Super Modeling

10 years ago, my wife Brooke and I were living in Birmingham while going to school and working. After getting married in 2008, I got my feet wet in the home improvement world. We bought a 1950’s cedar shake home in a little town just north of Birmingham. After pulling many all-nighters working and eating Chinese takeout on 5 gallon buckets in our “living room”, we were able to make our first home together.

While renovating our first home, and several others after that, I started to realize the problems that I was having to fix were common in almost every home that I touched. Sagging floors, doors that wouldn’t close right, inadequate insulation, wet crawlspaces, musty basements and the list just kept going on and on.

When I decided to start High Cotton Homes, I knew I wanted things to be different. I wanted to improve the building quality and standards in our area. Technology and building science advance every single day. I tell people all the time, you wouldn’t want to use a cell phone from 20 years ago, so why would you want to live in a house that is built just like they were in the 80s and 90s… But with that being said, lets get back to the 3D modeling topic. I will definitely be covering more on the improvements of building science in upcoming posts.

After seeing numerous houses being built with improperly sized framing components and no access for mechanicals, we decided to find a way to ensure that wouldn’t happen on our homes. We are proud to now offer a framing 3D drawing of every house that we build.

There are several reasons why we do this.

First of all, it gives the customer a good view of how their house will actually look. I often times find it hard to see a 3-dimensional object on a set of 2-dimensional house plans (and I’m the builder!). After our customers see their 3D drawing, many of them decide to make a few changes to their design. Making changes is much cheaper and easier early on at this point in the process!

Typically, we always find a few errors on the house plans that our customers have had drawn. Let’s face it, home styles that are being built today are much different than 30 years ago. The days of a simple ranch style house are gone. Today we are seeing cut up roofs, angled garages, and many complicated floor plans. Even “simple” homes are more complex now, and it is more difficult to get the roof angles, window sizes, and other aspects perfect. By creating a 3D image, we are able to catch any errors made in the original house plans before construction begins. Again, this has proven to save time and money for everyone!

One day Moses (my dog) is going to have a dog house made up of all my screw ups! As the builder, it’s costly to have structural or sizing mistakes in a home, and after being stuck with a few extra windows in my barn that cost me dearly, I realized that we had to make a change on our window and door planning. By drawing the actual window sizes on the 3D models, we eliminate any discrepancies on elevations and window schedules.

And finally, my favorite… Structural components…

After years of fixing sagging floors and poor framing, I am constantly on a mission to make our homes as solid as possible. Every chance I get, I love to walk through any house under construction and take a look at the framing (especially when we travel, so I can see how they are doing it across the country). It amazes me all the different “techniques” that are out there. Unfortunately, I see homes all the time that are still being built with inadequate framing components. During the 3D process, all of our framing components are engineered and sized correctly, ensuring our customers a safe home that will still be standing many years from now.

I am not interested in code minimums or just doing enough to get by. When I build a house for a family, I am not interested in just making them happy for the next year or two, I want their kids to still be happy with it in 50 years!

Check out my youtube video where I walk you through one of our 3D models and explain a little more just how awesome they are!