See Your Floor Plan at Full Scale Before You Break Ground

Jim: Welcome to Home Ideas. I'm Jim Lather, and today I'm joined by April from Walk Thru Plans. April, welcome.

April: Good morning.

Jim: I can't wait to dig into what Walk Thru Plans is. Before we do, where are you located?

April: We're on I-229 and Benson Road.

Jim: So out by the industrial area. You can see it from 229.

April: Yes, you can. We're right across from Dakota Kitchen & Bath.

Jim: You've got a really unique facility. I had the privilege of touring it, and I learned quite a bit. I was telling my wife about it: if you're building a home, and that's just one application, you can see in real scale where things will be. First, how did this idea and the business start?

April: The software and the projection were invented by an engineer from Lexington, Kentucky, named Aaron White. Then Kyle brought the license to Sioux Falls; he's the license owner. From Kyle's perspective, when he discovered this, he realized it would help his business, given his experience in construction. When I heard about the concept, I was blown away. It was so innovative, and I could see how it would help people building a house, commercial spaces, anyone in construction and design. It's just so valuable.

Jim: Without giving away any trade secrets, can you tell me more about the technology? I've been there and seen it. How big is that back wall?

April: Our back wall is 70 by 18 feet, and the floor is 70 by 45, all projected. If you think about your own home's footprint, that's a pretty large space. But I've also done an 11,000-square-foot house.

Jim: That's cool. For listeners who can't picture it, how many projectors do you have?

April: Three wall projectors and four floor projectors, which work together with the software. So no matter where you are on the floor, you don't block the view. They all project together.

Jim: Let's talk about the software, because you can load a lot of different things into it. How does it go from a 2D plan to a full-size projection?

April: We prefer a PDF of the plans for the floor. It just works best; it's clear. But if your designer, builder or drafter wants to come into the space with the client, they can plug their laptop into our system and make changes live. We use Bluebeam, but people can bring Chief Architect, Revit, CET, whatever they want to connect.

Jim: And what we're really talking about is taking the plan or blueprint and scaling it to real size?

April: Yes, it's to scale. If it's drawn to scale, I can get it to scale. I just need to know whether it's drawn at an eighth or a sixteenth of an inch, and I can scale it from there.

Jim: And that's on the floor?

April: That's on the floor.

Jim: So you can literally walk through the home you're building.

April: And I hand people a tape measure. I tell them, your door is three feet, here's a tape measure, measure it yourself.

Jim: Do you need a different rendering for the 3D view? How does that work?

April: Usually the 3D rendering is included with your plans. What we project on the wall is most often the rendering of the front of the house, to give that feel of walking in your front door. When we do cabinet elevations, we project those to scale too. You can walk up to the perimeter of your kitchen and see where your cabinets are, how high your countertops will be, your refrigerator and dishwasher.

Jim: This must save homeowners literally thousands of dollars by getting it right on the front end.

April: It does. If you've ever built a house or remodeled a space and made a mistake, like a closet or pantry that isn't big enough, it's very expensive to pull those walls down and rebuild.

Jim: And sometimes the answer is, no, I can't do it.

April: You can't do it.

Jim: We made that mistake in the last home we built. We didn't make the furnace room big enough for a unit large enough to zone the house, and we ended up putting in a mini split. Those mistakes aren't going to happen with this. And as a contractor, you'd have to love it, because you're not constantly doing change orders.

April: Yes. Last week I had someone in the space with a family member who uses a wheelchair, and they wanted to make sure everything on the main level was wide enough. We brought a wheelchair into the space, and if they had built that home as drawn, it would never have worked. You need about 27 inches to get into a restroom, and they wouldn't have had enough space.

Jim: That's crazy.

April: Remodeling that after the fact would be very expensive.

Jim: Absolutely. So there are clear cost savings on the front end. The question that comes to mind is, why wouldn't everybody do this?

April: That's the biggest thing I hear when people come into the space: why wouldn't people do this, or, I wish we'd had this for our church project. I was on the school board when we built a new school; I wish we'd had it then. It's also great for commercial spaces, like office layouts: how your desks will lay out in an open workspace, and how much space each person needs. We do a lot of medical facilities, dental offices and urgent care clinics: how much space makes it comfortable for your patients?

Jim: I'm thinking of the building we're in right now. We designed it 15 years ago, and I have a section that seats 12 staff members where we had problems with desk heights and widths. That never would have happened. So there's great commercial application and obviously residential application. When I was there last, you told me landscapers use it a lot too. I think that's so cool, because seeing a sketch isn't at all like seeing it to scale.

April: Think about building a pool. How many people will be back there? How many lounge chairs do you want? Do you want a dining area, or a fire pit, depending on your space? Landscaping is one of my favorite walkthroughs to do. Even topography: developers use the space with an aerial view of Sioux Falls to look at an area where they're planning a new development and see what they're dealing with.

Jim: One thing Sioux Falls does really well is that very few neighborhoods are cut into perfect squares. There's a new neighborhood on the east side of town with some really nice topography. Being able to see that from a bird's-eye view, and run your streets so they work with the drainage, would be huge. You mentioned municipalities and developers. What other applications are there?

April: We also use the space as an event space. We've hosted quite a few events: company outings, company meetings, speakers, nonprofits. Our fall and winter will be very busy with holiday parties. Developers have laid out spaces like apartments, where you might have three standard floor plans. This week, a company from Minneapolis is flying its whole team in for a full afternoon of walkthroughs of three apartment layouts in new buildings. Garages too: if you have a three-stall garage and two boats, can you get both boats in the back? Landscaping, pools, medical equipment layouts. And we have a space in back big enough for, say, a furniture company to back in and bring mock-ups, so you can lay out the room with the furniture actually in it.

