2-Story House Plans

Is the lot you own narrow? Then perhaps a 2-story house plan is what you may be interested in. While ranch style homes are usually single story, their two-storied alternatives offer many significant advantages by not requiring a lot quite the size of Texas.

While some people may be comfortable living on either 800, 1,000, 1,200, 1400 square feet, bigger homes that are either 1,500, 1,800, 2,000, 2,500 or 3,000 may often find themselves needing to be built using two or 3 stories.

Two-story homes, if built right, can offer great curb appeal, where you can conveniently place the master suite on the upper level to additionally get a bit more privacy. Are you foreseeing your Mother-in-law moving into your home in the near future? Then you may want to consider one of the other options, or at least make sure there’s a bedroom conveniently placed on the ground floor to avoid having to climb a staircase.

On this page you’ll find the many different options we have here, and if you can’t find exactly the one you were hoping for, you can always get in touch with a support representative, to hear what it would take to customize the plans to your needs.

Lofts

Looking for options with lofts? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

A loft is a cool addition to a home’s top floor, where you can usually look down at the other floors, and it’s a common place to place all the things that you may not necessarily want to have in your living room.

Many families across the country have kids that absolutely love the space where they can retreat to without necessarily locking themselves in their rooms and feeling like they’re entirely secluded from the rest of the family.

While attics are nice, they do not create the same sort of feeling that a loft does. You don’t just tell your kids to go play in the attic, and the attic, will take up the entire upper floor and not provide the same type of feeling that a loft does. Having that one side open to the floor below just makes it seem a lot more accessible.

If you have wanted somewhere where you can work relatively quietly without having to finish an entirely new room for the purpose, the loft may just be the place to do it.

Either way, we hope you’re going to find what it is you’ve been looking for on this page.

Dutch Colonial (Gambrel Roof Barn)

The Dutch Colonial options are very distinctive with their gambrel roofs, and keep being a popular style that suits the needs of many families. These were originally brought over by the Dutch settlers, in starch contract to those brought over by the Spaniards.

The Dutch Colonial version, to this day, is most popular around New England and New York, where the Cape Cod houses are popular, too. In additional to their gambrel roofs, these also stand out due to their flared eaves. While they have come to exist at a later point in history, there are now two-story versions, whereas the original ones were either single-level or 1.5-storied.

While definitely having their own sort of charm, they do so with a different sort of humility than modern, mid-century homes do.

For their exterior, you should not be surprised to find a combination of clapboard siding or brick being the most common options. The advantage this home has over some of the homes with steeper roofs is that the flatter roof means that the top floor becomes significantly more livable, and could have important tax benefits, too, that two-story homes do not.

Cottages

Unlike mansions, cottage house plans have the reputation for being smaller than your normal size home, while you may of course be able to find ones that aren’t. It isn’t uncommon to find 800 sq feet ones, or ones going upwards of 1,400 square feet.

They’re made to have that picturesque charm, and are very easy to imagine having them stand in the middle of the forest. Some people chose to use them mainly as beach houses, but they make great additions right next to the lake, if your ambition isn’t to put up a 6 bedroom place. Opposite of the modern-style homes, cottages have a more historic charm to them, as well as having a modest and rural feel. Although originally a two-storey creation, the term has come to more significantly denote a classic, rural building. When people refer to either cabins or chalets, they usually mean buildings that could interchangeably also be called a cottage.

These suburban or country dwellings are referred to as a summer residence in various dictionaries, and are usually used as secondary houses that people go to for a retreat, rather than being their primary mode of residence. Browsing this page, you will find cottage-style house plans of various sizes to fit the needs you desire.

If you want something that has a lot of the same elements, while being slightly bigger, we encourage you to visit our page with Tudor-style homes.

Pole Barn Houses

Pole barn house floor plans come in many different concepts, and while it is very common to have 2-stories in them, you may also be able to find single-story options.

They’re frequently open-floor, and this concept allows the space to seem very inviting and timeless. Barns are traditionally rectangular, and many of them may resemble Dutch Colonial homes because of the roofs’ shapes.

Whether you want a loft, a massive garage, 4 bedrooms, or something else, you can just use the filters to narrow down your search and get more specific results. They are also available with beautiful post & beams to really catch that rustic feel you may want.

While traditional pole barns do not have foundations, the homes featured on our site do, and their gambrel roofs and barn doors can get you back to those simpler times growing up in a rural setting.

Modern farmhouses do have a lot of the functionalities that were probably not available in the home that you grew up in.

While there are some of these plans that have stalls available to have animals in, a lot of the homes simply get inspiration from the style. Even if they’re associated with the countryside, these homes have nothing in common with French country homes.

