You know what you like when you see it. A great way to decide what you like it to drive down the street and look for aspects of house that you like.it might be the great porch this house has, and the nice windows another house has. It is easy to see what you like or dislike in already built houses, but when it comes time to design your own home, sometime you are at a loss. This is why creating a design portfolio is so important. This should be a folder filled with photos, magazine clippings, and even written descriptions of things you like about other homes you have seen.

Section your folder out: give yourself ideas for kitchen designs, bathrooms designs, paint colors, decorating, bedroom designs, floor plans, porches, landscaping. Pretty much every aspect of building a house should be sectioned off in your folder.

You might even want to have a whole section just devoted to cupboard space designs that even have miniature plan layouts. Can you imagine the time that would save you when you actually build your house if you already know your cupboard layout, and have plans for it? You could have paint sample cards, trim designs, finish work, sheet rock custom features, etc.

You might want to even include doors, railings, window sills, flooring, and any other items that you see that you like and want to incorporate into your home, sometimes it is these little things that make the biggest impact on the feeling and demeanor of a home, and these are the little things that seem to slip your mind when you are overwhelmed with the project of building a home.

Start now, the sooner you start, the more design ideas and favorites you will have to consider, and to make your job easier when the time actually comes to build. Knowing what you want means making fewer changes, and getting your plans done faster, which means paying interest for a shorter time period, and less money spent in unneeded changes because you hadn't made up your mind.

So where do you find things for your design folder? Look in design magazines, take photos, save brochures, and any other medium that gives visualization to your thoughts. Even if it is just a picture from a catalogue that was sent to you in the mail advertising bedding, it could be very useful!

You probably won't use every idea you like, but the ones you do decide to use will be invaluable, they will become your road map, along with blueprints and specifications, for your subs and suppliers when they are bidding and working on the job to actually create the house of your dreams. So, the more you collect, and the more detail you get into, with pictures, colors, layouts, blueprints, etc. the harder it will be for a sub or contractor to mess up. Think about it this way, if you just tell them what you want it is open for interpretation, but if you show them.chances are you will get pretty dang close to what you are thinking because your thoughts will be visual for others to see as well.