Five years ago my husband and I made the decision to purchase an older home that was built during the 1960’s. This home has a lot of charm but the previous home owners never modernized it. With that said, we knew the home had a lot of potential and look forward to upgrading it and making it our own! Not only that, the property that surrounds are home is landscaped really nicely!
One of the things we decided to do was to add onto our house. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice sized home but my mother is moving in with us next year and we need more room. We had thought about selling and buying something else but decided to stay.
In most instances, adding an extension to your property is a convenient way to add extra value to your home. Building a conservatory for example is a popular way to extend your floor space. Plus, nowadays most elements of a conservatory are totally customizable, from the walls to the roof. If you head to the Projects 4 roofing blog, conservatory roof conversion ideas are sure to catch your eye so do not be afraid to do some research to compare different options.
There are many benefits of adding a home extension, let’s take a look at what influenced our decision:
1. It’s a lot less stressful to not clean-up your home, put it on the market for sale, shop around for a new home and packing up and moving. Yup, we decided it was less stressful if we just stayed put.
2. We got a great deal on our house 5 years ago during all of that economic mess. We knew we could NOT get a great deal this time around, so economically, it’s more feasible for us to stay and just add-on.
3. Finally, by getting the additions done…we have total control and get exactly what we want. You can’t do that if you are pre-buying an already made home. We are going to get the 4 new rooms totally customized to our liking and they will be exactly what we envision them to be.
Well, there you have it! Those are the three main reasons that we decided to stay and build-on to our current home. I’ll be updating you all throughout the spring as the work gets underway.
Those are all good reasons to stay where you are and modernize your home. You will be sure to have your home changed exactly the way you want.
One thing you didn’t mention was how much value and appeal it adds to your house if you ever decide to sell it. I added an addition and the value of my house went up by more than I paid for the addition.
That’s a good point! We bought our home at a bargain price of $85,000 because it needed a LOT of work. So far, we’ve put $20,000 into it and already our home is now appraised at $164,000. Even small things of painting, adding new carpeting, shelving in basements/attics, etc. will improve value.
Beng married to a carpenter, I can tell you more and more are choosing too add on (if they can) rather than buy newer and bigger. I would make sure you really really make sure you are comfortable with the contractor. Find out FORSURE its all within your lot, and FOR SURE its within code. I cant tell you how many bad things have happened for not checking this. I know fo a hime torrn down because it was over the lot line.
Make sure your carpenter is who will be working there and overseeing it- I would go for a sslower job than some slap together mess that isnt supervised. That 3 man crew where everyone os bonded often is better than bigger outfits where only the head honcho is qualified.
Really I could write a book on this…. but after being in business for 30+ years we have seen it all!
I think your house is beautiful and I can’t wait to see the upcoming pictures. I think you made a really good decision to stay put and add on. I like the control you mentioned in making the add on work for you and your family. I see so many older homes that I like way way way better than some of these disposable homes that they are building these days. The older homes have good bones! They just don’t make em like they used to.
I agree Heather! We went and looked at some of these newer homes. To get the same square footage that we currently have…we would have to make $80,000 more than what we paid for this house! OMG! On top of that, you would have to pay to have it customized or remodeled to your liking any way…so what’s the point?
I’ve got a post coming up in a few weeks that shows the before and after of the outside that we completed this past fall. We changed from white to stormy blue for our house paint (you can see it in that photo). We updated our window shutters, added that beautiful white porch railing on the one porch (still need to do the other one), got 2 new front doors, added new porch lighting and a new outdoor lamp post. A few other things too. It has really changed the look. Wait until you see those before/after photos. I think the post is in about 2 weeks.
I’ll be blogging before and afters of the interior remodeling and the home additions this spring too. Super excited! Also, we bought a new above ground pool too! So, that goes in the backyard in the spring and hubby is building a new deck to go around one side of that pool.