Building a Home Addition (Part 1): What’s Involved + Dining Room Tour
Building a Home Addition : What’s Involved + Dining Room Tour.
Part 2 of this video: • Building a Home Addition (Part 2): Bedroom...
What’s involved in building a home addition:
I hired a contractor to build a 2-story addition to my residence and I’ll briefly go over what was involved in this process. I’ll also share some thoughts on whether it is worth spending this kind of money in terms of return on investment.
1. I hired a general contractor who could provide all the services from soup to nuts. His architect provided the architectural plans. I reviewed and made changes. The contractor submitted these and other appropriate paperwork with the County Department of Permitting Services, paid the fees, and got the building permit.
2. Foundation guys: Poured concrete for the foundation footings / footers. Built the foundation walls with cinder blocks on top of the footers. Put a thin layer of gravel on top of the dirt to form the crawl space.
3. Framing guys: Installed the floor joists and built up the framing for the walls.
4. 3rd set of different workers to continue framing and build: Put down the subfloors. Put up the boards for the exterior walls, wrapped the boards with moisture barrier, and installed siding. Installed the roof [soffit (underside of roof overhang), facia board (trim on front of roof overhang), drip edge (metal covering at the edge of roof overhang)], gutters, windows, and trim boards arounds the windows. Painted the exterior trim and the foundation walls to match the existing color on the rest of the house.
5. After the windows got installed, the interior work began. The workers tore down the original exterior wall, now located inside the addition. Electrician installed the wiring for the lights and the outlets. HVAC technician extended the existing ducts and installed new vents.
6. 4th set of different set of workers for interior walls: Put in insulation. Put up the interior walls: installed dry wall, put on joint tape followed by joint compound, sanded off the joint compound, installed trim (crown molding and baseboard), and painted.
7. Flooring guys installed the wood floor and the carpet guys installed the carpet.
This project cost around $100,000 for a 2 story addition that added about 375 square feet of space and included the cost of a brand new roof over the entire house. Will I be able to recoup the cost of this addition when I sell my house? The answer is “no.” First of all, the square footage gained through an addition generally costs a lot more than square footage you can purchase by paying more to get a bigger house, although that could depend on the location of the property. In the area where I live, for every $100,000 increase in home purchase price, you can expect to get a house that is around 1000 SF larger. Secondly, the purpose of the new space that’s created will factor into the investment value of an addition or a remodel, such that adding a second bathroom could be much more valuable than just increasing the size of an existing room, which is basically what I did.
So, why would someone want to build an addition? Oftentimes, it is because they have a need but buying a different house is not a viable option. In my case, I wanted a really big formal dining room for sit down dinner parties. By adding two extra leaves, I can seat 14 people comfortably at the table. I could not find a dining room this size as part of the original construction, except in very large homes. Based on standard floor plans, getting a formal dining room that’s large enough would have required me to buy a house that’s over 8000 SF, which would be too much house for me. A lot of contemporary, open concept homes may have sufficient space to put in an extra-long dining table like this, but it would end up taking up additional space meant for sofas and other living room furniture.
So, was building this addition worth it for me? Not as an investment, especially since a lot of the younger generation homeowners don’t seem to want or appreciate a formal dining room. Moreover, I now have a formal dining room that is out of proportion with the rest of my house (i.e., too big for a house this size) and might not appeal to prospective buyers when I go to sell the house. But I got to design and build a space set to my own specifications to fit my personal needs and that was enormously gratifying, and I have no regrets about building this addition. For folks who can afford it, it can be a wonderful give to give yourself. Having said that, my best advice would be for folks to figure out what you want or need in a house and try hard to find a house with those rooms and features from the get-go because it will be a lot cheaper that way than to build those things onto the house later.
In another video, I’m going to give a tour of the 2nd floor addition that expanded an existing bedroom and I’ll share some valuable tips on what to watch out for when signing a contract to build an addition.