If the size of your family is growing, you’re looking to accommodate an elderly parent or just want more space, a home addition could be on the cards.
While extending your home is exciting, it’s no walk in the park. It requires tremendous amounts of planning, coordination, and financial support.
With this in mind, where do you even start when it comes to building a new extension for your home?
For 10 helpful tips on how to tackle a home addition, find it all in this blog.
Helpful Tips on Planning Your Home Addition
A remodeling project can be exhilarating but also completely daunting. You get to bring a vision to life and but there’s also so much to consider.
Thinking about the new space and its layout, design details, wall color, and furniture can get the creative juices flowing.
But it’s important to not get caught up in this – there’s a lot of planning that must be approved first!
To set you off on the right track with your home renovations, here are 10 tips for planning your home addition:
1. Determine Your Objectives
This may seem like an obvious step, but it’s important to sit down with your spouse and openly discuss the objectives of a home addition.
You’ll need to determine what a new home extension will achieve for you and your family and whether the cost and disruption will be worth it.
Make sure to do an inspection of your home and lifestyle and look at how these changes can improve on both before settling on your project.
2. Gather Inspiration
Once you have settled on your exact home renovations and the overall end-goal of the project, you’ll need to source a little inspiration.
By this, we mean inspiration on design, layout, and functionality of the new space. You should also source inspiration for different products, materials, and color schemes.
Buying guides, home design magazines, Pinterest and even touring show houses are excellent sources of inspiration.
3. Gather Necessary Legal Documents
Adding a new extension to your home is not always as simple as making a decision, finding a contractor and purchasing new wallpaper!
More often than not, you’ll be required to apply for a permit to make certain extensions to your home.
Make sure you gather a copy of plot plans of your property to ensure an extension does not breach property lines or encroach on neighbors.
Plans and surveys of your home can generally be acquired from a local Registry of Deeds.
It’s important to ensure a home addition doesn’t exceed property plans. Anything built outside of property lines can cause unnecessary legal complications.
4. Plan Your Budget Accordingly
For any homeowner, a budget will play a primary role in determining how extensive your home addition is.
This is one of the most important considerations when planning a home remodeling project. A budget can have serious limitations.
When planning out your budget you’ll need to take every last detail into account. This not only includes contracting and material costs but also permits and utility evaluations.
An architect or renovation expert may be able to help in determining a realistic budget to help accommodate your extension goals.
5. Determine What You Need
Once you have determined your budget, you will need to assess what you need for your new home addition.
By this, we mean physical amenities for your specific room. Will you need to purchase a new bathtub, a new bed, an air conditioning unit, carpeting etc.?
If you’re working with a tight budget add only the necessities to this list, then purchase the finer details for your room once you can afford it.
6. Choose the Best People to Work With
The outcome and success of your home addition largely depend on the people you hire to do the work for you.
Keep in mind, a home extension is not a simple DIY project. Nine-times-out-of-ten should be handled by experienced professionals!
Make sure you do your homework before settling on a particular contractor for your project. Always go with a contractor with extensive experience and good recommendations.
Don’t shy away from asking for references if you have your doubts- a good contractor should be happy to share these with you.
Ask neighbors and friends for recommendations on contractors that they have personal experience working with.
You can also request samples of a contractor’s work and do a background check with the Better Business Bureau.
7. Go With a Design Professional
Designing a new space yourself can have dire consequences, especially if you are a complete newbie and have no idea where to start.
Hiring the help of a design professional or architect can end up saving you big money in the long run.
These professionals have the foresight and expertise to recommend layout, spacing, utilities, and amenities you may never even think of.
To add to this, they can provide a comprehensive list of builders and contractors who have already been vetted for their experience.
8. Get a Stamp of Approval from Neighbors
The last thing you want is an angry or resentful neighbor putting you off the excitement of your new home addition.
If your project entails extending close to your neighbor’s property or perhaps going up a level, it may be best to discuss this with your neighbors first.
It’s a good idea to ensure your all your neighbors are aware of the renovations due to noise factor and other disruptions.
As a common courtesy just ensure the air is cleared before renovations begin and you have their stamp of approval for your peace-of-mind.
9. Have Existing Utilities Evaluated
Before adding to your home, you may need to meet with an electrician or HVAC contractor to determine the standard of existing utilities in your home.
This is just to ensure existing electrical and HVAC systems you have can handle extra additions to their capacity.
This kind of evaluation is important to incorporate into your project budget.
If you plan on breaking ground and digging underneath your home, make sure the area has been checked for underground utilities beforehand.
10. Be Realistic About Your Expectations
Some of the best advice to remember when it comes to home remodeling is to be completely realistic about times frames and your budget.
In reality, a home addition may take a little or a lot longer than you originally planned, which can ultimately eat into your budget.
Take into account that you may need to be flexible with your budget, project timeline and remember, patience is key!
In Need of Contractor Expertise?
At Higgason Construction we offer specialty construction expertise for all your home addition needs.
As a licensed and bonded general contractor located in Sammamish, Washington, we are there every step of the way through your home remodel, repair or addition.
Get in touch with our team today to begin your home remodel journey.