Home Addition Experiences?

[Anonymous]

My wife and I are shopping for a new home. A 3BR would be enough for us now (expecting our first child this summer) but we are likely to want more room later. Instead of making the financial stretch to get a bigger home now, we are considering the strategy of getting a 3BR home that has space for future expansion. Please help me evaluate the pros and cons of this strategy. I'm particularly interested in the experiences of those who have gone through the experience of expanding a home. How much did it cost? How disruptive was the experience for your family?

TIA.

[Anonymous]

We put a large addition on our home (added a bedroom and bath upstairs, renovated the rest of the upstairs, increased size of downstairs and added a family room, new floors throughout). It cost about $230K two years ago. We lived in the house during construction.

It was a REALLY long and tiring process -- construction itself took about 8 months, plus the architect/design time, permits, etc. -- and I don't know that would do it again but we love the addition.

Buy a home in EXACTLY the location you want, with special attention to schools, etc., and make sure there's a good space on your lot for your addition.

[Anonymous]

My situation is different as we ended up building a new home but initially considered buying and renovating. We actually brought contractors on site of the homes we were considering and found out that adding on was incredibly expensive. If you can expand by finishing a basement or attic, you may do fine, but dollar for dollar, it will be a lot more expensive to add on new space where foundation work is required as opposed to getting a four bedroom home now.

[Anonymous]

I guess it depends what you want out of it and how much you love the house you buy.

We bought a small colonial in a FABULOUS neighborhood: quiet, heavily wooded, good schools, diverse neighborhood, no HOA (which is something we wanted), and big lots. It is an older, more established neighborhood that is turning over with a lot of new families with kids. Anyway, we've been there 8 years and wanted something bigger but didn't want to move. We are in the process of doing an addition that does not require a new kitchen or any work on bathrooms. We just needed more space. We pushed out on both sides, added a porch and added a bedroom. When all is said and done it will be about $140K. However, we will be doing the painting and my DH will be doing some of the finishing work (i.e., floors) and so that cut down on the cost.
It is an inconvenience but so far doable (they have not taken down walls to the house yet; instead they frame and do as much outside before they break through. Talk to me in a couple weeks . . .

The process began in the fall with LOTS of interviewing, reference checking, etc. of potential contractors. Then there is the permit process, which is more/less difficult depending on where you live. FINALLY the work started around the time of Snowmageddon. They still anticipate being done in May . . . so roughly 5 months.

I recommend this option but you have to do your homework.

[Anonymous]

Additions and renovations are also tough on a marriage. Lots of couples don't make it through intact (which is how we ended up with our house: modern kitchen and master suite addition that the previous owners never got to enjoy b/c they broke up before it was completed). It can be great to do an addition or renovations to make your home exactly the way you want it, but it is hard work and expensive.

We bought a three bedroom home, and decided that if we had two kids they would either share a bedroom, or share when we had house guests (which is what we did when I was a kid). Fast forward eight years, and we've decided that we are only having one child.

If you think about it logically, unless you have house guests really frequently, you can put them up in a nice hotel for less than the cost of a spare bedroom. And kids don't *need* separate rooms, although it has become more standard these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Additions and renovations are also tough on a marriage. Lots of couples don't make it through intact (which is how we ended up with our house: modern kitchen and master suite addition that the previous owners never got to enjoy b/c they broke up before it was completed). It can be great to do an addition or renovations to make your home exactly the way you want it, but it is hard work and expensive.

We bought a three bedroom home, and decided that if we had two kids they would either share a bedroom, or share when we had house guests (which is what we did when I was a kid). Fast forward eight years, and we've decided that we are only having one child.

If you think about it logically, unless you have house guests really frequently, you can put them up in a nice hotel for less than the cost of a spare bedroom. And kids don't *need* separate rooms, although it has become more standard these days.

I'm sorry, but I don't think the marriage was very stable at the start if the addition is what did it. I mean, yes, adding on is a huge pain but when I think of "for better or for worse" in a marriage vow I don't think of having several hundred thousand dollars to add a master suite and a modern kitchen to my home as a hardship. I have seen my parents and the marriage "role models" in my life stick together through job loss, deaths of parents and family, cancer, miscarriages, etc.

Is surviving an addition is really not that heroic? Sorry for the snark but I think if adding on is the worst this couple went through together, they are quite fortunate don't you think?

[Anonymous]

As disruptive as additions can be, I can't imagine selling a house and buying a house and getting the timing right a walk in the park. We are adding on mainly because we love the house and location and just want more space in the kitchen and a more open floor plan downstairs. It will probably end up costing us more in the end but I am not anxious to sell in this market.

To me that is more stressful. Plus all the houses we saw were not exactly what we wanted and our addition is shaping up to be more of what we want. Buying our first home was such an awesome experience, but moving forward you have to do the tricky dance of selling and buying, not as much fun. I suppose you can sell and then rent before buying but that seems really disruptive with kids.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Very helpful comments. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

For us, we crunched the numbers and determined that it was better to buy a home of the size that we wanted, which was in our price range because it needed updating, rather than a smaller home that needed an addition. Not only would it be less expensive to remodel our existing space rather than do an addition (which as PP said is more costly due to the need for a foundation), but our layout makes more sense because the entire home was built bigger. If you take your typical small colonial and try to add on to it, you might be able to make a larger kitchen/dinning room if you bump out one side, but would be stuck with a pretty small living room on the other side as well as a pretty tiny basement and attic. Looking at houses in our neighborhood, to add on to a small home and end up with rooms that flow well and are consistent in size, you need to do a complete gut job/redesign/addition, which will run you 500k rather than 250K. We paid 125K more for our larger home, so we figure that even if we put in 250K in renovations (which would be enough for pretty high end and thorough basement to attic renos), we'd be saving money and we'd have less inconvenience.

[Anonymous]

OP again. To PP, excellent point - fixer upper in strong location is the right move.