Category Archives: architecture

You wouldn’t think that media icon Kim Kardashian, Property Brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott, fashion designer Jenna Lyons, and reality TV star turned actress Jamie Chung have much in common when it comes to home design. But, as it turns out, there is one common thread uniting each of these stars’ personal abodes.

And, unlike the AD100-approved interior designers and architects that so many Hollywood stars rely on to bring their dream dwellings to life, the tie that binds these A-listers is actually accessible to the average homeowner.

The tool in question? A virtual architectural experience called Walk Your Plans, which enables you to, quite literally, walk through your dream home before it is built—or, at the very least, a visual representation of it.

At its core, the tech is so simple, it’s hard to believe that it hasn’t been thought of before.

Homeowners and designers who are in the process of putting together blueprints and vision boards for a renovation or a home-build send those plans to their nearest Walk Your Plans outpost—which then turns any renderings and specs into a virtual home you can literally stroll around.

When it’s time for your appointment, you’ll enter their cavernous space to see your plans projected on the floor and walls in real-life size, enabling you to walk through the property, experiencing the layout in real time.

This process is meant to help identify any early issues before foundations are laid and concrete is poured.

Does that door work in that particular place? Is the kitchen conveniently laid out for your needs? If you move that wall a foot to the left, can you have more closet space?

All these questions and more will be answered, and important changes can be made before it’s too late.

“You’re literally walking around shadows right on the ground. But you feel as if you’re in that space,” says Walk Your Plans founder Joe Matejka, who debuted the company in late 2022 and has since licensed more than 50 locations nationwide. 

“The feeling as if you’re in there is really amazing,” he continues. “You have people engaging in conversations about how they’re going to rearrange their pantry, or where the vanity should go in the master bath—it’s really exciting.”

Just ask Kardashian, who, incredibly enough, found and engaged with Walk Your Plans in Los Angeles on her own, without being pitched or paid, using the technology to visualize a home she was in the process of designing with famed architect Tadao Ando.

She was so impressed she shared video recordings of her experience on Instagram.

“I really needed to see the scale of some rooms in my Tadao Ando home I am building and this helped me make the final decisions and walk through the entire home,” she wrote. “Shout out to @walkyourplansla for this technology. Everyone is dm-ing me asking about it.”

Her support of the project, Matejka admits, was more valuable than any ad campaign the company might have paid for.

“She’s got something like 344.9 million followers on Instagram,” says Matejka, incredulously. “We figured out it would have cost us about $3 million to get an endorsement and coverage like that if we paid for it.”

Not bad for a company that’s only been in business for a little over three years, and was inspired by a mistake.

Matejka and his business partner came up with the idea when they were building a six-bedroom investment property near Yellowstone, a project that ended in disaster even after they spent months passing the plans back and forth between them.

“We were doing what a lot of guys do, passing group prints back and forth on our computers, changing this, modifying that, blah, blah, blah for about a six-month period,” the Walk Your Plans founder recalls. “We felt like we had it locked in and were ready to go to construction.”

But Matejka and his parter were soon set to learn why warnings are so often issued about “the best-laid plans.”

After their contractor poured the foundation, the men flew in to see the dwelling and, Matejka reveals, “within 5 minutes of being on site, we realized that the great room wasn’t big enough.”

He reasoned that if the lodge was going to accommodate more than 20 guests, which was the intent, they’d need a massive great room. The living room they’d planned wouldn’t cut it.

“The joke is I wanted a great room. I got a good room. It ain’t great,” he says wistfully.

“It was too late to modify it by the time the foundation was poured, and we had to live with it,” he says. “I mean, it rents fine—I don’t want to mislead you. But it certainly could have been better if we had a bigger great room.”

Matejka started thinking that it could have been so much easier to discern the flaws if he had been able to somehow walk the space. The lightbulb went on, he and his partners came up with a plan, they strategically partnered with Panasonic for the tech, and the rest is history.

A social media miracle

Many people come up with original business ideas, but selling them is a different story. The social media gods have been good to Matejka, and the Kardashian story is only half of it.

Matejka started the company in Cleveland, where he was based, and once the company was up and running, he began to focus on spreading the word via social media.

“I decided I’d hire a person to do social media,” he recalls. “I hired a woman here in Cleveland, and my thought was, we’ll get a little local presence—get the word out a little bit.”

Turns out they got more than a little bit.

“Seven days after I hired her, she posted her first viral video, and it got over 4 million views,” he says. “I wasn’t even sure it was going to work in Cleveland, so I said let’s just see how it goes in Cleveland after six months.”

Then his social media wonder woman posted another viral video that got over 37 million views. By 2024, they had hundreds of millions of views worldwide. How could they help but expand?

Hollywood moves in

The company’s connection to Hollywood did not actually begin with their celebrity clients—but rather with an offer to appear on “Shark Tank,” which, interestingly, they turned down.

“‘Shark Tank’ called us twice and invited us to be on the show, but I actually told them no,” Matejka reveals. “Then the Property Brothers approached us.”

That was an offer he accepted. Jonathan and Drew Scott have since featured Walk Your Plans on several episodes of their various shows, appreciating the way viewers, as well as clients, get a better idea of what they’re actually building.

Chung’s experience with Walk Your Plans was especially inspiring. The actress, who got her start on “The Real World” and then went on to star in films including “The Hangover” movies as well as various TV shows, lost her family home in the 2025 California wildfires and raved about rebuilding with the company’s help.

Matejka notes that discounts are given to victims of natural disasters.

American fashion designer, businesswoman, and television personality Lyons, who ran J. Crew for many years and became known as “The Woman Who Dresses America,” also posted enthusiastically about her experience with the company, calling it “a must go for renovations or home builds.”

How much does it cost?

While Walk Your Plans seems to work great for celebrities, does it really make sense for the average homeowner? Building costs are high enough as it is, without adding in extra bells and whistles.

But the cost for the company’s walkthroughs is actually far less prohibitive than their celebrity cachet might suggest.

The basic price for Walk Your Plans services averages about $1,000 to $1,500 per hour, and most projects can be completed in about two hours. Plus, Matejka claims his company can actually save clients tens of thousands of dollars if not more.

“You’re able to catch changes and mistakes in a preconstruction environment, where it’s literally pennies to make a change or a modification, versus when you’re already in the bricks and sticks stage and it’s very expensive,” he explains.

“At that point, if you find a mistake, you have to stop the project. You might have to demo it. You might even have to have your architect to redesign it. Then you’ve got to get those plans approved, then you have to reorder all of all of the supplies …”

Putting practical numbers in play, Matejka shares that the average cost of change orders on any residential or business building project once it has begun construction is about $2,000 per change. So if you want a window moved or the bathroom expanded or the roof over the porch elongated, that change order would cost you about $2,000, on average.

“The average client walking in makes anywhere from 10 to 20 changes,” he notes. “So if you put a $2000 price on each change order, you’re going to possibly save from $20,000 to $40,000 per hour, when you’re walking your floor plans.”

And that’s how you get exactly what you want in a home, without breaking your budget.

“You know, we’ve been open about 3.5 years, and we have yet to have a single end user come through and say, ‘That didn’t help me at all,” Matejka concludes. “I mean, it’s amazing, and it’s really gratifying too. It’s nice to know that you’re doing a business that’s really helping people.”