I came to drawing plans the long way round.
I'm Richard Phares. Before I ever drew a permit set, I spent twenty-one years on job sites around the Phoenix valley — watching houses go up, watching some of them go up twice, and watching what happens when the drawings and the building disagree.
That's an unusual way into this work. Most people who draw residential plans learned it at a desk. I learned what a drawing is for by standing in front of one at seven in the morning with a crew waiting on an answer.
A set of plans isn't a picture of a finished house. It's a set of instructions for people holding tools, and it's a document a plan reviewer has to be able to approve without a phone call. When it does both of those jobs, everything downstream gets easier and cheaper.
Experience is only worth what it prevents
I draw what can actually be built. There's a version of every design that looks right on paper and turns into an argument on site — a beam that can't be carried in, a header nobody can support, a roof tie-in that only works in section. Those get resolved before the drawing leaves my desk, not during framing.
I know what your city is going to ask. Every jurisdiction in this valley has its own habits — what it flags, what it waves through, how long it really takes. That knowledge doesn't come from reading the code. It comes from submitting, getting corrections, and submitting again, for years.
I know what the work is worth. Thirty-eight years of watching what things cost to build means I can tell you early whether what you're imagining is a twenty-thousand-dollar project or a hundred-thousand-dollar one. That's usually the conversation people most need and least expect on a first call.
Straight answer on credentials
I'm a residential designer, not an architect. Arizona law allows plans for single-family homes and their accessory structures to be prepared without an architect's seal, and that exemption is what the great majority of houses in this state are built under. It's the work I do and the work I've done for years.
Where a project needs more than that — a sealed structural design, an engineer's calculations, a condition outside the residential exemption — I bring in a licensed professional and coordinate their work into your set. You get one point of contact and one coordinated package, not a stack of documents from strangers that don't quite line up.
If someone tells you every project needs an architect, ask them which part of yours does. Sometimes the honest answer is that it does. Most of the time it doesn't, and knowing the difference will save you thousands.
Plans for families who can't pay for them
Some families in this valley need a set of plans and have no way to pay for one — a repair that has to be permitted, an aging parent who needs a room, a house that needs to be made safe. I set aside part of my time for that work and cover the cost of the drawings.
It isn't a marketing program and there's nothing to buy here. If you know a family in that position, call me.
Call me before you're sure what you want.
The first twenty minutes are free and they're the most useful ones. Tell me what you're thinking about and I'll tell you whether it's permittable, roughly what it costs, and what your city will want to see.