There will be a LOT of dirtwork involved. DIrtwork and waterproofing, including regrading almost the whole lot. Not cheap for that. Yes, you can probably extend that gable off of the main home with a garage and room above. However, it won't be a "seamless" addition unless you also redo your roof at the same time. What I'd recommend to get the structure blend better would be to drop the addition down a foot or so and shrink it by about 2 feet in depth. That way, you'll have a completely separate roof line. That will take care of the roof blending issue, but you'll still be left with matching the siding, new electrical runs, HVAC redo as well as properly insulating the room above from the non climate controlled garage space below.

If you want to "pop the top", it'll be cheaper to move. Seriously. That's a LOT of expensive work for so modest a home, and unless you want to almost literally buy your house again, the renovation isn't likely to ever be cost effective for what you'd gain from it. To get more usable space, you might consider just doing a simple box structure addition at 90ð to the main house, leaving you with a gabled garage facing the street. Whether or not you could do this would depend on setbacks, local regs, and the price of even more complex dirt work, but it would probably be much more cost effective than moving out for 9 months and reengineering the entire support structure of the main home. Plus, it would allow for minimal disruption to your homelife while the addition was being constructed.

well, my idea would be to blow off the roof completely, do the addition work and then change the roof pitch to 7/12...so that would take care of the roof blending issue, but I guess you're discouraging me from proceeding onto that idea...

I bought the house 3 years ago for 350K, I thought maybe spending up to 175K would cover a good amount of renovation work, but am I way off? This is the house we want to stay in for the next 25 years...do you have any ballparks as to what a brand new roof costs, and this garage addition I wanted to do?

thanks, all info is appreciated, I signed up with this site to educate myself which is already happening

Here's where the Teardown Queen butts in.

What value will you have if you do all this? You will still have an old house, just with some new additions. Eight foot ceilings? Small bathrooms? Cramped kitchen? Could you build new? (You'd be moving out anyway.) Does the neighborhood support a house the size you want?

I'd look hard for another house before making such an extensive renovation. Lots less *stress*.

It's a 1953 house....I would do some changes inside, but minimal stuff...we figure it would appraise out for 450-500K in our neighborhood, and it would look more like a cape vs. this monstrous out of place colonial...it's 968 square feet, and it would end up more like 2200 or so...we just are very frustrated because there are no better options house wise, a lot of avail homes are on the other side of town, and with a family growing, this house would get cramped quickly.

Besides, tearing it down means we basically paid 350 for the lot right? and how much does a brand new home go for built from the ground up?

If I replaced the roof I would also raise the ceiling but that might put the cost beyond your budget. There are various ways to do that.

Sometimes you can't get what you want for what you want to pay. You can also *lose money* trying to double the size of a very small home, ending up with something worth *less* than you've spent. If I needed more space, given your situation, I would move.

Our former neighbors added on, doubling the size of their 1950's tri-level. They spent almost two years in Remodeling H*ll and lost money when they sold the house five years later, despite an upward-trending RE market. Five BR's sounded good until buyers saw the too-small original part of the house: the tiny kitchen, small LR and dining space, the original baths. The 'family living spaces' were too small for a family that needed five BR's. The laundry and two-car garage were inadequate. Buyers could get an ALL-NEW house for less.

If you can't find an existing house you can afford, can you find a less expensive teardown or lot? You don't say what your property would bring in today's market, and I don't know building or existing RE costs in your area.

How is your property appraised, land v. improvement (house)? We did buy a house for its lot! The land was appraised much higher than the house. Had we remodeled the 1950's ranch we would not have been utilizing the value of the land. Since we built nine years ago almost every other small, old ranch has been replaced by a house more in line with the value of it's lot.

Remodeling costs MORE than building new. You don't know what you'll run into, and you have to go slower. You may end up replacing, bit by bit, the entire 'innards' of the house: plumbing, electrical, etc.