12 Great Planbooks for One-Story Homes

Find Building Plans for Accessible One-Story Homes

small home with front gable, front door set into cross gable
A Typical Minimal Traditional Home. Jackie Craven

A single story house doesn't have to be dull or ordinary. Like other plan books, floor plans for affordable, cozy cottages may be found here. A simple home also does not need to be part of a movement to get you back to the Earth in a tiny home. The one-story houses in this collection have dramatic features like vaulted ceilings, dramatic window shapes, and generous use of skylights. Browse these building plan books to find the single story, no-nonsense home of your dreams.

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The Best Baby Boomer Home Plans: 300 Designs with Main-Level Master Bedrooms

What's the intrigue of one-story homes? For an aging population, steps and stairs are becoming the enemy of healthful aging in place — and businesswoman Marie L. Galastro knows that. Galastro is also the author of Smaller, Smarter Home Plans. She is a savvy marketer.

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Best-Selling One-Story Home Designs

You may have seen a similar version of this 2015 book as you stood in the checkout aisle at Lowe's. This 288-page updated & revised 3rd edition from Creative Homeowner Publishing offers hundreds of home plans for single-level living. Whether you're looking for a cozy starter home or amenity-filled empty-nester, the easy-to-use index will help you find the design you're looking for.

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More One-Story Homes

Hanley Wood Home Planners offers 475 Superb Home Plans from 810 to 5,400 Sq. Ft. This 448-page book is packed with a full range of home styles -- small homes, grand luxury homes, country classics, traditional European designs, and innovative contemporaries. Hanley Wood, 448 pages, 2001

450 One-Story Homes from 2002 is offered as a "companion."

04
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The New Ultimate Book of Home Plans

With house plans for over 700 one-story homes by a variety of designers, this lengthy book has a nice assortment of styles. At over 600 pages, this Creative Homeowner edition has received good reviews for its breadth of coverage. Beware, however, that this mega-volume from 2007 reprints Creative Homeowner plans from smaller plan books.

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Easy Living One-Story Designs

Design Basics showcases one-story home plans from 962 square feet to over 3,734 square feet. At only 104 pages, this pretty cover contains only 155 home plans — a small collection compared to other books on this list, but enough to get you started on your journey. You'll find a wide variety of designs in this 1997 second edition plan book.

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One-Story Living Home Plans

At nearly 500 pages, this plan book published by Home Design Alternatives in 2008 claims to have blueprints available for all of its 500 designs..

07
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Designer's Best One-Story Home Plans

These floor plans for single-story homes from Design Direct Publishing are easy to build, simple to maintain, and flexible in design. This 352-page book from 2006 includes many color photos of over 300 plans from popular designers such as Frank Betz and Dan Sater.

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Best-Selling 1-Story Home Plans

Over 360 Dream-Home Plans in Full Color shouts the cover of this 4th edition. Another plan book from the editors of Creative Homeowner, this 2017 edition may be your popular starting point for finding that one-story house plan to fit your needs. Look for later edition books with the most recent copyright date to find the most popular floor plan reprints.

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Best-Selling One-Story Home Plans

More than 300 designs in 256 pages, helpful building tips, and blueprint ordering information, this 2001 book of plans is from Sunset Publishing Company, which many people depend on for tried and true basic designs.

10
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Shipping Container Homes

Ever since Shigeru Ban won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2014, living in shipping containers has become legitimate. These trendy books are often bundled together, with very little unique information among them. The idea of what you can do with this type of space, however, is what to think about as you consider building the smaller, one-story home.

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American Collection: Ranch Style

By definition, ranch style homes are rambling, one-story designs. Published by Hanley Wood in 2007, this collection of 200 plans in 191 pages brings open layouts into bright color photography as the most popular house style of mid-century America gets a second look.

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Universal Designed Smart Homes for the 21st Century

Architect Charles M Schwab has long specialized in aging in place and green design. when building ANY of the one-story homes listed here, you'll want to keep in mind the value of universal design. It's the smart thing to do.

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Your Citation
Craven, Jackie. "12 Great Planbooks for One-Story Homes." ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/great-planbooks-for-one-story-homes-178224. Craven, Jackie. (2020, August 27). 12 Great Planbooks for One-Story Homes. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/great-planbooks-for-one-story-homes-178224 Craven, Jackie. "12 Great Planbooks for One-Story Homes." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/great-planbooks-for-one-story-homes-178224 (accessed March 28, 2024).