Basically, you get premium concierge service for planning and designing your home. More specifically, you will receive the following:

• Budgeting Assistance - we help you set a budget and guide you on how to stick to the budget.
• Design Consultations and Virtual Design Center Meetings - collaborate with our professional staff, builders and other professionals. We can have multiple people in a meeting from multiple locations, and we are all speaking and seeing the same screen.
• 3D Computer Generated Modeling of your home design with Virtual Walk-throughs and access to all of our resources, such as photography, product guides and detailed specifications.
• Value Engineering consultations - we give you many options in every building system category to help you get the most house you can get for your money.
• Preliminary Customized Home Plans with your specific contact info and jobsite info:
  • Floor plans for all levels (basement, main level, upper level, additional levels, garages, etc.).
  • Four elevations showing all sides of your home design with all exterior materials specifications.
  • Foundation Plan showing all foundation walls and structural point load locations.
  • Roof Plan showing all roof planes, ridges, valleys, hips, pitches, etc.
  • Section drawings showing the structural and finish details of the home.
  • All drawings reflect materials specification needed to meet your local building codes.
• Materials Listing showing all materials included in the NEH Structural Shell Package.
• Pricing for materials listing - this greatly reduces the amount of work needed from a builder.
• "Not Included" Listing identifying materials to be provided from sources other than NEH.
• Interior Finish Schedule to guide you through identifying all interior finishes.
• A listing of approved lenders and information to use when engaging lenders.

We spent thousands of dollars on two different architects before meeting you guys. You blew them away. It's like night and day. Please enjoy these assortment packs of coffee in your Keurig! Thanks again for everything! - Tom and Joan

We love our home. It's just like we designed! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!- Dick and Brenda R.

We would recommend your company to anyone who asked. Our experience with you has been awesome! We can't wait to have you all over for our contractor party! - John and Debra D.

Dianne has just been wonderful! We could not have built this house without her help. My wife still calls her for advice and if she isn't in the office, she always returns our calls promptly. We've looked at a lot of companies and feel we made the right choice by buying a Natural Element Home. Your company will get a lot of good advertising from us. Thank you for designing and building such a wonderful home. - Jeanne and Dan

As a builder, your Design Pack services work very nicely for my clients. I have never had one client who wasn't completely satisfied. Your overall progam really helps me build more homes. Thanks for your friendship! - Cliff F.

Chris, you have a great team, and we needed every one! Starting right from the Greer's who recommended you to us, then to Bob Neal who has been extremely helpful, And I cannot say enough about the staff at Natural Element Homes. Thank you Dianne, Tina, Robert and others behind the scenes for designing such a great house. Your timber frame and natural elements are to die for! if Debra and myself can send anyone to you, we will. It is nice to know that in a world of so much dishonestly there are still honorable, shoot from the hip, thinking on your feet companies left like yours. Thanks for Everything! - Bob and Debra W.

Click the image below to see a small sampling of homes we have designed, supplied and helped build. We have thousands more in all shapes and sizes!

Although we are an excellent home design firm, this is not our only source of revenue. Rather, home design services are a means to an end. What we really are all about is manufacturing and procuring systems-built components for construction, such as log wall systems, timber frame, post-and-beam, wall panel systems, SIPs panels, floor and roof trusses, specialty materials, and commodity building materials.

We are a part of a major cooperative buying group and possess tremendous buying power. We buy directly from sawmills and loggers for many of our raw materials. We control costs of production and transportation as well. We keep our overhead very low, and this means lower costs to you. Our design staff and equipment is also very efficient and low cost.

In other words, our profitabiltiy comes from our efforts to provide design services AND building materials, not just one or the other. Therefore, we don't charge you through the nose for design or materials.

There are many places to buy home plans and to hire designers to customize a plan or develop a plan from scratch, but be ye warned! There are many pitfalls and hidden costs, and you will most likely receive far less for your money that what we provide. Don't gamble with your dreams, or your money!

• You may end up with a ho-hum, plain Jane house with no curb appeal or functionality.
• Your home may cost far above your budget. Afterall, most designers have nothing to do with helping you determine costs and may selections to fit your budget.
• You will likely not get any credit of design monies paid (certainly not double credit) toward your materials purchases.
• You may be limited to a set number of revisions unless you pay more.
• You may be limited to building with materials the log & timber company want to sell you.
• You may get "less than expert" advice. Since most designers never are responsible for the construction of the home, they often draw things that just won't work.
• You may be missing key technical drawings for log walls, timber frame and other specialty elements. Your designer may not be familiar with log, timber, or panelized design techniques and will refer you to an expert or third party for more propietary design work to be done.
• You may waste a lot of time between revisions since you cannot participate directly in the design work. This can literally mean weeks and months of valuable time.
• You may not be able to take a 3D virtual tour of your home.
• Your plans may not comply with local building codes.
• You may not be able to collaborate with your builder and may be forced to pay for more design time in order to incorporate builder input.
• You may have very limited options for building materials because other companies only draw what they sell, or, they are not familiar with the wide variety of options and building methods we employ.

