We have been wanting to put an addition on our house for about 5 years, and we think that we can possibly do it this year, however, I am at the early stages of research in to costs (which are all over the board) permits, etc. I have done a good amount of construction INSIDE a house before (framing, putting in windows and doors, some flooring, drywall, electrical, plumbing, and some HVAC)... Is this something that with help of my father and father in law (who both have done all of that plus roofing and siding work) we could tackle? I would need to have someone put in the foundation, and someone to drawn up the plans for the permits and for us to use, but I think that the rest would be withing reason.
This is a simple "box" that would be about 20' x 18'. It would include the basement level (which is a walkout) and the main floor. The new space will be a guest room with some storage space in the basement (boy, wouldn't it make a nice dedicated home theater for v4.0 of my theater?) and the main level will be a large dining room which is what our house in missing badly. No bathroom, or anything like that to really crank up costs, just walls, electrical, and flooring (to over simplify it)...
It won't be putting our house to such an elevated price level, but actually put us in line or just about 200 sqft about a few houses in the neighborhood, but again, it is somewhat a small addition, so market value shouldn't be bad. My sister told me, "Why not save the money and just buy a bigger house", well we like the location and the neighborhood, plus this is our 4th house, I am tired of moving. In addition, with the housing market so crappy, we would probably struggle to get our house sold for the amount we would need to in order to buy something with a little more space.
Am I crazy or not? OK, let me rephrase that to prevent any funny comments, is this a crazy idea or not?
