page sketch of the site plan (spoiler alert: it was Texas), and on the opposite extreme it took us well over two years to get a building permit approved in California (which is why we no longer accept projects in California!). Larger cities tend to take longer and ask for more information; rural areas usually move faster and require less detail. Two to three months is a rough average for towns that have plan review, but that can vary a lot.

City plan review almost always involves a back-and-forth cycle (you submit plans, they ask for additional information or changes, you resubmit revised plans that address their comments). It's very rare for a city with plan review to issue permits without making you change something, add notes, or provide some piece of additional information.

Factors that always seem to make the permitting timeline take longer:

Sites with hillside, wetlands, strict HOAs, or wildland-urban interface (WUI) regulations

Projects in a FEMA floodplain (any zone other than "X")

Having an owner change the design during permitting

Submitting plans without reading the local plan review checklists first

Related: submitting incomplete plans and hoping they will slip through (light on required details, or lacking engineering even though it was on the checklist)

Resubmitting plans quickly without fully addressing the "redline" comments

Arguing with or insulting city staff (this one is a lot like arguing with a trooper who pulled you over for doing 90mph...)

Maybe. The honest answer is that plan review checklists and requirements vary widely across the country, and sometimes even within the same city depending on who is reviewing the plans.

No single set of plans is "permit ready" for all locations.

For example, we've done work in one metro area that had cities and towns using four different building codes all at the same time. It would be impossible for the same set of plans to satisfy every local checklist out of the box.

If you live in an area that is known for having particularly strict plan review requirements, let's discuss that before you hire us. In some cases, it may require more time and research on our end. We want you to have a good experience, and if it seems like you'll be better off hiring an local architect instead of our firm, we'll be the first to say so.

By design, our entire process runs remotely. We use video calls, screen sharing, and screen recordings (both Zoom and Loom) for floor plan and 3D model review, and shared online Dropbox folders for ongoing file access. About 90 percent of our clients live in a different city or state than our staff. And no, we do not offshore our design work!

Nope.

We've learned the hard way not to run complex projects through phone calls, voicemails, or text messages. Design is highly visual, and even simple verbal instructions get misunderstood. Phone calls get forgotten, and hunting for a decision buried in dozens of texts on a small screen wastes everyone's time.

Our design sessions occur over a recorded Zoom session that we can reference later to make sure no decisions fall through the cracks.

We strongly encourage clients and builders to discuss questions and changes while looking at the plans, and to mark up questions on a PDF of the plans. That avoids misunderstandings and keeps the process moving smoothly.

The number of revisions matters less than when they happen. Most people can't react to a home until they can see it drawn, so we expect several rounds of feedback in the early weeks.

When the revisions come late in the process (for example, if we are moving walls or adding bathrooms after six weeks of design, or you decide to make the living room ceilings taller once engineering has begun), that's when a project can incur time delays and additional fees.

When that happens, we quote any potential changes to the fee as a fixed dollar amount so you see the cost before we proceed — never an open-ended hourly surprise.

Once construction begins, hold the line as much as you can. Change orders mid-build are one of the fastest ways to wreck a timeline and a budget.

A complete set of Construction Documents from American Farmhouse Design Co. includes:

Annotated and dimensioned floor plans

Reflected ceiling plans

Roof plans

Exterior elevations

Building sections and wall sections

Electrical plans (power and lighting)

Mechanical layout (Manual J/D/S)

Plumbing isometrics

Door & window schedules

Engineered foundation plans

Engineered shear wall plans

Engineered roof framing plans

Enlarged details, diagrams, and graphics to aid your builder during construction

Yes, included in the $8/SF fee within our 28-state coverage area. We work directly with our structural engineer on your behalf, coordinate the structural plans with the architecture so details and dimensions stay consistent, and deliver stamped structural sheets as part of the complete plan set. Working with the same engineer across many projects keeps the process smooth and keeps our timelines predictable.

You do not have to find, hire, or manage a separate structural engineer. If you're building in a state where our engineer isn't licensed yet, we'll let you know right up front so you can have plenty of time to find a local professional.

