Welcome Summer!

Happy summer!  On this first day of post-Spring we are pleased to announce that sun is in the forecast for the next several days.  To welcome the sun (and since it has lightened our moods considerably) we are offering a sale that lasts through Labor Day.  Any purchase of $250 or more can get 20% off by using the code 'summer11'.  Shipping is still free and so is this blog.  We will be winding down the designs a bit for the next few months while we take advantage of the lack of rain to focus on our spin-off, Dragonfly Trailers.  Eager to use our hammers we've been working on building a small travel trailer.  With any luck it will be ready in time for summer camping.

Visit Istockhouseplans to review our plans and pick your favorite.  Kind of like a puppy.

Countdown to Eternity

Good afternoon faithful blog followers! We want to let you know about some changes at the old istockhouseplans homestead. For a while we changed our checkout system to Paypal, but their inability to offer coupons sent us back to Google Checkout. With Google Checkout you can confidently purchase house plans from us knowing that we will never, ever see your credit card number. Now, whether or not you trust Google is a different story. We have also implemented a shopping cart feature which is one of the reasons we went with Paypal for a while. Sort of annoying to order a whole load of plans one at a time.

This calls for a celebration! In order to move some inventory by the end of the year, we are offering a coupon code for 50% off your order. Yes, half off everything in the store, right down to the fixtures and CFL lightbulbs. (Okay, no lightbulbs, apparently we aren't closing our doors). After you fill your cart up with all sorts of goodies, enter coupon code '2009' to take advantage of this offer.

Why buy from us? Three reasons: Our plans are simple to build; our plans are beautiful and functional; our plans are designed for energy efficiency.

After the end of the year, the rest of our coupons will still be available. (Hint: sort our blog posts by the 'coupon' label to see what else we might have). Of course if there are any questions or complaints, go ahead and email us and we'll try to give you the best customer service experience we possibly can.

Recession Buster

Are we at bottom yet? Rock bottom? Sandy bottom? Crab grazing bottom? Let's pretend we are and istockhouseplans will help you jumpstart the economy. For a limited time (probably through the end of the year, your mileage may vary) we want to offer deep discounts on our best plans (all of them). When making an order through our website, use coupon code 'bottom' to receive 40% off any order of $500 or more. As always, there is no shipping charge.

Are we crazy? We've been called worse.

Houston, we have lift-off!

"Discovery to mission control: we have lift-off, all systems are a go and- hey I can see my house from here!"

You might discover the same sort of excitement in your new home. The Houston houseplan is online and available. Why Houston you may ask? Well sit right back and hear a tale- wait that's another story...

The city of Houston, TX held a design contest to create an innovative house that was 1500sf or under, 3 beds, 2 baths max, garage optional and could be built for under $99,000 in Houston (land not included). We downloaded all the particulars, started designing, and then forgot about the entry deadline. Ah well. But as we looked at our plan a revelation came to us. With a few tugs and tweaks we ended up with what we believe is the cheapest house with the biggest bang to be built in Houston or anywhere in the Gulf region for that matter.

Our plan is 24' x 48'. Windows and doors were placed next to studs to eliminate extra framing. The roof is a 7.5:12 pitch which nets a perfect length of 16' from ridge to eave. The porch roof at 4:12 is exactly 8' from ridge to eave. All attempts have been made to avoid interior wall lengths such as 4'-2" or 12'-5". The main trusses have a heel of 8" which means that a 4'x9' sheet of sheathing will fit from sill to rafters without needing to cut. It also allows for a full thickness of insulation all the way up to the edge of the house. If you'd rather hand-frame the roof, we provide that too. The house has been spec'ed with a slab foundation though others are available. We are pretty darn sure that because of our design, you won't need more than your pickup to haul away the construction waste. That's assuming that Bubba measured twice and cut once.

Since this house was designed for the Gulf region and since it should be a snap to build, we are offering a special deal to folks who are building for Katrina victims. If you are building within 50 miles of the coast and would like to purchase for multiple buildings, we will give you much deeper discounts than would be available for our other plans. This offer is only for a limited time (meaning we will honor it until the Gulf region is built back up to a reasonable level and nobody buys this plan anymore).

That's one great house for man, one large rebuilding effort for mankind.

Mind the Gap

Not the clothing outfitter. We are just musing about the current state of economic affairs, especially here in the Northwest. Some might call it a slump, others might say it's an economic depression. It's really just a balancing act as the normal trend is catching up to the abnormal growth from the past couple of years. No matter what you call it, it's still causing a problem. On our side of the country, home sales are experiencing record lengths of time on the market and builders are finding it darn near impossible to secure construction loans. Whose fault? Is it the banks that lent subprime loans? Is it the builders who created a glut of inventory? Maybe. Some of the banks have gotten their comeuppance by going out of business - too many foreclosures. Some of the builders are making do by scaling their profits down to a razor-thin margin, picking up remodels, or renting their unsold homes.

Obviously this affects us at istockhouseplans too. If you don't build, you don't need our plans. We can't guarantee that folks will buy a house designed by us, but we can guarantee several things:

• Our plans are different and will at least make folks stop to look.
• Our waste reduction policy means you should end up with less than a pickup truck load of scrap.
• Our advanced framing details will save you thousands in material costs.
• Our plans are cheaper.

We can prove our plans are cheaper. When you make your first order, type in the coupon code 'intro'. This will give you 20% off your first order of $300 or more. If you would like to apply the code to several plans, send us your wish list and we'll create a Buy Now button* just for you. You'll save 20% off the entire order, even if you order 100 plans at once. Remember, shipping is always free!

In the meantime, keep your cool and we'll ride out this undertow together.

*Please note that Buy Now buttons only allow one plan purchase at a time and will use up your intro coupon on a small $300 purchase when you really intended to purchase several plans at once.

*With our new Checkout interface this has become unnecessary.  Fill up your cart and use your coupon!