"It's All About Money"

(No it isn't)

A lady wrote about some addition ideas for their home & asked me to suggest what I thought was the best solution. It was a very well thought out, descriptive letter laying out options that they had to add to their home. (Whether to expand out or up) An excerpt from the letter follows:"We need more bedrooms for our grandchildren, and workspace so we want to add a master suite, lots of storage space, and at least one study. We'd actually like a studio/library too, with perhaps a half bath -- my husband works from home much of the time. What we do will finally depend on cost, and the relationship between the old and the new. We have a number of options."....

My reply:

Nice letter. You are doing some clear thinking & planning before acting. Before I tell you what I think you should do, I want to comment on one of your thoughts. "What we finally do will depend on cost"

In my humble opinion that is the last thing your decision should depend upon. I suspect you are not part of the Bill Gates fortune & you only have so much money that you can afford to invest. (Room additions are investments not an expense) Whatever that amount is should be used to build whatever will please you the most. (Whatever fits your everyday living habits & wants.) After making that decision then decide how much you can do on the budget already formulated.

Does it make any sense to build an addition, spend a large sum of money & then not have exactly what fits your needs? Spend as much as you can afford on what you want, not on what will give you the most square footage for the least amount of money. Whatever you spend will be returned to you with a huge profit when sell time comes around, plus you will have the enjoyment of use for years to come.

Sounds like you have a great piece of beautiful property & plenty of room to build. Consider building a one or two story addition as large as you can afford. Add large high quality casement windows 5'-6' high to capture the view of your surroundings. The second story ideas present too many structural problems. In addition you mention grandchildren which means you both are not kids anymore & stairs may present a problem later on (if not now). If you read my  "Room Addition" book you will learn, among other things, that additional footage is cheap if you know how to buy it. Hope this helps

Regards,

Bill Harbrecht

How many times prospective customers said to me "It's all about cost" Sorry, I don't agree. It's all about living better. Don't look at the trees, look at the forest.