Yes, included in the $8/SF fee. The complete plan set includes a full HVAC layout with equipment locations and ductwork, a complete electrical and lighting plan with every switch and outlet placed, and a plumbing isometric showing fixture locations and minimum pipe sizes. Our mechanical plans include ACCA Manual J/D/S reports, which means the system is designed for your specific climate, the insulation we've called out, and the house's orientation.

This layer of documentation is what most stock plans omit and what most change orders during construction trace back to.

Yes, we design all of our projects in 3D software, and use renderings to give all of our clients a feel for how the design will look in perspective.

No. Interior design — paint colors, tile, cabinet finishes, countertops, plumbing fixtures, lighting fixtures, hardware, furniture — is a separate discipline with its own training and process. We're happy to coordinate with your interior designer on the architectural side (lighting placement, fixture rough-ins, cabinet wall dimensions), but making the product selections and choosing finishes isn't in our wheelhouse.

If you plan to use a professional interior designer, bring them in early. We'd much rather work with them while the design is still taking shape than reopen completed plans for revisions later — their selections and design concepts often shape the architecture in ways that are far cheaper to build in than to retrofit.

No. Landscape architecture, civil engineering for site grading, drainage and stormwater, septic system design, and geotechnical (soil) work are all separate specialties best handled by local professionals who are familiar with building practices in your area. We can recommend questions to ask and what to expect, but the work itself is best engaged through local providers who know your site conditions and your jurisdiction's technical requirements.

You receive a complete set of construction documents as PDFs, sized to standard architectural sheet sizes (typically 24"×36" or 30"×42"), ready to print or submit electronically.

No, you don't absolutely need one yet. However, we highly recommend bringing on a builder as early as possible. Your odds of completing the project are much higher if you have a solid understanding of the actual pricing and construction timelines in your area.

We've watched projects go all the way to permit-approved plans without builder involvement, and fewer than half of those homes ever got built. Every one that did went over the owner's budget. Designing without a builder pricing the work as it develops is how that happens.

Not in the traditional on-site sense. Our model excludes site visits, weekly progress meetings, and in-person punch-list work that some local architects include in their fee.

What we offer instead is a paid email and Zoom support add-on for the construction phase. Your builder can email questions, share photos and videos, and request clarifications during construction, and we respond promptly. Most projects need this at some level — questions come up during the build no matter how complete the plans are — and the paid add-on is how we provide it without bundling on-site fees into the design phase.

The complete CD set we deliver is designed to answer the vast majority of builder questions before they get asked. Where questions do come up — and they always come up on some level — your builder can engage us through the construction support add-on, by email or Zoom. We respond quickly. Builders consistently tell us the questions they need answered are usually small, fast, and easy when the original documentation is coordinated.

Generally, no. We don't carry preferred-builder relationships in every market we serve, and we'd rather not steer clients toward builders we don't know well. We can describe what to look for in a custom-home builder, how to evaluate bids, and what red flags to watch for during interviews.

The single most important thing you can do when selecting a builder is to talk to three or four of their past clients. If a builder has poor communication, sloppy project management, or uses unethical business practices, their former clients should be more than happy to share that information with you.

You don't need to own it yet, but you should have a specific lot identified — under contract, gifted from family, or in serious due diligence. Designing a home requires the lot's actual dimensions, orientation, grade, setbacks, and utilities. Designing in the abstract before a lot is selected leads to two outcomes: a generic plan that fits no specific lot well, or a redesign once the lot is purchased. Neither is a good spend.

A half-acre and up, with two acres or more being ideal. The single-story modern farmhouse program we design at — 3,500 to 6,500 sq ft, with a deep front porch, broad rear porch, three-car garage (or larger...), and outdoor living area — needs room to breathe. Tight urban or infill lots fight the product. Steep or significantly sloped sites are workable but add complexity and cost.

Yes, with one adjustment. We can deliver the full architectural design — Visioning, floor plans, elevations, building sections, schedules, electrical and lighting plans, mechanical and plumbing layouts — but the structural engineering needs to be done by an engineer licensed in your state. At some point, the structural plans will need to be reviewed and coordinated with the architectural plans to make sure they don't have conflicting information (for example, a beam that drops below the ceiling where you didn't expect it).

