While Aaron White was raising a young family in Central Kentucky, he and his wife wanted to build their own home, which is usually the biggest financial investment for any family. However, he was troubled by the fear of not getting the design details just right. Although the home turned out fine, the somewhat daunting experience inspired White.
As a young man, White had spent summers working in his family's construction business and later in research and development and engineering management. This led him to wonder how helpful it would be if people could see their new home, building, remodel, or landscape design in a 1-to-1, real-life scale spread out at their feet. He imagined that they should be able to walk around and see exactly what the finished product would look like before spending a single construction dollar.
Last spring, this line of thinking led White to start a local company called Walk Thru Plans. His educational background in mechanical engineering and analytics proved beneficial. "That gave me the curiosity and technical know-how to create this company," he said. "We are still in our infancy, but we're gaining traction, and it is taking off."
At Walk Thru Plan’s 9,000-square-foot studio in Nicholasville, clients can walk through virtual projections of their plans and experience a space before it’s even built.
White can take blueprints and other design plans for homes, commercial businesses, outdoor spaces, and other construction projects and run them through computer programs. He then projects the plans from ceiling-mounted projectors onto the floor in the company's 9,000-square-foot studio on Zakk Court in Nicholasville, creating a lifelike effect.
Anyone can stroll around the floor and see, down to the square foot, where every door, window, cabinet, bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, or office space is situated. Props such as real tables, chairs, beds, couches, and desks—all on wheels—can be rolled across the floor into any part of the space to give people an idea of where their furniture or equipment might go and how it might look. Images can even be projected outside the windows to show what the outdoor scenery would look like from the inside. If clients want a more immersive experience, they can wear virtual reality headsets to inspect the spaces. The walk-through typically takes about an hour to an hour-and-a-half.
"Technology is best when it brings people together," said White, explaining on his company's website. "Whether you are building a home, remodeling kitchen cabinets and bathrooms, installing a patio and pool, building a hospital, opening a restaurant, planning a wedding, or constructing playgrounds, we all have similar goals: to save money, time, and gain certainty."
Certainty is precisely what Madison Mullet and her husband were seeking. The Lexington couple also decided to build their own home. "We hired a home designer because we really didn't know what we were doing," Mullet said. She came across an ad for Walk Thru Plans and decided to give White and his team a try.
Armed with their home designer and builder's plans, they visited the company's studio. One aspect of the home design the Mullets were dissatisfied with was the size and location of the kitchen and pantry. Walk Thru Plans projected the home design onto the floor. "It also included walls, which made it easier for us to visualize," Mullet said. "We ended up changing the size and spacing of the kitchen and pantry to maximize the square footage. The architect said it saved us between $6,000 and $8,000 because we made the changes before construction, not after, and got it just right."
Although this walk-through/real-time planning concept is gaining acceptance, Mullet expressed surprise that more people are not utilizing it. "Aaron was great to work with, very personable, and he made everything easy," she said.
Walk Thru Plans can even be used for one-day events like a wedding reception. Prior to the big day, the bride and groom can bring the planners and the entire wedding party into the studio to visualize the reception hall or outdoor space. This way, everyone can see exactly where each table and chair will be placed, where the bandstand, dance floor, and bar will be set up, and where the cake and presents will be located.
"If the client wants to move a wall or a feature within the space, we actually make the change to the plan through the computer, and it is immediately reflected on the floor in that space," said White.
White states that the projection of building plans model is brand new, and he is one of the few in the country using it in this way. "People are really understanding the value of seeing their space in the design plans and then walking out on the floor and getting the details confirmed," he said. "It's reassuring."