I get asked a lot how I got into designing houses.
The path had a few turns, but the biggest thing that happened was realizing that something I had always liked doing, drawing floor plans for houses, was actually an option for a career. It was sort of like, “Whoa, really? I could just do that for the rest of my life?” And once I found that path, it all made sense.
I ended up earning my degree in Computer Graphics Technology with a construction emphasis, where I learned the drafting and modeling programs that eventually became my job.
I’ve always felt lucky that I figured out exactly what it was I wanted to do. And I also have to give a lot of credit to the people I met along the way whose advice helped steer me away from a few paths that probably would have led somewhere very different.
So, How Did It Happen?
It starts with Barbie.
I grew up with three sisters, so we had A LOT of Barbies. We all played with them, and at some point when my parents were picking out carpet for the house, we ended up with a bunch of little carpet sample squares, probably around 18" x 18", in pink and lavender and blue. It turned out they made the perfect outline for a Barbie bedroom or living room. I would lay them out on the floor and use little plastic dividers and whatever other random household objects I could find to create the rest of the house. Then I would set up all of their furniture and imagine how they would move from one room to another, where everyone would sleep, and how the whole thing worked.
Looking back, I was usually more interested in setting up the house than whatever the Barbies were supposed to do once I finished.
Eventually, Barbie Turned Into The Sims
Just like many kids in the ’90s, I grew up playing Oregon Trail and other computer games. Eventually I started playing The Sims, and I loved it so much I would sneak out of my bedroom late at night just to play (on the computer in the loft right outside my parents’ bedroom).
If you’ve never played it, The Sims is a game with people living in houses designed by the user. They have different needs: you’re supposed to keep them fed, rested, entertained and employed.
I mostly wanted to build their houses.
There was a cheat code for unlimited money, rosebud 🌹 (iykyk), and once I had the money I could stop worrying about anyone’s job and just design their houses. I built giant houses and played with the wall and floor materials: checkerboard kitchen floors, red striped walls, stone statues in the middle of the kitchen. I made hidden stairwells leading to nowhere and secret rooms the Sims would stomp their feet outside when they could not access them with a traditional door. I would imagine all the ridiculous things I wanted my own future house to have someday. Secret library walls leading to slides. (Casper movie, anyone?)
I could spend hours building a house and barely care whether the Sims ever actually lived in it.
Floor Plans Were My Doodles
I liked looking through house plan books too. My parents had Southern Living house plan books around the house, and I would flip through them, always curious to see how someone had arranged the rooms and made the whole house fit together. Truthfully, I barely paid attention to the pictures of the houses. I was there for the floor plans.
Eventually the houses made their way onto paper. I would draw floor plans, rearrange my bedroom at home, redraw it better, remodel our house on paper or just make up houses completely. I did it during class sometimes too, which probably says something about both my interest in houses and my attention span.
So You Didn’t Just Go Into Architecture?
I always thought going into architecture meant designing big city buildings or super fancy or modern houses. Obviously, that’s part of it, but I didn’t really know there was this whole other world of residential design. So residential design never really occurred to me as a career growing up.
I had actually always wanted to become a teacher. Then my high school counselor suggested engineering because I was good at math and science. I basically took that as a challenge to try. I could always switch majors if I hated it.
And that’s how I ended up in engineering at Purdue, where I discovered AutoCAD, which is a computer drafting program commonly used for construction plans (formerly known as blueprints). I had a pretty major realization that I could switch majors and actually study the thing I wanted to do (and was good at!), and I moved into Computer Graphics Technology with a construction emphasis.
In CGT, I expanded my AutoCAD skills and learned other drafting and 3D modeling programs. Suddenly the random thing I had always liked doing started looking like an actual profession.
After college I moved to Charleston and eventually worked for a builder drafting houses. Even then, I was still figuring out exactly where I fit. I met builders and people in the residential design industry who helped me understand that designing houses didn’t necessarily mean becoming an architect. That was a pretty huge realization for me because suddenly this thing I had been doing in one form or another since I was a kid wasn’t just something I liked. It was a job.
I found stock plan design later, which turned out to be an even better fit for the way I liked to design. More on that later.
How Do You Actually Become a Residential Designer?
There isn’t one required path into residential design, and in many states and counties, you don’t necessarily need an architecture degree or professional license to design houses in the capacity I do. There are absolutely people who enter the field without that degree path and learn drafting software, building codes and the other skills involved. For me, though, I did go to school for it. My degree gave me the technical foundation, and the years actually doing the work taught me a lot more.
Looking back, I love that all of those steps led me to a career I still love.