If you’re seriously interested in designing a house for you and your family to live in, you should pay attention to these five simple rules for home design. Even if you can’t apply all of them, hopefully you can use one of them.

1. You should always try to design a house that fits into your community. It wouldn’t be a good idea to build a southwestern style home in an area where it snows six months out of the year.

2. Examine some of the homes in the area that you are going to build in, to see if they have similar designs. If most of the homes in the area that you are planning to build in, have a particular roof style or exterior, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to find out why.

3. Do most of the homes in your area use the same window manufacturer? Again, there could be a specific reason why one window manufacturer’s windows hold up better than others do.

4. This one could save you a lot of frustration. Do most of the homes in your community have security alarm systems installed in them? You could always check with your local police department to see if a home security system will be necessary, before building.

5. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to show your new home design to a few of your neighbors. There is nothing worse than designing a house that’s going to be an eyesore in your neighborhood.

If you’re serious about building and designing a new home, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a few books on home design. Just like reading this article, if you can find a couple of tips or things that you haven’t really thought of yet and when you finally do, that information could turn out to be priceless one-day.