Have you grown out of your home and are in desperate need of more space? Do you love your house and neighborhood and aren’t prepared to move? This is when many homeowners consider the idea of building an addition on their home. An addition is a way to give them that extra space they need without having to go through the process of selling their home and re-locating.
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While an addition can be a wonderful solution to your lack of space, there are a number of things to keep in mind before you go about it. Here’s what you need to know when it comes to building an addition on your home.
Give Thought to the Type of Addition
Saying you want to “add on” to your home is pretty vague as there are different types of additions. Thinking about what kind of addition you want will help to determine the budget, the length of the project, and who will be needed to get it done. As far as costs go, you can expect to spend anywhere from $80 to $200 per square foot of additional space.
Some of the additions you may want to consider are sunrooms, building out at ground level, and building up by adding another floor. Or, perhaps you’re looking at a detached addition.
Contact the Professionals Right Away
Next you will want to contact the professionals. An addition isn’t a DIY project that you can tackle in a weekend. You need people such as a residential home architect, and a construction crew. Any time you are thinking about moving walls, adding another floor, changing where a staircase is, and basically altering the footprint of your home, an architect is absolutely necessary. There is also the fact that when it is done by professionals, the value of your home will increase even more.
Consider How it Will Affect the Value of Your Home
While you are building an addition so that you don’t have to move, chances are, somewhere down the road you will eventually sell your house. That could be after you retire and you’re looking to downsize, or any other time. This is why you want to give thought as to how this addition will affect the value of your home.
Ideally you want to build in a way that will add value and appeal to buyers. If the addition you are thinking about will actually take away from the value of your home, you’re going to want to think long and hard before you go ahead with it. Keep in mind that the type of addition you build, and where it is located in the house, will help to determine what the value of the return is on the project.
Do Your Research
Perhaps the most important takeaway for homeowners is to do their research. What this means is to spend some time looking at different floor plans and layouts, assessing your needs and where your current home is lacking, and then making sure you hire on an experienced professional to help you.
