So apparently my super awesome drawings weren’t up to my dad’s high construction standards. I mean, I drew them on graph paper, how much more accurate can I get?! Turns out, with the right tools, a lot more!

Cue 70’s music, to go with trusty 70’s drafting equipment…

I hear you… “why are you using pencil and paper? Why not use, you know, the computer?” A variety of factors led me to this decision, pencil in hand. But ultimately it was a combination of:

1. The steep learning curve of the design programs.
2. We bought blueprints as a guide that came as PDFs, so we have a decent starting point on paper already.
3. My dad. We’re going to need all the help we can get from my dad and he’s old school. So if drawing it out by hand keeps him more involved in the process, I’m all for it!

Update: now that I’ve really gotten into it, there’s another unexpected reason for drawing the plans by hand.

It makes me think a lot more critically about what I’m doing and why.

Instead of just dropping everything into a design program, I’m drawing out every single 2×4 and getting a felt sense of if each piece will actually work. It’s already helped me come up with a couple new ideas and different solutions (to problems I didn’t know I had until I drew it out by hand).