re: Are house plans supposed to be difficult?

We built in 2013. Our house is a 2 story farmhouse with 2 different elevations. The main part is raised like you mentioned. It's about 3 feet above grade on a chain wall. The dug a footing around perimeter and poured concrete with rebar left sticking up every 2 feet. Then they set blocks on the footing. The top block was a half block.The wall was filled with sand and compacted . Plumbing was installed and concrete poured. The concrete for the slab filled the blocks creating a solid wall.
We used Residential designs in Hattiesburg.