Almost everyone, at some point in time, starts to feel their home getting smaller and smaller. Whether it is the accumulation of stuff inside or the fact that your family is growing doesn’t really matter, because space is space. Thankfully, you can tackle this problem with a very clear-cut solution and that is having a contractor come over and construct a room addition for you.
This room addition can be any type of room you want, but most people turn it into a family room, bedroom, living room, or even a new kitchen. Of course, you can also create a larger home addition, so you can add multiple living spaces. The goal of any room addition though is to make it look like it has been part of the house since the beginning, so it takes careful planning.
Meeting with Contractors
Once you know you are ready for a room addition on your home, you will want to begin meeting with contractors. They are aware of any building restrictions you might be facing, as well as all the local building codes. They will also tell you where you should place your new room addition if you haven’t already figured it out. Plus, they will let you know if adding a floor is going to meet your needs a lot better than going out from the side or back of your home.
You may want to talk to a couple different contractors before choosing the one you want to work with, because you don’t want to work with one that has different views than you do. Setting up meetings will allow you to weed out the contractors that are not as skilled or professional as the one you finally decide to work with.
Creating a Plan for Your Room Addition
As soon as you have your contractor hired, you can meet with them to determine your property lines. While you may already know where your property lines are, it still may be necessary to hire a surveyor, so you know you have the most accurate information.
Your contractor will then use the property line information to create a plan for your new room addition. This is when plans can change, because you may or may not have enough room to build out in the space you originally wanted to. This is when you may need to make the difficult decision to go up with a second floor or make the home addition smaller than you originally wanted.
Once all the location details have been ironed out for your room addition, your contractor can create a detailed design. This will include how this room addition matches the rest of the exterior of your home, as well as what materials you are using on the inside.
This design will take a little time, because you will want to try to match this space with the rest of your home. Therefore, it may take some time to find the exact flooring match or paint color. This will be the time to bring multiple samples into your home and really look at them all during the day when the sun is shining in and at night when the lights in your home are on. You will be amazed at how different things look in the morning compared to nighttime!
This will also be the time when you must determine if you are updating items through the rest of your home. If you can’t find the same flooring, you may choose to update the flooring throughout your entire home. You may also decide that your entire home needs to be re-sided or the windows in the rest of your home need to be swapped out to match the windows in your home addition.
Doing a room addition might seem easy at first, but as you can see, there is a lot of work involved. That is why it is so important to hire the right contractor for the job. Having an experienced contractor will ensure that you have the job done right the first time and there are no issues that will linger or pop up in a year or two.
You will definitely want to be prepared when you start your home addition too, because living in your home will be different for a while. There will be messes at the end of each day, although it will be mostly dust. Plus, you will have items from nearby rooms moved into other spaces, so they are safe. This will make the rest of your home cluttered and you will think that your home is getting smaller instead of bigger. However, it won’t be long until you have your room addition completed and all your dreams will be coming true.