OK, when it comes to home design services, and particularly customizing a home plan in preparation for building, you have tons of options to consider.  You can buy plans off the internet.  There are a multitude of home plan sellers at your disposal.  You can hire an architect to design your home from scratch.  There are tens of thousands of architects in the USA alone.  You can work with your log and timber home company to design your home.  Nearly all companies in our industry offer design services.

Yes, there are many options, but not all options are the same.  One thing is for sure:  no matter where you find a home plan, you are most likely going to want to change the plan.  And since you are likely not a professional home designer, knowing how to make changes to accomplish your desires can be overwhelming.  And then, you will often have a hard time visualizing what the home will really look like once the changes are made.  And how much will all of this cost, and how long will it take, and will they get it right the first time?  There may be as many questions as there are options for design services.
Most internet home plan sellers offer customization, and most architects will take months to design and change your plans, and log home companies will make changes for you, but at arm’s length and with lots of limitations (like, “you are allowed two revisions!”).  Many home buyers get quite frustrated with this whole matter of design customization.

But there is another option that is sure to inspire you, and it’s unique to Natural Element Homes.  We call it our Virtual Design Center!  We’ve been using it for years, and we cannot remember anyone who has ever expressed dissatisfaction with our service.  In fact, our designers frequently receive gifts from our customers as an expression of gratitude.

We’ve seen all sorts of gifts come rolling in.  We’ve seen flowers, potted plants, candy, t-shirts, gourmet coffee, more candy, gift cards, weekend trips, candy, thank-you cards, desk ornaments, mugs, and candy!  People don’t give gifts of gratitude unless they are satisfied.  And we get lots of gratitude!
And why all the gratitude?  It’s a response to our attitude!  You see, we want you to change your plan and make it uniquely personal!  We want you to design your “home of homes!”  We want your home to be one you’ll love forever!  After all, it’s YOUR dream, not ours!  We are simply here to offer professional guidance and assistance in making your dreams come true, and it all starts with design.  So we have our own special brand of home design services that are sure to please.

First of all, we have a unique collection of home plans to start with.  We have many dozens on our website, and literally thousands in our archives.  These designer homes are chocked full of inspiration, and we are real pros at taking from one plan, borrowing from another, and applying it all to yet another plan to create your masterpiece.

We give you direct access to our design staff and our multitude of resources.  We don’t hold anything back.  It’s really more of a “relationship” than anything else.  You can freely contact our designers directly and talk it over.  Not only that, we collaboratively work with you to design your home, and we use the latest technology to bridge the distance gap and shorten the time frame.  Working with us from across the country or from the other side of the world is just like sitting at our desk.  We utilize the power of the internet to connect your computer or iPhone or iPad to ours.  You see exactly what’s on our screen, and you converse with our designers about your changes and watch them made in real-time before your eyes.  You see our photos and brochures, and diagrams to help you make informed selections.  And you don’t have to know how to run some foreign software or design homes or build homes.  You just need to know how to get on the internet.

We use software that produces a 3D model of your home.  We can show you the home from any angle:  from the top, the bottom, the side, the front, the back, inside or outside.  We can take the roof off and let you look into rooms in 3D.  We can slice the home in half and let you look inside.  We can take you on a fly-through tour of every room.  We can show you how it looks with round beams or square, vertical siding or horizontal, brown or green, and on and on and on.

Want to know what bark-siding looks like, or maybe Hardie-board?  Want to see wood ceilings vs. dry-wall?  Want to see the difference between different species of wood?  Want to see the many different types of roofing available?  We can show you all of this through our vast photo library.  We simply look through the photos together and show you examples of what you want to see during our meetings.  Visualizing your home has never been better or simpler.

But here is what really sets us apart when it comes to home design services:  our attitude!  We love to work with you!  We want you to take your time and know all your options.  We want to help you!  We love it!  Yes, any design firm can use high-tech 3D software and online meetings, and photos and such.  But most don’t.  Why?  Because they don’t want to.  They want to get you in and out ASAP.  Their policy says you can’t spend that much time.  They don’t really know where to find a photo of that.  They don’t offer that style of siding or timber.  They don’t want to open that can of worms!  They want to control your dream!  YIKES!  Sounds horrible, doesn’t it.

But don’t worry!  We have the expertise.  We have the technology.  We have the resources.  We have the time.  We have the right attitude!

Why not live life to the fullest?  Don’t settle for less than you should receive.  Let us help you, and get inspired by our attitude.  It could set the course for your entire project on a very positive track!