Let me tell you that the home renovation process is S-L-O-W. And expensive. Whenever you're planning for things, it will always take twice as long and cost twice as much. Ha!
When we bought this house, we didn't necessarily buy it with an addition in mind. This house has more space than our last Cape Cod due to the slightly different layout, with massive amounts of unfinished attic space, as well as a two-car garage. Praise be. However, the "master bath" (really if you can even call it that), is so small, I legit cannot even shut the door when I'm standing in front of the sink. The 3 bedrooms on the first floor are super tiny, which is typical of a PV home - so no surprise there, just not ideal. The main thing I really really really needed/wanted was a bigger kitchen. I mean we have 6 people in this house, and little to no counter space. On the right side, there's barely enough room for the coffee maker, toaster and our Kitchen-Aid Stand Mixer. Since this is not our forever home, we wanted to make sure any decisions we made would make sense for resale value.
All that to say! I wanted to research our options for a kitchen extension. And well, then I kind of went down a rabbit hole of possibilities. But before that explanation, I wanted to talk about options when you're thinking of doing an addition. Because let me tell you - there's not a whole lot of info out there - which is incredibly frustrating.
Most things I found were companies saying that they could do the work for you and why you should hire them. I guess most bloggers build new homes or re-do old homes but not a lot of additions out there. SO! If you're curious, or if you're considering one yourself - I got you boo.
You basically have two options:
- Hire an architect to draw your plans and then find a contractor to execute said plans.
- Hire a building company that also does in house design work for a one stop shop.
We went with option two for a couple reasons. Once I find someone I like, I'm a loyalist for life. SO if I hired an architect, loved them, loved their vision, and then couldn't find the right contractor to execute I'd be so stressed about it, it did not seem the right route for me personally. A building company that can help you design as well as build - can keep a few things in mind. The most important being experience in your area, there are permits to consider and zoning rules (sidenote: who comes up with those and approves them? Some of them are so ridiculous) And of course cannot forget cost. I have a feeling if I started with the architect I would give them my dreamiest of dreamy vision for everything I wanted just to have a contractor dash all my hopes and dreams with the budget. And then guess what you've got to go back to your architect and re-work everything. Yikes.
So where are we at in the process? I'm assuming you may be getting sick of pumpkin everything. Well, a big weight was deciding between those two options. Once I (we) decided to talk with builders, I scheduled a consultation with a couple companies. They came over and looked at the house, and talked about our ideal scenario, and any concerns we (or they) may have. Now here's where you have more decisions to make.
You can either: A) Give them a budget, and they can tell you what you can realistically achieve within that budget OR B) Give them a best case scenario wishlist of everything you'd want and they can tell you what that would cost and then you can work backwards into your budget range.
Any guesses what we did? Option B! I told you I went down a rabbit hole of possibilities once we chatted with them. We met with them a couple weeks ago, took some time to discuss what we wanted, and then sent over the list. As it currently stands they are taking that list and pricing it out with a quote. That process takes about 7-10 business days, fingers crossed we'll get that back sometime next week and we'll be able to review and prioritize.
Hope this was helpful, or even a little informational!
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