A great house does not have to be big. I would rather see a small house with good architectural detailing than a huge house that has absolutely no charm. A great house needs to have good flow and traffic patterns and consideration given to how someone is going to live in it. A house needs to have good exterior massing relationships. It is important to think of each exterior mass and how it relates to the other masses that make up the entire exterior elevation. Proper exterior features like cornice and eave details, material selections, roof shapes, and color selections that are true to the architecture style are extremely important. Fenestration of windows and doors on the exterior as well as the relationship of windows on the upper floors to the lower windows is extremely important/. A couple of the worst mistakes that I see as far as the exterior is concerned are as follows: 1. Too many different materials and too many different textures. Don.t get me wrong, texture is important but it needs to make sense. 2. Garage masses that over whelm the rest of the exterior masses. 3. Dormer windows with such large roof overhang that dormer looks like it is getting ready to take off ( the flying nun syndrome I call it). 4. A hodgepodge of windows and doors on the exterior of a home and no thought given to how the relate to each other. 5. Finally, color is extremely important. The average person typically will look at a house and realize that there is something wrong but does not know what it is. Then again some people have been sold on bad design for so long that they think bad design is good.