Tips for Planning A Home Addition

Whether your family is growing or you’re just looking to create some extra space in your home, a brand-new home addition can be a great investment for just about any family. The main difficulty, of course, for most people is knowing how and where to begin. Fortunately, once you’ve created a good plan of attack and gotten everything squared away, it’s a lot easier than you might think to create the home addition of your dreams.

Planning & Preparing Your Home Addition

The first thing to do is identify your primary objectives. Ask yourself some simple questions like, “what am I trying to achieve?” and “What problem is this home addition trying to address?” Common answers to these questions include things like increasing space or improve the flow of traffic through your home. Many homeowners also find it effective to create scrapbooks and inspiration boards clipped from their favorite home design websites or magazines. During this planning and “dreaming” phase, look at what’s important to you and decide where your priorities lie. For some homeowners, a fireplace is a must-have for their home addition. For others, they may want to splurge on a fancy theater system.

Budgeting For the Actual Construction

While the planning and dreaming phase is often the most entertaining part of designing a home addition, you also have to focus on your budget. Crunching the numbers and getting into the permit acquisition phase of your home addition is rarely a lot of fun, but it’s essential to making sure your home addition goes smoothly. When planning your budget, be realistic about what you can afford. Find some ways to save money on things that are less important to you while also splurging on your priorities. Getting a building permit and checking your city’s ordinances is another vital element of this project which many homeowners neglect, so make sure you have the all-clear from authorities before beginning.