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trilobite_gw

Half-dormer vs. addition on slab - thoughts?

trilobite
12 years ago

Hi,

We have two bedroom Cape and are kicking around some remodeling projects for the future. What would be your offhand thoughts about the cost/benefits of these options?

Half-dormer addition (we have a cathedral ceiling so a full dormer is much more complicated) to add a second bedroom and an upstairs bath.

Slab addition in our deck footprint (adding on to the back via the dining room).

Slab addition to the side entrance into the kitchen, which would add an entry and some valuable storage space in that part of the house.

Comments (7)

  • kirkhall
    12 years ago

    I think some layouts would be helpful. And knowing your budget.

    We did a full 2 story addition last year out the back of our cape (out the back of the dining/kitchen). The new space became family room. We LOVE it. It is just what we needed. Although we didn't change the kitchen at all, it feels so much bigger (there isn't a wall on one side, just a half wall), and now when guests are here, or my kids are playing, I can interact with them instead of being all by myself in the kitchen. 2 stories wasn't much additional to add, plus, now we can finish the second story (we chose to wait) to add a full master suite up there. We did all this without changing the front of the house's look. But, it fit in our budget.

    So, you need to share a little more about your family, the way you use your space, your budget, and some layouts.

  • trilobite
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Hi Kirkall, thanks. It's the two of us and our toddler daughter and she'll probably be our only child.

    It's a Cape with one and a half stories, 1080 square feet. Downstairs is a kitchen/living room on one side and a dining room and the first bedroom on the other side. There's one bath separating the kitchen and dining room and a set of stairs separating the bedroom and living room, leading upstairs to the second bedroom.

    Off the top of my head, I see the pros and cons as follows:

    Side addition. Right now, the side door leads into the kitchen, which is TINY and there's no proper entryway storage. An addition there would help shoulder the burden in terms of kitchen storage, coat closet, shoe storage, etc., as well as being some extra spill-over entertaining space.

    Upstairs half-dormer. Right now, there is an upstairs bedroom and a crawl space. I *think* it would be relatively easy to blow out that back crawl space and add a second bedroom and bath. So we would get a third bedroom (nice) and a second bath (even nicer!).

    Back addition. There's a glass slider that leads to the deck from the dining room. This is the south side of the house so this would (hopefully) be a lovely sunny space that add something to the dining room area. Again, extra entertaining space and probably some additional storage for kitchen stuff. Probably not as handy as any of the other additions.

    In terms of price points. This is one of the lower end houses in our neighborhood and would probably sell for around 200K. One of the higher end homes might go for 350-375. We are almost done with our current mortgage, so we would probably take out a second mortgage to remodel, but we're really not looking to go crazy there, especially given our ages (early forties).

  • kirkhall
    12 years ago

    What about this option (I'm picturing your cape, not sure if/where the garage is...)
    Extend out your kitchen and make the new extension a dining room. Put your second bedroom in the old dining room. (Is there space for that?), and add the bathroom upstairs.

    When we added on, we added our addition at a right angle to the main cape of the house--therefore gaining the extra square footage under the un-used eave space of upstairs.

  • trilobite
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Oh interesting re: the right angle addition, I don't know that I've ever noticed that around here.

    Now that I've written it out, I think probably adding to the side door/kitchen is our best bet. It's where a garage would normally go if we had a garage. Unfortunately, we can't make it connect to the upstairs, there's a cathedral ceiling above the living room kitchen.

  • kirkhall
    12 years ago

    Well, there you go!

  • renovator8
    12 years ago

    I find that it's better to draw a plan and section and then try your ideas out. That also allows others to participate fully in the process and sometimes opportunities appear that would not otherwise be apparent.

  • renovator8
    12 years ago

    I find that it's better to draw a plan and section and then try your ideas out. That also allows others to participate fully in the process and sometimes opportunities appear that would not otherwise be apparent.