About the CHJ Home Designs

If you’re dreaming of a new home in the country, you’ve probably searched through all of the big Internet plan service web sites. If you can’t find a design that’s just right, there’s a good reason. The commercial plan companies focus on the latest style, and today’s style just doesn’t seem right for the countryside. Miniature mansions are fine, but country homes, like country life, should be much simpler.

I find it fascinating to do a search for “farmhouse plans” and another for “vacation getaways” to see the exact same house designs. I’ve seen the same home appear as both a “Southern” and a “Western” design. To me it didn’t look like either. The idea that country homes should be generic, “build-it-anywhere” designs only works well for the plan services. Every climate and every region has an appropriate archi­tecture. Our vernacular styles evolved over the centuries as expressions of local cultural heritage and as the best response to local weather. They are the homes that work with nature. Think of the country and you’ll think of old barns, cabins and farmhouses. Vernacular buildings are as much a part of the look of countryside as the hills and trees. When they disappear, replaced by the new generic styles, part of the countryside will disappear with them.

Fortunately, there are a few talented country architects and designers who have chosen not to follow the trend. They work in regional and traditional styles, or in their own unique vision, and create timeless designs. They draw plans of beautiful Cape Cods, backwoods cabins, Louisiana cottages inspired by Cajun and Creole homes, New England saltboxes, Craftsman style bungalows, Shingle Style beach houses, timber frame barn homes and log homes.

Their homes have porches and breezeways, big fireplaces or wood stoves, and comfort­able, common-sense layouts. They are smaller than the vogue, but they probably have all of the space that most of us really need. Their homes are inexpensive to build and carefree to keep. They are not the latest fashion, but then they won’t go out of style in a year or two either. They look great in the countryside now, and they always will.

As you might expect, the designers are as interesting as their creations. Most are al­ready living the country life that so many of the rest of us aspire to. That’s why they know how to design country homes. Most market their plans independently, through their own small web sites, often from their own backroad homes. Each is talented enough to vie with the best of the commercial designers and produce more fashionable and more marketable plans. Instead, each has a vision of what a country building should be, and that vision doesn’t change with the trends. Unfortunately, that often means that you won’t find them on the first few pages of an Internet search. But, that’s why the Country Home Journal is here.

The purpose of this web site is to guide you off of the Internet superhighway in your search for a new house. We’ll present designs that you won’t find there. The Country Home Journal is a backroad to where you’ll meet country folk who craft fine buildings. This is where you’ll find some real country homes.