Take Craftsman-style house designs that first appeared in the early 1900. The style sought to emphasize the skills of carpenter-builders, who would carve unique molding patterns and build cabinets and trim on site. Sometimes masons would gather stone on site to build foundations, columns, and chimneys. The home designs, as result, appeared hand-made rather than factory-produced, one reason the style remains popular to this day.
The plan above retains the tell-tale elements of a Craftsman-style home yet modern – a low-pitched roof, a small entrance porch, and wooden frames – even as it branches out in new directions. A stone chimney and foundation could be built with cultured stone, a less-expensive substitute for the real thing. An angled front door, something you rarely saw back in the day, makes the…