If you haven't purchased the plan, the answer is absolutely no. We respect the intellectual property of our colleagues, and want to honor the time and effort that they have put into their designs.

However, if you have purchased online stock plans, most licenses allow the purchaser to modify the design without triggering a copyright violation. Having said that, it depends on both the specific plan and what kind of changes you'd like to make. It's often easier for us to use a plan as a reference and create new plans from scratch.

No. Architectural designs are copyrighted under federal law (the same laws that prevent you from selling t-shirts with Mickey Mouse images), and copying another designer's work is both illegal and against our values. We are happy to work with reference images you've collected — Pinterest boards, magazine spreads, screenshots from other architects' portfolios — as inspiration to understand your taste. The home we design is your own, drawn from the elements you love rather than reproduced from a single source.

If you have plans from another architect that you'd like to use, we will ask for a signed release of copyright (which is a standard practice when one architect takes over a project from another).

For some projects, you should. If you're building a smaller home (under 2,500 sq ft), on a simple flat lot, in a permissive jurisdiction, with a budget under $500,000, and you find a stock plan that fits your needs at 90 percent or better, a stock plan plus light modifications plus a local structural engineer can produce a buildable plan set for $5,000 to $10,000 all-in.

For the projects we focus on — larger homes with $800,000+ build budgets — the math changes. Stock plans rarely fit the program, and even when they have the right bedroom count or overall square footage, the price of fully custom plans is so small relative to the overall project cost that it makes more sense to have a custom design.

Yes. Detached garages with workshop space, separate guest suites or casitas, and standalone workshops are some of the most common additions to the main home program in our work.

Yes, and we recommend it for any forever home. Universal design and aging-in-place features — wider hallways, no-threshold showers, lever door hardware, blocking in walls for future grab bars, a primary suite on the main level (already a given since we design single-story), and accessible routes from parking to the front door — add minimal cost during design and construction but enormous flexibility for the rest of your life in the home. We recommend at least the basic structural and dimensional accommodations on every project.

Yes, within the boundaries of our scope. Building envelope decisions (insulation specifications, window selection, air sealing details) and HVAC system sizing for efficiency are part of how we design.

For clients who want deeper sustainability features — off-grid power supply with backup generators, passive house design standards, ground-source heat pumps, photovoltaic system design, rainwater harvesting, chemical-free construction materials selection — we recommend engaging specialty consultants in parallel with our work.

For ICF projects, we partner with an ICF design specialist we've known for years who is a recognized expert in the field. Our structural engineer is quite familiar with steel frame construction. If you are interested in using SIPs, we have no experience using them, but can refer you to a specialist.

Of course. We offer a free 30 to 45 minute preliminary consultation to see if we are a good fit for each other.

Yes. The most useful next step for prospects not yet ready to commit is to take our design path assessment, which takes about five minutes and tells you whether a stock plan, a local drafter, a generalist architect, a specialist designer like us, or another path makes sense for your specific project. The assessment also adds you to our email list so we can share useful planning content as you work through the lead-up to your build.

Signs that we might be a good fit: you've decided you love the farmhouse look; you have or are close to having a lot of a half-acre or more; your construction budget is $800,000 or higher; you've already looked at stock plans and concluded none of them quite work; you want one firm to manage the full design and engineering package rather than coordinating multiple vendors yourself.

Signs that we're not a great fit: you'd like to see 30 or 40 versions of a plan before committing to a design, you want to keep your spouse out of the design process thinking it will save time or money (spoiler alert: it will not!), you can't imagine living in the houses we show on our website, or you absolutely need to communicate by phone or text message. If that sounds like you, we probably won't enjoy working with each other!

The first step is the design path assessment. The second step, if the assessment indicates we're a fit, is a 30 to 45 minute preliminary consultation to get to know each other and answer your questions. The third step, if we're moving forward, is signing the Visioning agreement and scheduling the kickoff session.