Ideas for House Additions

By Home & Garden Last updated Sunday, May/19/2024

Building an addition can mean an opportunity to change the look of your house.house image by Byron Moore from Fotolia.com

Home additions are a convenient and economical alternative to moving or building an entirely new house. Homeowners may choose to build an addition when they have more money available than when they built or bought the house, or if the size of the family grows, making the current house too small. Whatever the reason, there are several ways to expand your home based on your particular needs.

Garages

One of the most common additions is a new garage. This may replace an existing garage, or add a place to store cars and other items for the first time. Many garages are built as adjacent additions to the house, using an existing exterior wall as a new shared interior wall. You can also draw up plans for a garage on either side of a house, or behind it, making it easy to find room on a variety of types of lots.

One creative idea for a garage where space is limited is to install the new garage below an existing portion of the house. This requires extensive landscaping, but can allow you to add a garage without sacrificing yard space.

Porches are another type of addition that can take many forms. Wooden decks are relatively inexpensive and add outdoor space while including room for such features as a portable barbecue, a hot tub, or some flower planters. A front porch can be more elaborate, borrowing from the existing roof structure of the house to create a covered space for sitting and even dining. Enclosed sun porches are a good idea in cooler climates where an exterior porch would only be useful for a few months out of the year.

One idea for a more extensive addition is a new master suite. The idea here is to add a new, larger bedroom, along with a master bath, large closets for storage, and even a separate dressing room. Not only does this make your home more enjoyable to live in, it adds market value. You can plan a new master suite based on the available space and budget, then turn the original master bedroom into a guest bedroom or home office.

Another addition that is somewhat more complicated is building a second story above an existing house. This has the advantage of maintaining the original footprint of the house and not taking away from the yard. However, it usually requires new structural elements to support the weight of a second story, which most single-story houses are not initially built to accommodate. Moving bedrooms to the second floor will leave opportunities for turning the lower-level rooms into offices, sitting rooms, or storage areas.

Mud rooms are another idea for an addition that can be either large or small. Usually a mud room is an entryway other than the front door or front foyer, making it an ideal place to enter the house with muddy shoes, hence the name. A mudroom may be little more than a small, enclosed entryway with perhaps a closet for jackets, boots, and shoes. Larger mud rooms might house a washer and dryer, room for storing lawn furniture, or storage space for any item that might cause a mess if stored elsewhere in the house.