Help me add on to our house...

[Nette]

We live in a small ranch-style house quite a ways off the main road. Our driveway is routed in such a way that it winds around the pasture and comes up at the back of the house. When we first moved here we thought we would make a new driveway coming straight in from the road to the front of the house, but after 16 years, we've come to appreciate the fact that we can see approaching visitors well in advance of their arrival if we just leave things "as is."

We'd like to do an addition to the house that would make the back look more like a front. I've got in mind a deep porch on the left end of the house, with a small sunny room to be the foyer or entryway. I've got this simple floor plan sort of figured out, but I can't get roof lines straight in my head. Does anyone know of a good site that would show you examples of what various additions and roof lines would look like on a plain rectangular house? Whatever we do, it must be modest and unpretentious in order to fit in with the rest of the house.

[Queen Bee]

Nette, I will be interested in this also. We have a small ranch style house at our farm and we will be building on to it. On paper, have 'stuck' different add-ons everywhere---trying to decided which I like best. Haven't come up with anything that works yet....
QB

[mellba]

Could you post a picture of what is already there? That might help someone get some ideas.

[Macybaby]

If you can at all swing it, get a half way decent home design software and start playing with it. I got a pretty nice version, spent about $80 on it, but it has way more saved us that amount in grief alone in our addition/remodeling project.

We had our addition all planned out, and during excavating for the basement, they hit standing water at a higher level than we expected. (long story about what was causing it, besides a real high water table). So we decided to only put the basement 6' deap instead of 8' deep. We knew we could vault the ceiling in the old part to make the access into the new part (it was now going to be 2' higher) but now the roof would not line up and we needed to decide what we would do.

Here is a view of the roofline we were dealing with.



I did up a few different roof lines with the software program, and hubby and I could veiw what they would look like, and ended up deciding to put the roof on peak running north/south instead of east/west like the part it was joined to.

The software let us put in windows and furniture, and then "veiw" the results in 3d - realized real quick where we wanted the wood stove would not give us the results we thought it would.

Sure wish I had invested in something like this before we had the house built back in WI (1999). It is so easy to start with a basic design, and then with a few clicks make changes and see what you end up with. I have about 60 versions right now, and you just can't do that on paper.

Here is a picture of before we started


This is with the addition (and new siding and new roofing)



And some day, who knows when, we'll get the attached garage done. And add the small front porch, there isn't one now. When I first suggested the porch, my hubby thought it was a real stupid idea. He's not good at visualizing things. Showed him the picture and now he is all excited about building it.



We are completely rehabbing the whole house, and are just starting into year two of the project. What we are ending up with is very different than our first ideas, and the software is what has given us the best opportunity to change our minds for the better before we started moving walls around. BTW, so far we have only hired someone else to put in the new septic system, do the excavation for the foundation (and run new incoming waterlines) and move the incoming electricity to the new main breaker box. Oh, and we had the cement delivered - would have been a bit much to mix by hand.

Cathy

[blue gecko]

Nice job Cathy!
Pics would help Nette, there are some great minds at work here. B

[Nette]

Thanks for the pictures, Cathy. I did have some of that software you mentioned, but I ended up sending it to "Cathy" over on Countryside Families because I never had the patience to figure out how it worked.

Here's a picture of the back side of our house:

http://render2.snapfish.com/render2/.../of=50,590,442

I want the porch/entryway addition to be on the left side where the existing porch and deck are now. Would remove all that and start from scratch. The view to the left (off the present deck) is pretty nice--pasture and big pond.

[Macybaby]

I think landscaping has a lot to do with making a house have more "front door" look. What you wrote remindes me of the house I grew up on. When it was built the road came west across the north side of the house, curved around the west side of the house then south to the barn, turned back to the west and headed off. I guess way back it was normal for the roads to develop so they sort of went right through the middle of the homestead. I think it may have just started off as a very long driveway, but then the property was divided up, and the driveway got extended to the next house a 1/4 mile away. Sort of was a "shortcut" if you didn't want to go back up and all the way around.

So for many years, the north side of the house was the front. Then the county came along and straightend the roads out. They made the new road go along the south side of the property, so now the driveway came up from the barn (now right north of the road) and the south side of the house was now the "front" side.

There is a lot of history with that old place. Too bad it's slated for the dozer as soon as my folks move out. Was too close to a major metropolitan area, and now it's just another suburb.

I've gotten some of my best ideas by looking at older houses in small towns. A roof line here, a porch there . . . then the hard part is figuring out how to incorporate it into the existing building. What I hate most about our current house is that it is actually one structure (the original claim shack) and 5 additions. When we first bought the place, we planned on tearing down the west section and rebuilding it with a basement (and larger) but then I discovered that section is the original claim shack, and well, I just could not bear to tear it down.

Sorry, I'm rambling. I really love house remodeling. Once I got past the "that would be too difficult" self-limiting part, it opened up a lot more possiblities.

Cathy

[blue gecko]

What direction does your "new" front face? It looks to me like you could add your room in a similar way that Cathy has added her 2 story with the roof line running perpendicular to the original roof. If you plan to glass in the new addition you might be able to use the solar gain in winter and circulate the heat through the house. A heat sink in the flooring might prove useful. If you make it a little taller that the existing house you could put some high windows in and use it to help pull air through the house in the summer-a solar flue. A long covered porch on the side facing us in your pic with the roofline the same as the one you have might just complete the look. It's a sweet place Nette! I hope you find a plan that works for you! B