Growing families looking for more room have a couple of ways to go: move into a larger house or build a new one.
Sometimes, however, just adding an extra family room or bedroom to an existing house makes a lot more sense: The commute to work or school doesn’t change, friendships formed within the neighborhood or community remain intact, and you’re able to stay in the place you’ve worked to make over into your own image and style.
If your home is getting a little crowded these days, or you’d like to remodel and modernize things, here are some suggestions about how to go about it.
“It’s hard to find somebody just based on the phone book,” says Joe Pavone, a partner in Bradford and Kent Builders, Inc. in Downers Grove. “As tired as it might sound, three ways to find a builder are referral, referral, referral.”
Don’t, however, just take someone’s word for it.
“What might be excellent standards for someone else might look very ordinary or even worse to you,” Pavone said. “You have to be willing to do your homework and look at some examples of the builder’s work.”
Try to find a home with an addition that was done, say, five years ago and one done in just the past year. Pavone says that crews may work for certain builders and later change, so workmanship done years ago needs to be matched against work done today.
“You’ll also want to know about service after the remodeling or addition, including how long it will be offered,” Pavone said. “The industry standard is one year, but there are places like ours that offer as much as five.”
Joe Pritchard, a veteran designer with 20 years in the business, also recommends building departments located in the community where the builder is working and the community where a company is based as additional sources to check.
The current trend in home renovations or additions includes family rooms, bedrooms, baths, and kitchens.
Allan Stelzer, owner and president of Creative Contractors in Rolling Meadows, adds that second-story additions are also being done frequently in some areas.
“It all depends on the age of your house and neighborhood,” Stelzer says.
Stelzer feels additions are also a great value because of your negotiating power.
“You can work with a builder and negotiate the price of an addition more effectively,” he said. “Try doing that with all new construction, and you’ll see it’s more difficult.”
The cost of adding space to your home is currently in the range of $85 to $125 per square foot, but even that figure can be misleading.
“You can go to a builder and get any price per square foot you want to hear,” Pritchard said. “In most cases, the price won’t take into account the costs of the individual components that people select to put into the house, once the dimensions and various configurations are resolved.”
Speaking of configurations, builders support a design-build approach to new construction, as opposed to hiring an architect and then taking blueprints to several builders for a bid.
“There are some great architects out there, but too often they’re not invested in the project,” Pavone said. “It may be hard for them, in terms of materials or space, to analyze and design what’s realistic. Most architects don’t build, they create a recipe, and I’d say 90 percent of what they do has to be redesigned to meet someone’s budget.”
Stelzer adds that builders often have a thorough knowledge of codes and variances allowed in a particular area that may help cut costs.
“Contractors often shy away from an architect’s plans, since they often specify things that aren’t done,” he said. “There are variances from one building department to another, and contractors bid on jobs based on the villages and codes they have to live with.”
Being your own general contractor is another way to go, but Pavone says you need to be “an awfully talented homeowner, and somebody with a lot of time to make it work.”
“Some people could save 10 to 20 percent of the cost by subcontracting all the work,” he said, “but what do you do when something goes wrong or people don’t show up? We have building superintendents who also make field judgments about the placement of things so the project isn’t delayed.”
Besides, Stelzer adds, you probably will save money by being your own general contractor, but you’ll pay for it in other ways.
“You’re talking about people having to live in a house while it’s under construction, and you can lose all control about when and how the work gets done,” he said. “You can get rid of a certain contractor if he doesn’t show up or does poor work, but who replaces him? Some people won’t take a job somebody else began.”
Here’s a checklist of steps builders suggest following if you’re thinking of building an addition or remodeling a room:
– Determine how long you plan to live in your present home. Stelzer says 10 years or more should be enough to basically recoup your costs as well as provide you with time to enjoy your investment.
“Anything less than five years means you’ve put that addition on for somebody else, and only made your house more marketable over another like it,” Pritchard said.
– Determine what your budget will be. If you agree with Stelzer that 10 years is the miniumum you should spend before trying to sell your home, you can divide the budget by 10 to determine how much the renovation will cost per year. That may give you a better handle on the cost.
– Decide what you want to do, then go out and shop. Select appliances for kitchens, fixtures for bathrooms, cabinets, carpeting, etc. Be aware of cost overruns.
“I typically build in a $4,000 allowance for plumbing on a decent-size job if people haven’t picked any fixtures,” Stelzer says. “But people later change their minds, and the costs generally go up.”
“The two most common causes of overruns we’ve found are plumbing and cabinets,” Pavone said.
– Using references and any personal referrals, select a builder.
The best bang for the buck, Pavone says, is realized by getting three or four solid estimates, selecting a builder and not making all decisions just based on price.
“You want value engineering, and a design that’s effective,” Pavone said. “The best investment, within reason, is to match the existing materials and add something to the home that naturally flows with the rest of the building that’s already there. It’s that seamless transition that makes it all work.”