Jim: That's a huge deal. I was just thinking, if we ever move, what are we going to do with our big couch? You don't want to get rid of it, because it wasn't free in the first place.

April: That's what's nice: we're building up a collection of furniture in the space. We started with a couch, two chairs, a dining table, end tables and bedroom furniture, and now we have a new sectional, conference tables and some workstations, because that's what our clients asked for.

Jim: And you put those on casters and wheel them wherever they need to go. In my opinion, the critical areas when you're building a new home, the real value builders, are kitchens, including countertop height, the space between the range and the countertop, and countertop overhang, and primary suites.

April: Absolutely. The kitchen is the first place people go. How big is the island? I always point out where the dishwasher opens and where the refrigerator door opens, because that's where things get bottlenecked. People realize, oh, we can't have this here, we have to move it over there. And now a lot of large kitchens have pantries, like butler's pantries, to hide some of the equipment back there. I've seen pantries with two additional dishwashers.

Jim: I've seen that too. That's crazy.

April: Double ovens, too: where do you want your oven door to open? Obviously not near your refrigerator, or where your kids walk past the island. And the size of islands: a four-foot island is pretty standard, but if you have three kids sitting on one side and you're serving them from the other, especially with a sink in the island, four feet is a long way to reach. We just got an island for the space, so we can extend it to exactly the size your island will be.

Jim: My wife and I are in the middle of a discussion, we'll call it, about barstools. We cut down an island in a remodel, and now we have an odd-shaped island, and we're not sure whether three, four or five barstools should go there. This would be a great solution. Can you bring it down to Florida?

April: Absolutely, that'd be awesome.

Jim: You're also an argument preventer.

April: Yes, yes.

Jim: How do people rent the space? By the day, by the hour?

April: We have a website where people can register for their own time: an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, three hours. Some builders spend the whole day, four hours in the morning and four in the afternoon, so different clients can come in and see the layouts or specs they or their drafters have put together. Or you can just call me. I'm very flexible. A couple of teachers came up from Sioux City; both work every day, but they had Labor Day off, so I met them in the space and they walked their home on Labor Day. I have another walkthrough on a Saturday for someone from Minnesota who works until five every day. We're just so excited to have clients in the space, so we're very flexible.

Jim: Have you ever had someone walk through their plan and say, nope, this is perfect?

April: Yes, we have. Mostly commercial spaces. A gentleman building an insurance office in a nearby town had probably six or seven offices, and when he left he said, "I thought I was going to make a lot of changes, but it's perfect."

Jim: That's awesome.

April: And other people have moved their entire primary suite to the other side of the house. I've had people eliminate bedrooms because they realized there just wasn't enough space for each room.

Jim: Can they do that in real time if their designer is there?

April: If their designer is there, yes, they can make any changes in real time. That's definitely the way to do it.

Jim: Make sure your contractor brings the designer, so everything can be moved. Let's talk more about the events side. You mentioned office parties and holiday parties. Do they use the multimedia?

April: Some do. A large company held a company meeting and brought in a speaker who ran his entire PowerPoint on the wall through our technology. We have a full speaker system, microphones and lapel mics. We filmed that one, because they had people at their Rapid City location, so we set up a Teams call and turned the computer so they could watch too. It worked out perfectly.

Jim: That's very cool.

April: And for nonprofits, think about telling your story at that scale, like the Ronald McDonald House or the Sanford Health Foundation. It really makes an impact on people.

Jim: Without question. If you use the event space, can you cater? How does that work?

April: You can cater however you wish, or bring in a bartender. We have tables, chairs and linens in the space already, and capacity for 315, with lots of parking. We had a class reunion that brought in food trucks, which parked in our lot, so the attendees had lots of options.

Jim: That's magnificent. I have to ask: what's the craziest thing you've seen so far?

April: I don't even know that I can answer that. Probably the 11,000-square-foot house. A local husband and wife were building it, with space for lots of family to visit. We moved the plan around the space about four times to cover it all. That was the largest. And we just did a bathroom remodel in a McKennan Park house; the bathroom was probably 450 square feet with slanted ceilings, and they needed to be strategic about putting the bathroom there. That was probably the smallest. And like I said, I love landscaping and pools, because you get a bird's-eye view of what your space will look like as you sit in your backyard, including what you'll see beyond your fence.

Jim: I love that idea. There's zero chance that when we build again we won't use this technology. My wife has already told me that's how it's going to go.

April: Perfect.

Jim: These decisions aren't easy. When you walk through a construction site and you're looking at sticks, you don't get it. Everything looks super small, and this really helps. April, before you go, what's the most important thing you want people to remember about Walk Thru Plans?

April: We really cater to our clients' needs. I ask a lot of questions about their goals, and I usually stay with clients during the walkthrough because I've asked those questions. As they walk through, I gently remind them: you mentioned you wanted to talk about your primary closet; have you come to an agreement there? Is there anything more I can bring into the space, like a clothing rack, or a check of how wide your hangers need to be? We're really relationship-driven.

Jim: So you're kind of the concierge.

April: Kind of. I love watching people's dream homes come to life in there. Some people get very emotional when they step into their space and realize, this is going to be my home, and I get to make these changes. How do I live my life? That's what we're here for: helping you make the decisions that make your home the best place for you to live.

Jim: Give us the web address, so anyone listening or watching can start the process and ask questions.

April: It's walkthruplans.com, and choose Sioux Falls.

Jim: So on the Walk Thru Plans site, you pick your city.

April: Yes. And we're on social media as Walk Thru Plans Sioux Falls: Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. If you do even a little Google search, you'll find us.

Jim: I love it. Thank you so much for coming in.

April: Thanks for having me.

Jim: Really cool product. I'm super excited for you, and I'm glad Sioux Falls has something this cool.