[yoopermom]

The current home we live in was built by my husband and father-in-law to be a "vacation home" for the in-laws, but no one thought to ask my mother-in-law, who hates it up here. So husband and myself have been living in it the past eight years "as is", but are now looking to add on so it will fit our needs better.

It's an 1000 sq. ft. rectangular, single story home. "Great" room across the narrow/south end of kitchen/dining/living area. Hall from south to north that has two bedrooms, one study, and one bath off of it. In floor radiant heat (which I dearly love).

Biggest issues? Absolutely NO storage, separate garage is far across the yard (bad with our winters), tiny master bedroom, and only one bathroom. Exterior is very "non house" like, brick on the bottom, stucco on top, metal roof (low maintenance, but ugly). Crawlspace only.

Husband's idea is to add an addition to the west side of a (1st floor) 2 1/2 car garage, with mud room/coat closet on way into house, with full second floor dormered area containing master bedroom(including sitting area)/bath/walk in closet. Deck off the back overlooking our woods and river. Possible basement under new section only with walkout to backyard, primary use as storage/"man cave"/etc. In existing house we would knock out wall between great room and study, hence expanding the current great room to make it more of a useable size.

My husband does construction, and has for years, so I know he can build what we want/can afford, but he's no architect. I'm afraid if I just let him run, we'll end up with something different, but no better than what we have now. And won't it look a little silly to have a two story addition adjoining a one story house?

Anyone know of any websites/designs/etc that would help us out?

Thanks so much!

Terri

 

[Tricky Grama]

I'd start with adding a big mstr bdrm w bath on whatever end of the home you think you'd want it. Then decide if you want the liv rm bigger too. Bunches of websites on 'adding on to your home' but I didn't cut & paste b/c I can't with my iPad...
Good luck.

 

[Jennifer L.]

I'd take your two bedrooms and master and turn that into your master suite. You're probably young, but it never hurts to think ahead when you might want to not climb stairs (or you have an accident and break an ankle, etc.). Make the second floor your kid space, and add another bath there, as well. Turn current bathroom into the master bath and add another half bath for downstairs use. With plumbing close together it might be quite easy.

Definitely add additional storage anywhere you can, especially pantry area off the kitchen.

Love the idea of the deck.

Good luck, sounds like fun.

 

[Maura]

Whatever you decide, take the plans to an architect. We did this and were glad we did. We ended up building a different house, but her comments helped me plan this one.

I always recommend the book, Building for a Lifetime It has very practical advice for being able to change your home into being accessible from the get go. For instance, making the stairway with easy rise steps, and wide enough to accommodate a lift. Make all hallways accessible to a wheelchair, which makes it accessible for crutches or a walker.

For storage, you can put drawers under the stairs.

 

[Freeholder]

Fire is much on my mind, given all the fires we are having in the West this summer (including one we almost had to evacuate for). Your metal roof and stucco/brick siding may not be what you think looks best, but they are much better for keeping your house from burning down if a forest fire goes through your area.

Two story additions to a one-story house can look just fine, if the join is done right. Keep the style of the addition the same as the exterior style of the original house, and add a porch or something that will tie things together in the open area of the L shape I think you are describing.

Kathleen

 

[bryant]

http://www.smartdraw.com/software/floorplan-software.htm?id=42730

http://auto.goengineer.com/l/5082/2012-10-11/hkrk7?pi_ad_id={creative}utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=design%20your%20house&utm_content=3d_printer&utm_campaign=SWX_landingpage

These are just two sites with free software for house design. The second one is a 30 day free trial only. The first is freeware. These should help your husband with the design aspect of the remodel and it will let him show you what he is talking about doing, which will be good so you can have input to get what you both want.