Benefits of Two-Storey Homes

There are a bunch of benefits that you can get from choosing one of the options available on this page. One thing that can be achieved building several stories tall is that you can get more square footage than you can get if you only have a plot of a limited size. The solution is sometimes towards the sky.

If you often have guests over, this house style can be beneficial when you want the master suite to be further away from the entertainment area, but it can also be beneficial when you have kids. Having their bedrooms on the upstairs floor will allow them to go play in their rooms when they no longer wish to be part of the party, and it will also be easier to put them to sleep, while making sure that they’re not disturbed by the sound that is potentially coming from the living room.

It is often a consideration whether families should build one, two or 3-storey homes, with these homes being very popular in areas where the price of land is relatively high.

While these homes may not be especially convenient that dislike stairs or people of limited mobility, many families love this option as they’re cheaper to build per square foot. Roof installation as well as the installation of a foundation are elements that will quickly drive up the price of a home, and relative to its square footage, you will need less of each for this type of home.

If you live in an area with severe changes in weather, you’ll also like this option and its improved fuel efficiency. With a structure closer to a rectangular one, there will be less surface area through which heat and cold will escape. A smaller amount of exposed wall will mean a lower HVAC bill, all things considered.

Do you want 3, 4 or 5 bedrooms in the house?

Our most common options on this platform includes the homes that have either 3, 4 or 5 bedrooms when it comes to the two-storey options that you are currently exploring on this page. These are the options that suit the most average families, why they’re also the ones we go above and beyond to actually source from architects, and why we have the most of these.

While you can get homes with several floors in them that may either have more or less bedrooms than that, families usually like to take advantage of the additional floors to make sure they have the amount of rooms that will ensure they’re able to get all the storage space they need.

The advantage you will have when you are getting a 2-story home is also that you can place either all or some of the bedrooms upstairs and get a lot more privacy by ensuring that no one is just able to peak in through the windows. If you are building this home with the intention of retiring in it, it may even by that you want to place the bedrooms on the ground floor, why those house plans could be the most appealing to you.

Getting an L-shaped home

L-shaped homes are popular and it is one of our fastest growing categories on this page, why it is also important to show off the specific options we have that cover  that individual style. These homes are great since you can have a nice and big driveway in front of a massive garage, and if you have kids, or you otherwise like to play basket ball, it can be the easiest place to place a basketball hoop and enjoy some outdoor activity without leaving the comfort of your home.

Do you want specific features for the master suite?

While you may have kids that will also be living with you, chances are that you have some very specific wishes when it comes to the master suite that is attached to the home, and no matter if you’re going with some more unique style, like the H-shaped or U-shaped home, the master suite is your place to retreat to. Do you want to make sure that the bathroom either has a certain size, or that your bedroom does, or are you rather more specific in terms of its placement in the house? Now is the time to think about these things to make sure you don’t make the wrong decision.

Do you want something small or something big?

Going along with the amount of bedrooms that you know you will need to have, you will also have to consider the sheer size of the place that you are building, knowing that bigger places will naturally require more maintenance but may also be able to provide you the space that you don’t currently have, and that you have always dreamed of. When you are building towards the sky, you are quickly adding a lot of size to the house unless you find a design that has a very narrow base. If you don’t choose a narrow home, you will quickly find yourself adding a lot of square footage as you build up, with some of our smallest options in this category ranging from 800 to 1,000 square feet (or the equivalent of 80m2 to 100m2), whereas our more common designs start around 1,500 square feet (or the equivalent of 150m2) for houses that have more than a single floor.

Do you want a modern home with a flat roof?

Even if you want to have the feature of having several floors in your home, you still have to choose the style that you are going with. We have a bunch of various options that include very modern homes, some of them that are intended to have flat roofs installed on them, although we also have a bunch of designs that more so fit the typical design of your average country house.

The extent to which you choose to go with something more contemporary rather than a more classic look is entirely up to you.

Do you also want a basement or a garage?

If you are building a small 24 by 30 feet home (or the equivalent of 8×10 meters), you may be finding yourself in a situation where you could really use some additional storage space. Although that may especially be the case if you’re building a smaller home, there are also a bunch of people with bigger homes that love having both a massive basement as well as a double garage. The choice is really up to you.

Whether you are building something small or large, we hope to be able to be of assistance in making your dream come true.

If you are an architect who has already made a bunch of house plans that would fit into this category, we invite you to reach out, especially if you have ones that are either 21 by 45 feet (7×15 meters) or 24 by 45 feet (8×15 meters).