Have you put an addition on your home?

[Green22]

If so, any words of wisdom? Any sites to check out?

I am considering looking into this but i have no idea where or how to even start. We have an angies list membership but honestly even the people i have called with "a" level reviews often did not return calls. (we had people come in for kitchen remodel estimates).

We have a 1970s split level ranch. I am thinking of taking out the back wall of the dining room and kitchen and making those 2 rooms open and larger. We would need to get rid of a poorly made screen porch and would need to move the ac unit. This would go out on an existing deck so who knows what would happen with that.

Our current 9 by 10 kitchen is totally unworkable and needs to be redone. Was thinking i should lOok into bigger changes before committing to the kitchen. But have no idea how to start and am 99 percent sure it would be unaffordable for us.

Thanks for any info you can share!

[niccig]

Friends had planned for this. They started with an architect to get ideas. They had a whole house remodel plan done. It got drawn up, sent out for quotes and it was 100K more than they would spend. So be prepared for lots of money. They scaled it back and just did work to the kitchen/dining/family room area without adding on - moved walls to make kitchen bigger. The rest of the plans (add on and redo upstairs layout) are on hold for maybe later on. They did have to pay for those plans that were never used. But it's the only way to work out how much it will cost.

We're in similar spot to you. I think we're going to have someone over (friend is an architect) and discuss our options. I really think we're just going to work with the space and we may get an option on moving some walls - but that increases cost. We may treat it as a challenge to work w/i confines of what we have.

[Carrots]

We put an addition on last winter - dormered the 2nd floor and added a master suite with the help of an architect.

To save some $, my contractor let me act as a general contractor and I brought in the electrician and plumber who I prefer to work with and scheduled everyone myself. I worked pretty well with everyone who was involved and hit some bumps along the way.

Make sure everyone hired has a current license and is insured in your state. Keep a binder of all receipts, construction costs, parts and accessories that you buy - my binder saved me about 5 times during the process.

Best of luck!! We LOVE our addition!!!

[fivi2]

We are currently waiting for our permit for our addition. We started with an architect and then requested bids from three general contractors. We are adding on, renovating kitchen, and doing other updating. Our addition is very simple but includes a bathroom. It will cost more than we originally paid for our house. Gulp...

[ett]

We are planning to add a second floor to our house and gut out the first floor. The architect is currently working on our drawings. We also already have a rough estimate of the cost from a builder that works frequently with the architect. This way, we can make changes to the plans if the cost comes out too high. I am meeting with a kitchen designer tomorrow to start the kitchen design. We have also talked to a landscaper since our front yard needs to be redone with the addition. It's a very slow process. We have spent a lot of time researching on the internet and making changes to our plans.

[ett]

It will cost more than we originally paid for our house. Gulp...

We bought our house in 2002 and this addition will be almost as much as we paid for the house. We are almost doubling our square footage.

[fivi2]

Yes, this process has been painfully slow, and we haven't even started construction.

We are basically doubling our sf also, and doing a lot to the existing structure, but it is still very expensive. (We have a tiny house, though).

I should mention that dh is in a related business, so has a lot of knowledge about the process, but this has still been painful, and, as I said, we haven't even started building yet.