 

[haypoint]

I live in an area with lots of vacation homes. I have seen many added onto. Most often it happens as the children approach teen years. Then, in a few short years the parents are stuck with a too large, hard to heat, too much to maintain home.
You didn't mention children. So, I'll assume you need extra bedrooms for guests?
You might want to consider how you can shut off the areas of the house that you don't regularly use. Extra bedrooms for guests on the second floor that you can close off when not in use.
I had some plans that had a south facing sun room that could be used when extra people were visiting, but shut off at night in the winter. Along the north side, coldest, was a fireplace and a living room/office. Useable and heated when having house guests, but closed off in the dead of winter. With guest bedrooms on the second level, my commonly used living space, kitchen, dining nook, bathroom, Master Bedroom is in the center of the house.
If it is just the two of you and there are three bedrooms, I don't follow the need for 1000 square feet added on?
There is a tendency for people with small trucks to wish they had one that could haul more, pull the camper, etc. The guys with big trucks wish they had a truck that sipped gas instead of guzzled it. So they buy what they think they want and are faced with a new reality.
Same for houses. Those with a huge place to heat and maintain wish they had something more efficient. Those in smaller homes seek more space.
Need more storage space? Never be enough. I built a 100 ft by 100 ft barn and my vehicles sat outside because I used up all my storage space. The more space you have the more you'll collect.
If you draw out your house , scan it and post it, I'll take a stab at a floor plan based on an additional bathroom, garage, mud room and larger master bedroom.

 

[Maura]

Build the ridiculously large garage. In between it and the house have an entry. This becomes the new front door. From the entry is a sliding door into the living room, and a secure door into the garage. Also a coat closet. This entry should be large enough to do everything an entry should do, have a place for boots, hats, mittens, coats, bench.

On the other side of the entry you extend your kitchen into. From the garage to the kitchen have a door. Also, have a slide through where you can put bags of groceries from the garage into a lower kitchen cupboard. Wherever your staircase ends up, make sure that it is wide enough for a lift or chair, 4’. The staircase should not be in the entry.

In your original house, take out the study or a bedroom so that you can format a kitchen and separate living room. Separate dining room would be optional. I would like a formal dining room but many people do not. French doors in the dining area would lead to a large deck.

Upstairs would be the master bedroom and bathroom with plenty of cupboards and closet space and a balcony. There should be enough room, being over such a big garage, to also squeeze the study up there.

This would leave you with two guest rooms downstairs and a small bath. Your master bedroom would be completely separate from guests. With in floor heat you don’t really need to shut off rooms to save on energy. However, if your current plan has more than one zone, you can lower the temps for those zones. If you are planning on having a garden tub or some type of really big tub you will probably have a separate shower. Make sure the shower is handicap accessible for one person in a chair and one person standing. This is better than building in a shelf to sit on.

 

[Wendy]

You could also put a basement under a new addition. I wish I had a larger basement. Ours is just a cellar under the kitchen with a very narrow steep stairway going down. Good for a storm shelter, but not much else. I wish I had a basement for my canned goods. We added on a few years ago, but did not add a basement as we didn't have enough money to do so. We did do a two story addition. House was already 2 stories, but rooms were small upstairs. We added another full bath & bedroom downstairs & a half bath & bedroom upstairs. Best thing we ever did!

 

[jtsummie]

In the attached picture it shows a 1 story house that has a 2 story addition. I would think this used to happen all the time back in the day. A lot of the old pictures have houses like this.

 

[TerriLynn]

What I did when we decided to add on to our old farmhouse was to go get some graph paper, (the kind of paper with a grid pattern on it).

I then drew the existing house as floor plans on the grid paper with each square equaling one foot. I took a new sheet of grid paper and drew the outline of the house plus the dimensions of the addition added on to it.

So this gives you an idea of what the space is you have to work with. You can copy it at this point and rework it as many times as you want. I must have redrawn mine a 100 times until I felt I used the new space as wisely as I could, squeezing a closet in everywhere I could imagine.

