Nearly 18,000 of FreeGreen's plans have been downloaded to date, Wax said. The plans are for suburban or urban tracts, new-home construction or remodels.

The whole process is simple: Users choose a house, download the files and then they can can get started on making that home a reality. If you’re the handy type, you can build it yourself. But ...

I needed to be able to provide plans for free so women could look at it and it would create confidence in them that "I can build this." I knew that for me, as a mom with a single income, a really ...