We are quickly out growing our starter house but not finding a suitable replacement so starting to consider adding on. Sketched out this floor plan using each square representing 2’. House is about 1500 square feet. Need an extra guest room/office and a room for the kids to tear up would be nice as well.

House is on a slab. Covered back porch is just pavers. Back of the house is siding but I can make sense of adding on to the back and having a livingroom in the middle with no windows.

Tearing the whole thing down and starting over seems challenging and wasteful.

Any wisdom?

Remodeling is often times more expensive per sq. ft. than building new. Lots of builder's don`t want to mess with remodels so they purposely charge more. Unless you absolutely love where you are living, you might think about selling and buying something that has everything you want for less money. It`s also probably going to cost way more than you think and end up costing more than what a contractor tells you to begin with. A good remodeler / builder shouldn`t have any trouble adding on to that floor plan but get several reviews and a contract up front. And never pay them for any services that haven been completed first. If they want $$$$ for material or something before it has been started........You don`t want them.

No expert, but I did remodel my home in 2013 though (no add on). I did all the tear out (100%) and used subs to put it back together. I sold 3 years later and probably just broke even with what I spent remodeling (70K). Built new in 2017.

My Daughter and SIL needed more room and wanted to expanded their house. I encouraged them to move as it would be a much easier transition than moving out then moving back in....but they liked their neighborhood. In order for it to be a remodel and not a new rebuild(Ie-city regs/taxes) they had to leave two walls standing. Everything else was torn down. They built up a second story and expanded but used most of the original slab but some compromises were made and short cuts taken. It looks very nice now....better than what I thought it could be. It just has a few quirks.

Go north of the covered porch and north of the garage.

Add a second story over all that and the garage.

Bout the only decent option I see.

We bought this place for the acreage and barn, setup extremely well for horses. The house was fine for years but now that we had our second kiddo the house is extremely cramped.

While I know an addition would probably cost the same as we paid for the whole property 10 years ago, to align the the value of the property and barn the house needs to be larger.

I was trying to workout how possible it would be to do a mini upgrade and enclose the covered porch, put a spiral stair case and finish out a chunk of the attic. Could get 200-300 square foot up there.

Convert the garage into living space,
and build a NEW garage/shop - steel building!
'Covered Porch' area could possibly be closed in for another room, and build a NEW covered porch area out back.
(build the new garage/shopp FIRST! )

If you’ve got the equity and enjoy your area add on. With a very good contractor

scot, All of those pencil lines on graph paper don't give you a true representation of on the floor dimensions. I built for many years and had lots of plans brought to me about like that. Once I got through with the plans those rooms were smaller, or the house was larger.

An interior wall is 4.5" thick, a 3.5" (2x4) plus 1/2" sheetrock on each side, without base molding. An exterior, depending on whether brick or frame, is much thicker. I would sleep on that spiral staircase idea. They can sound fine at first, but can get impractical with furniture, etc.

Good luck with your remodel.

We've remodeled several times and even did one house twice. Our first house, we added about 800 sqft including a master suite, extra bedroom, mudroom and enlarged kitchen. We blew out the whole back wall of the house and went out from there. You will need to move out to do any significant amount of work and keep your sanity. We stayed in the first time we remodeled and it was a nightmare trying to live in half with house and keep the mess isolated to the rooms we were remodeling, turning water and electric on and off all the time etc. Straight gable houses are simpler to add on to but any house can be enlarged. Get with an engineer and architect to make sure you aren't compromised the structural integrity of the home.

Build up. Turn the patio into the staircase. The room over living room is the new playroom, bedrooms over the exiting bedrooms, and you already have plumbing in place for an additional full bath. If you don’t want the bedroom above the master, then put them over the garage.

I remodeled the last house while we lived in it. Furniture on the porches many times.

Once is all it took for me. I said I'd never live Ina house while it was being remodeled again.

In fact, I cautiously say, I'll never remodel one again.

But I am willing to build a new one again. No fixing someone else's screw-ups. Make every layer correct as we go.

Build a new house and turn the current house into a guest house. Less frustrating that way.