Planning Tips
Designing & Building your Vacation Cottage

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SELECTING A COTTAGE PLAN:
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• Selecting features for a vacation cottage is not the same as selecting features for a standard home design. Many design conventions normally associated to standard homes should be changed for vacation homes. Room sizes, room locations, number of baths, kitchen size and function, floor level arrangements, views, and maintenance features all play different relationships in a beach cottage than in a standard house.
  
  
• One of the primary considerations to make in a cottage design is if it will be rented out, kept as a private cottage, or rented out to start, with plans to retire in it later. Once you get past this decision, choices about room sizes, number of baths and closet sizes gets easier. If a cottage is to be mostly rented, several decisions about what you think your renters needs are will be more important than what your needs are.
  
  
• If you plan on renting out your cottage, check with a local Real Estate Agent or Realtor® about what they would consider important renting features.
  
  
• The second consideration should be about your budget. The budget will tell you what size cottage you can build.
  
  
• Get some idea of square foot costs in your area and that will give you some idea of how big a cottage you can afford.
  
  
• If you're not ready to talk to a builder, some basic costs might be obtained from your Banker, a Realtor®, a Mortgage Broker, Appraiser or you could shop the New Homes For Sale ads, visit some open houses and do some deductive calculations based on the information you find.

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More Planning Tips:

1. Building
2. Selecting
3. Approval
4. Cottage Living