I am not handy with computers, I am sure there is probobally a computer program that will do this for you, but for me I liked having that piece of paper right there in front of me, and having a pencil and eraser to change things around as they occurred to me, and I didn't have to be online or have my computer in front of me to do it.

The one thing I would do different would be to take those homemade plans and have an architect make some professional blueprints, there were a few things I didn't figure in, such as wall thickness and such, so my rooms ended being a little smaller than I figured.

 

[Maura]

Back in the day, people would build a one or two room house so they’d have a place for the winter. When they had the money, or the snow melted, they’d add the two story addition. This would have been planned out. My DH’s family home was built this way. The original house was on stone, a large room with two smaller ones. The two smaller ones were the bedrooms, one for each brother. With the two story addition on a basement, the large room became the dining room, one bedroom became the kitchen. The other bedroom eventually became the indoor bathroom. You find lots of old farmhouses built this way.

 

[ChristieAcres]

Consider this:

Main floor:

5-piece Master Bedroom with adjoining spacious bathroom (double sinks, soaking tub, and walk in shower). From inside this bathroom, a door to a 1/2 bath (sink & toilet). That 1/2 bath should have a 2nd door for company access. If you could get rid of the study and 2nd bedroom to utilize into the area I described, it would make a comfortable Master bedroom w/a fireplace in it. You would also still have a great room. If you add on, any living areas could be bigger. You could also add another 1/2 bath to the main floor.

So, your main floor would have a 5-piece Master and I would recommend an identical one on the 2nd floor, along with another nice sized bedroom, and den or library.

We are building a one story- loft home with just 2 bedrooms. Both will be 5-piece Master Bedrooms as I have described with separate 1/2 bathrooms. This way, guests don't access our main bathroom unless we want them to.

Why Master Bedrooms on both floors? We are going to use the upper loft first, as we both can easily walk stairs. When that changes, we will have a beautiful Master Bedroom on the main floor to use. Our home is being designed for disability access, as well.

 

[farmmaid]

Check zoning and get the permits.................

 

[Robotron]

Start with the size of your septic system. As you add on you may have to increase your tank size and field size. This maybe the most expensive part of the job. Check zoning and permits is excellent advice.

 

[soulsurvivor]

yoopermom, except for the radiant floor heat and the outside stucco you're living in my house. Also my home interior is a reverse of yours with kitchen/bath/study on south side and main living/bedrooms on north/east side.

What we did on the whole house remodel was critical things such as new heating/cooling system with a backup to the backup for potential loss of electrical power. Also tore floors down to sub floor, treated the wood top and bottom floor and installed wood and tile low maintenance flooring in entire house, widened doorways, installed new electrical wiring and lighting, new plumbing, and almost all new major appliances. Existing gutters were widened to handle additional water run off with the metal roofing.

A new metal garage on concrete floor was built on the west side of house with side entrance door a few feet from the back kitchen door. Didn't attach the garage because of additional property tax if attached to existing house. The garage has a kitchen/bath and is all propane/electric. Has room for one car, freezers, and all lawn equipment. Is also storage for a canoe and other large items.

We have 3 closets and a full attic for storage in the house and chose not to add storage but to decrease amount stored. All large furniture was removed from the house except for the existing kitchen table/chairs. We've been careful not to replace it with anything heavy, bulky, space consuming. We had a contractor/sub-contractors that were willing to take partial payment with bartering of interior furniture/appliances/etc removed from the house. All family items were given to appropriate family members and we are no longer family memento caretakers.

What remains to be done are a vapor lock on the crawlspace and a lean to structure on the east side of the old shop to house drying wood. What I didn't get and would have loved to have was a sun room enclosure of the back concrete patio complete with a half bath. This would be on the south side of the house and directly link the kitchen with the new garage. I couldn't justify the construction cost and the increase of the propery tax.

I wish you and your husband the best of success with your remodeling/new building projects. It's a hassle to live in the house while all this is ongoing. I moved into a nearby hotel during the worst of it.