Home Addition

It ill cost more than you think or are quoted. period.

and it's a pain in the butt. but, so is moving.

We added onto our house. I am not going to lie, it wasn't easy but now that its finished we love the extra space. We did some things ourselves, I mudded & sanded the sheet rock and painted the rooms. We added on an office, bedroom and two bathrooms (one is a slash laundry room) and garage. We love the extra space. We loved our location & didn't want to move. I can't imagine all the choices a person has to make when building an entire house. My advise is if you are going to do it, do it right. Don't go with the cheapest. Good luck with what you decide!

Yes, we flip houses all the time, and have also added on to houses we've lived in. I'm also a (commercial) construction manager, so I have a lot of experience with this type of thing.

It really depends upon what you're adding on, and if the roof line will change. (If so, it will cost you a bunch.) Also, please realize that adding a second story can often times be a nightmare (unless parts of your home already have a second story) because the foundation of a single-story home is not sufficient to hold the weight of a second story, so you'd have to do significant structural framing in order to make the home structurally sound.

My favorite addition that we ever did was on a little 900 square foot house - it went from being a 2 bedroom, 1 bath to a 3 bed, 2 bath (we added a master suite, plus about 10 feet along the entire back wall of the home to make the kitchen bigger and add a laundry room). The house ended up being about 1600 square feet. Since the roofline was changing, we went ahead and took the whole roof off and vaulted the ceilings inside the house (which also meant that we added an upbeam along the roof peak to carry the weight of the roof, so none of the interior walls were load-bearing. Then we moved a bunch of interior walls to help the layout of the house). It didn't even look like the same house when we were done. That project cost about $150K. Since I'm a licensed GC, obviously I didn't have the added expense of having a GC manage the project for me. Had we not changed the roof/vaulted all the ceilings, it would have been about half that cost.

One thing I've learned is that you should never make your garage into living space, unless you have somewhere else on your property to build another garage (building a garage is about $30K from the ground up). Houses without garages don't sell.

I think the first thing you should do is ask a good, qualified residential architect to meet with you. They are usually really good at helping you figure out if adding onto your home is something you can do, and have it turn out okay. Yes, you may have to pay them a small consultation fee, but it will be well worth it (and DO NOT, whatever you do, attempt to add onto your home without a licensed architect to draw up plans for you! I do this for a living and would NEVER add onto a house without an architect on board - trust me on this one!)

Good luck!

We added on to our house about 10 years and am sooooo glad we did! It is hard living in the house during the construction, but just remember it doesn't last forever. Some suggestions I have would be to interview around 5 contractors, meet with them, look at their suggestions, and make your decision there. We didn't go with the cheapest or most expensive company, we went with a company that really listened to us, and worked to make sure our house fit into the neighborhood. Our neighborhood was built in the 50's so putting in a huge, 2 story house would look tacky! Other contractors wanted to do that and that wasn't our plan.
Also, If your kid's sell script at school I would stock up on those. When doing a room addition the last thing you want to do is cook because the house is so dirty and dusty and ick. So eating out is nice. Also, to keep costs down, we did the painting and such ourselves.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

Hi Robyn,
We did ours two summers ago and at the time I thought I was gonna loose my mind. Now ofcourse it is all worth it. It added $75,000 in value and only cost us $15,000 because we did it all ourselves. Plan on doubling the amount of time you think it is gonna take and dust everyevery! Block off any vents you are sure you dont need. Some days the little things will just be too much to handle because you have already reached your limit on decisions. It was more stress than I realized living here while we were doing the addition but now that it is done I'm really glad we stayed instead of moving to a larger house!
Good Luck!

As a rule you will not get the money back if you sell. In my subdivision there is a 2,500 sg ft difference between the smallest and the largest home. If someone in the smaller homes added on they would get their money back. The larger homes, forget about it. Our house could pull off 800 sq ft, a second story we would never get our money back.

If you are planning on staying there forever, go for it. If you are planning on staying there long enough to enjoy it then accept the cost for what it is.

I have never added on, nor will I. Everyone I know that did it did not live in the home when they were doing to work. It saves you money to stay in the home but my god it is messy and not safe if you have small kids.

I've heard that it is often cheaper to add on rather than move. If you were just adding bedrooms it would be cheaper than if you add bathrooms which involve plumbing.

We did not add on to ours but bought one that had been added on to. One thing I would probably ask myself is 'would the lay out make sense?' I am not incredibly thrilled with the layout of ours but am not quite sure if there is a way to overcome it (if that makes sense).

I would also suggest that if you have a two story and you are going out the back, you might want to consider going up as well. That way everything is done at once.

One other thing that the former owners did not consider is whether the furnace would be big enough to support the additional square footage. We had to replace ours.

I have done more than a few remodels for myself and for friends and let me just warn you it always costs far more than you think. Two things to consider:

1. Make sure you do not over improve your property. If you do, you may never see a return on your investment. I worked for a real estate appraiser and every week we gave some unsuspecting homeowner the bad news that all the money they thought they invested in improvements was out of line with the rest of the neighborhood, netting them zero in increased home value. Contrary to popular belief, having the biggest and best house in a neighborhood is never good.
2. Work with a licensed contractor with good references. You will not save anything by cutting corners on labor, or trying to do-it-yourself. Trust me on this one.

A dear friend of mine had a really cute house in a pretty nice middle class neighborhood. They had a wonderful huge window on the back of the house. He worked his way through BYU by working construction. So he knew what he was doing. He added a large room across the whole back of the house, it functioned as a large family room for them. She had a home day care and had the kids in this room. It had big windows, new carpet, nice nice nice.

He was an accountant for a local business that ended up not giving him the benefits and raises they promised him so he quit. He got a new job in California. When they went to put their house up for sale they found it was actually worth less than before. Somehow the addition had made it less since it made the house less per sq. foot?????

The houses in the neighborhood weren't selling for the amount they thought the house should be.

For example, if their house was 2000 with the addition but the other houses in the neighborhood were 1500 but they were all selling for the same money or not selling at all then the house addition did not improve the value of the house, it made it less per foot so it was depreciated???

I know this is all said wrong but after the addition the Realtor said it was a mistake and she would have told them so if they had talked to her before building it on.

So, additions are nice. But if it makes the house not sell-able then maybe moving would be better unless you plan on never moving even if hubby loses his job or is asked to transfer.

Talk to a Realtor before making decision or getting your heart set on one or the other ideas.